If we look around the world, we see various forms of society expressed in various modes, each with its intricacies, yet the one constant is the main worshipping of a God or Divinity. Whether a believer of any kind or not, the desire to make sense of life is natural and healthy psychologically and spiritually. But why then so much hatred and nonsensical arguments that lead nowhere? or at their best result only in tolerance (which is not acceptance). Why do we need to believe that we own the only truth by naming a deity or worshipping in a particular way? Have we lost our way so much that we fail to be rational to understand such immense force cannot be contained within a particular creed, much less a building? To give a parallel example in simple terms, whether black, Asian, Caucasian or any other race, a person remains human. Our color or beliefs are not enough to deny the fact that we belong to the specie of Homo Sapiens; similarly, this basic concept from another perspective applies to Divin Origin – we all originated from it.
So many illuminated minds tried to tell us what I just expressed above; perhaps one of the most lively on the subject was Spinoza and his idea of God. As understood by Spinoza, God is the one infinite substance who possesses an infinite number of attributes each expressing an eternal aspect of his/her nature. He believed this is due to the definition of God being equivalent to that of substance, or that which causes itself. This means that God as an immaterial and corporeal substance, is coherent, and thus, all ideas and things that follow from his/her nature run through our veins and are neither good nor bad, less the channel (us) determined it to be so.
Tantrāloka of Abhinaguvpta – the encyclopedic overview of all things Tantrik, written at the very peak of the tradition’s success (one thousand years ago) – it explains how it is the case that whatever god one worships, one is worshipping nothing but Awareness. This argument is fascinating because it reveals that Abhinava, while deeply devotional, is atheistic (at least, from a Western perspective). Abhinava advances this argument by means of citations from the Bhagavad-gītā…
“Even those devoted to other deities, [if] they worship with faith & trust, are [in fact] worshipping Divinity alone.” (BG 9.23) [We would say it this way:] those who believe that the specific [deity] they worship is something other than Consciousness, if they keep investigating the object of their awareness [and devotion], [will come to] realize that he/she/it is [in reality] nothing but Awareness (bodha). || Tantrāloka 1.124-5b”
In other words, Abhinava is saying that anyone who believes that the deity they worship is anything but Consciousness itself, need only leave fanaticism and have a deep desire for connecting with the origin…the Divine. He or she needs only to investigate more closely what they are focusing their awareness and devotion on is vast…not the creator but the origin. This pure matter makes any creation possible – without it, no creator could create. In deeper introspection, the initiate realizes that to be sacred is to liberate one’s spirit by reaching beyond dogma, boxes, labels, and creation, and into what the Greeks called the abyss- recognizing that the so-called nothing they have been taught is but pure consciousness, and it lives within and without. It is a form of their awareness, which can encompass any divine archetype, such a mysterium tremendum – precisely because awareness itself is divine, that is, unlimited in its real nature.
Realize that any knowable is reducible to a mode of knowing; and knowing is an aspect of Awareness. You are Awareness; if this is true, then this world [consisting of knowables] consists of nothing but you.
In other words, any object of experience is knowable only in terms of how it manifests within awareness and, therefore, as a form of awareness. Since Awareness is the closest analogue to anything like a self, and the knowable world consists of objects of awareness, it is perfectly correct to say that the world consists of nothing but you. This is not to be taken in a solipsistic sense (the world as a projection of your mind), precisely because you are not your mind, but rather the field of Awareness that encompasses and provides the context for both mind and that which the mind cognizes.
Abhinava continues…”Thus, since this [Consciousness] is self-revealing, and is the manifestation of an ‘I-ness’ which consists of an awareness intrinsically undivided [by time, place, form, etc.], no ritual injunction can precede it, [since all injunctions] are themselves creations [of Awareness]. || 125 All individuals are connected to the source. They are not all one but part of the source, to where one shall return without dissolving. Even deities are themselves projections [of Awareness], for they are also knowable entities derived from a cause, namely the Power [of Awareness, citi-śakti]. That Consciousness (samvitti) is simply the [fundamental, nonconceptual, wordless] ‘I-sense’, ever-present and self-revealing. || 126”
In other words, the deity you worship is nothing but you. This is true on multiple levels: for example, the way in which you imagine your cultural conditioning and psychological needs shape the deity—but at an even more fundamental level, even if you have a direct experience of God, that experience is simply an expression of capacities inherent in consciousness itself. Whatever the qualities of that mystical experience, they express potencies within Awareness. And that Awareness is ever-present as the immediate sense of your own Being.
“But ‘I-awareness’ (aham-bodha) is not like that [for it is the precondition of all cognition and action]. Those who continue to see only the perceptible aspects [of Awareness] as primary [do not realize that] though they are perceiving It, they fail to know It. [For this reason the Guru said] “They do not know Me as I really am; and thus they become confused & go astray.” (BG 9.24) |Now, “going astray” means attaining a limited & separate state. Thus he taught: “Worshippers of the gods go to the gods, whereas my devotees come to Me.” (BG 7.23) || 128-130”
In other words, most people can’t see the forest for the trees. Though they never see anything but a form of their awareness, they objectify those forms, imagining them to be separate and independent entities. To support this argument, Abhinava cites the words of Krishna, understanding Krishna to be speaking as the voice of fundamental Awareness itself. The true cause of confusion in life and the feeling of being lost, limited and alone is not knowing our own true nature (“they do not know Me as I really am”). Krishna even implies (in the second citation above) that he is not a god, but something else—Awareness itself. Now we get the clinching argument:
“But those who realize the [illusory] nature of objectivity directly know the reality of Consciousness, [even] in that context [of apparently separate deity], [and so they] “come to Me” [that is, enter the real ‘I’], though they are devoted to those [deities]. For everywhere in this [scripture], the word ‘I’ or ‘Me’ signifies nothing but Awareness. || 131-132a”
Abhinava argues that those who transcend the perception of their Deity as an object of consciousness separate from themselves suddenly realize that the Deity is a mirror, an icon of their own essence-nature. Krishna teaches that ‘I’ denotes both the worshipper and the one worshipped; all worship is simply the One worshipping itself.
“What [truly] being said [here in the Gītā] is that the Awareness of the worshipper itself is not other than that being worshipped. There is no [divine] form whatsoever that is other than [Awareness], for [if there were] it could not be called a ‘divinity’ 133”
When you stop and really think about it, how could you really believe in a deity separate from your own awareness? Such a deity would be merely a mental abstraction. And that abstraction, too, could be nothing but an aspect of your awareness. Christ, like others from many different cultures and times, echo the message, “Your God is not my God,”- this makes sense because the God being taught to most is one of a limited concept that is external to self. “I and the Father are one” – this again is an echo of much older teachings which has been repeated at various times by various sages, and it has everything to do with being in communion with the Divine because one is Divine. You can’t get outside of awareness – but it’s crucial not to confuse the mind with awareness. This View is not saying that everything is a figment of your imagination. The divine Awareness that gives rise to everything in this universe—trees, mountains, galaxies, bugs—also gives rise to your imagination. Mind/imagination is one of the many manifestations of Consciousness, not its source. Your imagination, thoughts, and all that you perceive ‘objectively’, are equally a manifestation of Divinity. And in truth, at the fundamental level, you are Divinity.”
You are not your concept of the Divine. You are not your idea of the Divine. You are the Divine from which concepts, ideas, and experiences flow forth. To be human is the most glorious thing, for the Divine expresses freely when we allow ourselves to see ourselves as such. Not as tools, not as mere ants meant to be on our knees worshipping, but as Divine beings meant to create….only in embracing the Divine in us will we liberate our spirit and connect with source, for like recognizes like.
Eiros 