They say, “You are god.”
But everyone is.
They say, “All is god.”
Then why are there differences?
They say, “All is an illusion.”
But does that include god?
Those who follow Tao declare that there is no evidence that a god created our world. They have not found any empirical proof, and they cannot accept the idea philosophically. They reason that god must be absolute and this means oneness, omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence. Naturally, anything separate and distinct would not satisfy this criteria. If there was a god and a world that god created, then there would be two things — and god could not then be considered absolute. If there were an absolute god, there could not be anything separate from god.
Everything is god. We are also god. However, we fail to realize this. Why? Because we look for god outside of ourselves. We make the mistake of taking ourselves as the viewer and then seek god as the object of our examinations. Unfortunately, everything we perceive is tainted by our subjectivity, and anything that we define as god “out there” cannot be god because it is not absolute. All you’ve found is something that exists in relation to your perceptions.
You are god. The only way to confirm this is to remove the barrier of subjectivity that prevents you from realizing your essential oneness with all things.
The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be named is not the eternal name.
The named is the mother of the ten thousand things.
Ever desireless, one can see the mystery.
Ever desiring, one can see the manifestations.
These two spring from the same source but differ in name;
this appears as darkness.
Darkness within darkness.
The gate to all mystery….
— Lao Tsu, Tao Te Ching, 1
“When we are unhurried and wise, we perceive that only great and worthy things have any permanent and absolute existence, that petty fears and petty pleasures are but the shadow of the reality” — Henry David Thoreau
“From the viewpoint of absolute truth, what we feel and experience in our ordinary daily life is all delusion.” — Dalai Lama
“This overcoming of all the usual barriers between the individual and the Absolute is the great mystic achievement. In mystic states we both become one with the Absolute and we become aware of our oneness. This is the everlasting and triumphant mystical tradition, hardly altered by differences of clime or creed.”
— William James
“I personally gave up the Absolute . . . I fully believe in taking moral holidays.”
— William James
It’s very difficult to separate your perceptions from what is all around you – how can you sense the world but through your perceptions of it? But there isn’t any real reason to do this. If god is everywhere, and within us as well, then we are already perceiving god. Just realize that whatever anyone else is perceiving is equally valid. If you don’t exclude anything, then you get closer to the idea of One. Perhaps we are all of us simply here to provide those multiple perceptions and viewpoints, and share them and interact with the world around us. Letting down our barriers to each other once in a while would be a good start to seeing god, then.
No Responses