High Octane

Thin Air

 

I was a kid of about 12 … and I spoke to God … everyday. I never mentioned that to anyone. It was my personal thought. Years later when I saw the milkman Tevye do it … in ' Fiddler on the Roof ' … it brought a bright smile to my face. Its a wonderful experience of comfort … security … and feelings of companionship. Its something I would wish for all children growing up … to know in their private natures … their relation … to that … which is behind the grand opus of the creation endeavour.

 

Curiously … I didn't do it … in a manner of institutionalized practice. He was simply a friend. The Indic is trained to relate to God … by the guide in the Bhagavad Gita in which Lord Krishna says … ' By whatever way men worship me … that's the way I respond to them.' And then to stress the point … the great one says … ' No one who offers to me his devotion will ever be lost.'

 

I was quite a quizzical fellow … and I had wondered about … all these other people in the world … who may not have heard of him. Does he also respond to them … in their way. From another line … in the Gita … the advice comes … ' I come from age to age … when righteousness is weak and unrighteousness exults in pride.' I had thought then that the one … God of the universe … is also the Christ … Buddha … Allah … and the Tao. It was convenient.

 

In later years … when I lost my faith … I figured that it was on account of a poor decorum … that I had observed in my relations with him. In losing faith … I had deidified reason as God … and was for a while a little atheist in my views. Surely … I thought … he'll find a way to respond to that too.  But I have been consumed with a new way to view the God experience … that places in context … my understanding of the phenomenon of life. But still no luck I'm afraid.

 

The issue revolves around the nature of belief and the way we express it. I figure I know it … but how on earth does anyone confine the God experience … to a set guidelines … that is contained in a book? Its obviously the source of my thoughts and expression … no doubt mixed with the source of the physical human condition. Hence I am coming to the conclusion … in my practices … that God cannot be represented in speech … only in thought. And that will have to suffice.

 

The social practice of institutionalized faith … serves the need for common aims and identity … and in an environment of child raising … its extremely useful for that purpose. But there appears to be a second phase of understanding … beyond the ritual of alliteration in books. If not for anything else … to assure a young man … in his adolescence … who was it that he spoke to everyday as God.

 

I'm telling my adolescent impulses … heaving on inquisitiveness … that God was at one time … the greatest believer of all. He believed in the creation prospects … he was in love with it … and he dearly wished for it to bring its joys of experience to everyone. And he convinced all of us that its so. In some way … that almost sounds like my father … when he was raising us. But whether my father believed … is beyond my ability to know. Only he … could have known that.

 

So God has been true to his word. My view of that … resembles … some of my own experiences. When I took a fall on issues … it busted everything. When I rebuilt … I focused on the human aspect as my identity … and left it to God … to sort himself out. But the divine principles … had provided me considerable help … in cultivating my personality as man … so when I was drawn into reworking the God experience … I was pleased to oblige.

I'm still working on it … I'm afraid. But what may be getting clearer is the comment provided in the Gita … in reference to one aspect of God. ' Our lives are lived in a field of possibilities and there is one who knows all the aspects of creation in that field.' ( edited for clarity in translation ) I think … in relation to the God personality … man can come to understand … the way the field organizes itself … for achieving its objectives … and to lead man to perfection.

 

It would not have passed anyone's attention … that my description of the God personality … resembles the description provided by Christianity … as regards the fallen angel Lucifer. However … like the marriage of heaven and hell … by Blake … man's task appears to be to unite the personality of Satan with God … as the only reliable basis of understanding the God principle … in thought.

 

In these days of devil worship … and Wiccan … that probably makes little difference. But it should.  In the way we bring our minds to view the two as total opposites … lies the possibilities … for understanding the complementary nature of the two principles. Its like a same sex relationship … or between a man and a woman … that brings into intimation … the two halves of our mind … that must create a cognizance of difference … before thought can take place. That's to subscribe to a constantly changing experience … without the bias of preference for simply one. Hence … it creates the curious view that the only … truly devoted servants of God are ... animals.

 

If such is the view … then representing the twin aspects of God as the … bull and the lamb … would indeed be an informed expression of the experience. That's almost like the experience of a big man … with the heart of a lamb.  I fear however that it would make him a bit of the noble savage … living in Utopia … without a great deal of learning. This puts in perspective our lives today. We live as converts … on a reflection of the path of redemption … from the fallen Utopia … to the God we found in the alliteration of rhyme … substituting for balance …    in a commonly organized practice of faith.