The Living Image of the Eternal

Truth is beyond form and expression but for religion to be comprehensible it must be grounded in form. Religious forms can take many varieties which approximate to that which they are trying to express to a greater or lesser degree. Some forms capture something of the reality behind them while others distort it, sometimes unacceptably so. The question then arises. What is the best form, the one that comes nearest to revealing the truth that lies behind all genuine religion?

Before answering that, we must accept that different forms suit different people. That is to say, people of different temperaments and from different cultural backgrounds. It would be unrealistic to think that the whole world should follow one particular form any more than that they should speak one language, and it is probably not a good idea either as different forms can express different aspects of truth. None express the whole, even all together can't express more than a tiny fraction of the whole, but they can complement each other by their particular focal points. This may not be necessary from the purely spiritual perspective, but it can be helpful.

No doubt everyone thinks his own religion is best, and it may be for him. On the other hand, it may not. It may simply be a religion one is born into or one that suits one's strengths or weaknesses or prejudices or preconceptions. Over the course of my spiritual life (pompous phrase, but it can't be helped in this context), which is now some 47 years, I have investigated many, I am tempted to say most, spiritual paths. Not as a follower but by reading about them and exploring their forms and practices. It's fascinating to see how human beings have approached the numinous. So many similarities and so many differences. While recognising the validity of many, I have my favourites but there are also some I think are inspired from lower levels, either originally or through infiltration over the years. Some are even a mix of the true and the false. Quite a few are, in fact.

However, there is one clear winner, (I know it's not a competition, but in a way, it is). Obviously, that is Christianity and not so much because of the religion or religions that have arisen in Christ's name but because of him. Christ is the face and form of God, God revealed in a human being, God embodied. And, while we're at it, let us point out that the image of God himself is another form that encapsulates hidden truth. As God the Father, Creator of Heaven and Earth, this image draws the mind and heart up to the realm of pure spiritual light in a way that lesser images do not. The very word 'God' brings together amorphous ideas and feelings and intuitions in the human head and heart, and moulds them into something tangible, something that the mind can latch onto, to which it can respond and with which it can engage.

Jesus Christ is the perfect spiritual form, the one above all others. First of all, because he is a living person, and spiritual reality is personal before it is impersonal - the opposite to what the sophisticated believe. And secondly, because he is the only spiritual figure totally without flaw, without sin as it is said. He reflects the spiritual world without any corrupt influence of this world. You can say that about no one and nothing else. Certainly, there are many other inspiring spiritual figures and philosophies from before the time of Christ and after him. But he is without peer and incomparable in his truthfulness. I do not doubt that non-Christian spiritual approaches can bring their followers to God, and, for that matter, many ostensible Christian ones might fail in that, but Christ is and remains the Way,  the Truth and the Life. He is the revelation of what this excellent essay calls the single, supreme, eternal creator deity or first principle, born into the Jewish race but come for all people.

There is No Hope in This World

 There is no time more spiritually perilous than when you get what you want. In bad times you can more easily turn to God as the world is not offering you anything, but when the world does offer you something, whether that be money, fame, power or even the kind of political success that you believe will make the world a better place, then you need to watch out.

Religion exists to point us to the spiritual. The spiritual, by definition, is not the material even if you say that ultimately all is one. Ultimately, all is one, no doubt, but there is nothing ultimate about our life in a body in this world. Here, there very definitely is a split between the spiritual and the material. We have both within us, and when I say within I do mean that because thought, in the normal sense, is material even if it only exists because of the spiritual. It is possible because we are spiritual beings but in itself it is based on material processes and is incapable of discerning spiritual reality so it belongs to the material world. Thus, we have both the spiritual and the material within us but we are called to overcome the material and submit it to the spiritual, which means the spiritual on its own terms not as it may be viewed or interpreted by the material component of our being.

All true spiritual teachings tell us to renounce this world. Heaven is not here and is not meant to be here so political triumphs will never bring it about. Wasn't that Judas Iscariot's mistake? He thought Jesus was here to defeat the Romans and restore a Jewish kingdom in this world, but Jesus said that his followers would be hated by the world. He didn't say they would be hated by this world or that world but by the world meaning any kind of worldly society. That is because those that follow Jesus see that nothing in this world can lead to eternal life. The very nature of the world is against that, despite its many beauties.

To say there is no hope in this world does not mean there is no hope. In fact, it means just the opposite. There is great hope, wonderful cause for hope, but it is in heaven not here. If you get what you want you can become satisfied or content, but that means that your motivation for finding the true path to heaven is weakened. 

So, when things seem to be going your way, be careful. It is hard for the rich to get to heaven, and riches are not just monetary.

Love of God

 How do you get to Heaven?  It's very simple. Here's how. You must love the Creator more than anything in creation, including yourself. This is the only spiritual path that really counts, and the reason it does is because Heaven is a place of love but real love which is founded in love of God not one of the many lesser imitations we are familiar with in this world and which are mistaken for love, though they are but the shadows of it cast in the created world.

This love is why Jesus is important. It can be difficult to love God because most people simply aren't aware of him except for an idea or a theory. Now, you can love an idea in the sense of being passionate about it but that is not what we are talking about. Spiritual love you can only know when you feel it. Those who don't truly feel it might think they do until they really do. Then they realise that what they thought was love was just a human copy, wonderful in its own way but still a lesser thing.

Jesus is important because, as far as mankind is concerned, he is the face and form of God. It is therefore easier to love Jesus than to love God even though what you are loving in Jesus is actually God. But Jesus brings God down to earth for us and makes him comprehensible.

Love God. That is all it takes, and yet while this is simple it is also very hard for us because we are so distracted by this world, by the things in it and by ourselves. However, there are entry paths to this love which, while not being the proper love of God, help us to find him and therefore to love him. They are the love of truth, of beauty and of goodness. These are, as it were, the manifest forms of God, rather like Jesus, and for some people might be easier ways to begin to know God. They are necessary but not sufficient for you must go beyond even these eventually to know the God the Person who lies behind them as their living source.

Because many people want the gifts of God without really loving him there are many spiritual paths which have been invented to make up for this lack of love. The way of knowledge is one. It is good but not good enough. Meditation. Again, good but not enough on its own. Esoteric techniques of various kinds. Yoga, Tantra and the like. These may bestow higher states of consciousness and even powers, but they will not get you to Heaven without love. With these things but without love you will just become a magician, and what use is that to the soul that wants to know God? You can be a spiritual superman roaming the higher planes and experiencing what seems to be cosmic consciousness, but if you do not have a true and sincere love of God then you are always going to be outside his Kingdom because only love can transfigure the soul and make it pure enough get to Heaven.

Order and Chaos

 I know someone who lives in a state of chaos with nothing put away or even thrown away, and stuff scattered everywhere. She claims this is the sign of a creative person. I know someone else who is obsessive about order and must have everything in its proper place. It causes him actual discomfort to experience mess and untidiness, and if something no longer serves its purpose, he will throw it out. He thinks disorder is the sign of a disorganised and therefore unproductive mind. Unfortunately, they are husband and wife, but then marriage is often an arena for learning needed lessons.

Order and chaos are inseparable companions, partly because each implies the existence of the other but also because creation requires both. Order, which is what creation works towards establishing, can only be built out of chaos using the word in its literal sense of disorganised matter. Chaos is the raw material order requires to appear in form. Without chaos, order has nothing to work with and make structure. But chaos needs order to make something of it. It is only good as a source for order. Left to itself without order to inform it, it is a negative. Therefore, the wife in the example above is wrong. Chaos as disorder is just chaotic. But the husband is also wrong because his excessive order leaves no room for development and growth. It is a sterile thing.

Too much order stifles creativity and freedom, but too much disorder leads to chaos. On the other hand, there needs to be a little disorder in a system for it to evolve, but the point of this evolution is to lead to a higher level of order. Disorder taken on its own terms and not subject to the principle of order is the ground from which evil, decay and death arise, but as chaos, its fundamental state, it is also the ground of all creation.

"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters."

Chaos is the formless and empty earth from which the Spirit of God forms all creation. It is the deep, the waters and the feminine principle which needs the masculine principle to organise it into order. By the same token, the masculine principle needs the feminine principle to bring to life and outer reality the unmanifested idea.