I don't know about enlightening anyone on the matter - I think after a certain point you hit a certain ineffability that cannot be overcome by the human mind. I think the spirit has to go the rest of the way. That's a personal belief.
To me, it seems that I have demonstrated for myself ample evidence to suggest that there is a basic connection between everything - we have made scientific discoveries as a race that support the idea, but beyond the objective study of unity I have seen it demonstrated in a number of ways from the magical to the very personal and more emotional/spiritual.
You can follow the flow of causation in a general sense right back to the Beginning, and have to start asking, what was before that? Before our universe maybe there's a greater universe of which ours is an expression - I read an article lately that suggested our universe exists within a wormhole between two other bigger universes (chilling if you think of earth as the meeting point of heaven and hell), and there are other theories like this, so one must ask, where did those place, if they are there, come from, etc., all the way back through a hypothetically intemporal series of existences. It's best to undertake this meditation while under the influence of something that will loosen your attachment to spatial and temporal biases.
Anyway, there seems to be an infinite number of possible degrees between us and the beginning of all creation - you can't ever go all the way back, its a mystery. But none the less, everything is somehow connected by some common factor, and for those of us that believe in a kind of higher intelligence (I'm basically an animist) the same questions come into play. Where did that intelligence come from? Where did that source come from? Ultimately everything will take you back to an ineffable, primal source of everything. A unifying Acausal Cause, something that is because it is. To me, that is God.
Now, personally I don't think that God is so much directly involved with its creation, precisely, as some religions tell it. Angels may play that role of messenger between the Cause and the Effect, they may have been created for that purpose or they may have taken it upon themselves. They may be intimately tied to material existence as we are, or they may be above and beyond it. When they have declared themselves, according to all the stories, none of them have ever apparently said "I'm a christian angel" or "I'm a muslim angel" - they seem to be, by all accounts, above and beyond religion. God, I think, doesn't need our worship, doesn't gain anything from it, doesn't intervene directly in creation, doesn't particularly care what we do down here. In the end, it all goes back to one. Maybe creation is an experience for God. But I don't think that God's nature can be known by us - it's going to inherently be so entirely and completely alien to our understanding, and our very mode of understanding, that no perfect statement can really be made about God other than that whatever it is, it must be the only Absolute. If there is a God, there can only be One, otherwise God is just a step up the ladder, which means there's something else a rung up.
To me, it's pointless to identify something lower on that ladder and call it God, or one of several Gods. The pantheons, the immortals, etc., to me these beings are not The God, but possibly just very powerful beings, and only eternal or all powerful in comparison to ourselves. Maybe they have a purpose as far as organizing creation, like governors of some sort, but that still means that while they may deserve respect, they don't really warrant worship. But, they are an expression of divinity that is a lot easier to swallow - you can identify with a God that has arms and legs, a face, a temperament, desires and goals, something to align yourself with. All you can do regarding the Source of Creation, the Acausal Cause, That which is because it Is, is acknowledge that it's there and it must necessarily be present in every fiber of creation, and therefore present in you, and live as though you were a vessel of that divinity. God gains nothing from this, and doesn't care if you do it, I think. I think we're the only ones who stand to gain anything from the bargain.
Here's another take on Angels, as well - now, I'm kind of meandering across several points here, forgive me, I can clarify afterwards if necessary.
We know there's an angel named Gabriel, say. He's in all the books on the subject, and he's been around since the Tanakh, the 'old testament'. We consider them individual beings, but what if this is not the case. What if GBRIAL is a spiritual force of creation, a kind of formula for that specific combination of forces, of which the Hebrew letters are 22 of. That is to say, that the 22 hebrew letters may not be a complete set covering all of possible creation, but that they may be intended to represent the 22 that the hebrews were made aware of. THe egyptians had more, and there is evidence that the hebrew autiot are of egyptian origin. Obviously the egyptians considered sounds to be very powerful, and had a lot of letters expressing them.
In most animist traditions, it is generally understood that the spirit of a place, of a tree, of an animal, etc., is not like our own. It is cognizant of it's union with it's origin - the spirit of the land we call America is cognizant of it's origin in the spirit of the continent, it of it's connection to the spirit of the tectonic plate we're on, that of it's origin in the spirit of the planet, that of it's origin in the spirit of our entire solar system, etc., up the chain. It's individual, sort of, but sort of not individual either. It shares in that underlying unity. Though it can be communicated with, in a certain sense, as an individual, that's just a perception that we have of it.
Perhaps when we think we are speaking with "THE angel Gabriel" we're really just speaking to an expression of the Process that is identified as Gabriel. This archangel rules over a sphere of the sephirot in the kabbalistic tradition - what if the intended meaning there is the the Formula G-B-R-I-A-L, that process in creation, is what governs the sphere? The - I'm possibly misquoting here - Beni Elohim are subprocesses of GBRIAL, perhaps. It's an intelligent system, you could think of it as a great big computer I suppose, but that might be limiting. But maybe the suggestion that angels are the messengers of God is a way of expressing their role in carrying out the will (the processes) of God as it set them into motion.
It's something to consider. I try not to anthropomorphize divine and spiritual beings and powers. I find it limits our experience of them considerably, and biases us to treat them and think of them as basically non-physical human beings. When the bible said that Elohim made us in his image, I don't think the meaning was that we were made to 'look' like him, or even think like him - I think the intention there was to convey the concept of the old adage "That which is below is like that which is above..."
These are all my own ramblings and considerations about the nature of the Divine, I don't think there's any such thing as hard facts about God - the nature of God is ineffability, it's a mystery we can never solve. My belief in a single power behind all of creation is for me a combination of faith and reason - faith because it's something I can feel, and reason because in light of what I feel, it's the only satisfying answer that makes sense. There is no "Christian God" or "Muslim God" because religion doesn't define God. Religion is entirely a fabrication on the part of Mankind, we made it up. We made up all the names as well, though there's a reference to Adam being entrusted with the authority to Name everything. But regardless - all of that is entirely arbitrary. We try to make sense of things, that's what human's do - to varying degrees of success or lack thereof.
In my opinion, you don't need religion. If you turn your attention towards the highest conception of Divinity that you can grasp, and earnestly express our desire to be entrusted to know more than that, not for power or anything like this, but because you genuinely want to know; and you maintain a faith in that power even knowing that you are ignorant of it's nature and can never truly know to whole story, but having faith in whatever it is anyway, then you'll continually come to understand on some indescribable level more and more of it. And it has nothing to do with sin or virtue, nothing to do with jewish zombies or militant prophets or mountain hermits; there are no special rules to follow. But turning your face in that direction with a desire to Know, in my opinion, will make you a better person, and is it's own reward, as corny and religious as that sounds.
Hopefully that illuminates my reasoning a little more. As to this specific quote:
QUOTE
Unless you believe in terminal separation, that the multiverse will persist forever, and that we are not ultimately in any state of union whatsoever, then you believe in one ultimate creative power. Nothing is almightier than an ultimate and perfect source of all creation and destruction.
It basically comes down to this: either you believe in an existence that is, underneath all the appearance of separateness, actually unified; or you believe that everything is actually as separate as it appears.
Either it's all One, or it isn't.
If you believe it is, then the only logical approach to God is that there is only One.
If you believe it isn't, then there could be a million Gods, they could come and go like seasons over the ages even, and there may not be an ultimate power in that model. Like I said about pantheonic models before though - if there is more than one God, then their powers must logically be finite even if they seem infinite compared to us. The term 'God' in that case might as well just mean Alien or Ascended being or some such. Which, if there is no ultimate unity, no one Almighty God, is fine - they're the closest thing.
But I do think that the decision should rest solely on whether one considers existence to be ultimately One or Seperated in nature - not on whether or not one likes the idea of One God or Many. I say this because when you believe on way but act another, cognizant dissonance will result, and you will not be able to use magic successfully, or often times accomplish much of anything else either. Better to feel out what you really feel on the matter, and proceed from there according to how your heart informs you.
peace
Angels And God?
Feb 3 2012, 08:34 PM
