"God"

By "God," mystics mean reality as it is experienced by contemplatives who may be either theistic or nontheistic. 

Theistic contemplatives identify ultimate reality with a deity, whether Hindu or Abrahamic, whereas non-theists do not personify reality.

Someone's understanding is closer to reality but whose?

We can only continue to contemplate.

Sri Chinmoy described Hinduism as a mother. One of her children meditates for years and says, "Mother, God is impersonal." She replies, "I see, my child." Another of her children meditates for years and says, "Mother, God is personal." She replies, "I see, my child."

Meditate.

Prophecy And Contemplation

Polytheism: many gods.

Monotheism: one god.

Atheism: no gods.

Monism: one reality.

Monatheism (suggested): one reality and no gods.

Some Hindu monotheisms are monistic, i.e., God does not create anything other than Himself but appears to Himself as other. In nontheistic monism, an impersonal reality appears to Itself.

Abrahamic monotheisms: one creator and many creatures.

Nontheistic monism: one reality and many appearances.

Monistic monotheisms: one creator of many appearances.

In nontheistic monism, the beginning of consciousness is the apparent creation of the phenomenal universe. 

"In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth..."

Visual perception discloses a sky above, a ground below and many objects in a space between. The single reality permeates space but becomes conscious of itself by appearing to itself as many discrete objects separated by apparently empty spaces. 

Abrahamic prophetic traditions have to be monotheist whereas Indian contemplative traditions can be polytheist, monotheist, atheist or monist. Thus, the prophetic traditions correspond to only one phase of the contemplative traditions.

Prophecy and prayer presuppose a deity whereas contemplation presupposes only consciousness and reality and therefore can be expressed through mutually incompatible theories. Indian philosophical systems refer to many souls, one soul or no soul.

Traditions

In an Abrahamic prophetic tradition, it is necessary to be neither polytheist nor atheist but monotheist whereas, in an Indian contemplative tradition, it is possible to be polytheist, monotheist, atheist or monist.

Hindus can advance from polytheism to monotheism or monism by reinterpreting many gods as appearances of a single personal or impersonal reality.

There is contemplation in some prophetic traditions and monotheism in some contemplative traditions. However, contemplative monotheism can be either monistic or transitional to impersonalist monism. 

Prophecy is specific and exclusive whereas contemplation is comprehensive and inclusive. Prophecy and prayer presuppose a deity whereas contemplation presupposes only consciousness and reality and therefore is expressed through diverse theories of many individual souls, one universal soul and no soul.

I was educated in a prophetic tradition but now practice in a contemplative tradition. My philosophy is monist but materialist, not idealist. Therefore, I accept neither soul pluralist reincarnation nor no-soulist rebirth. Being has become conscious and each psychophysical organism is a distinct individual conscious subject. We can meditate without believing either in supernatural beings or in post-mortem states.

The Jade Emperor

The Jade Emperor condescended to take an indulgent view. “These creatures in the world below,” he said, “were compounded of the essence of heaven and earth, and nothing that goes on there should surprise us.”

-copied from here.

A Chinese student who attends our meditation group told me that, in his home town, there is a temple to Kanzeon but that it is obligatory to worship the Jade Emperor first!

I trust that I may take an indulgent view of the Jade Emperor. I will pay my respects to an idol only as a lead in to just sitting meditation. The Jade Emperor must defer to the Enlightened One.

The gambler's philosophy: "Thus year, the Jade Emperor's turn; next year, mine."

The Bodhisattva Ideal: "The Buddhahood of every blade of grass."

My Pantheon: The Nine

1. Krishna taught karma yoga, nonattached action.

2. The Buddha taught meditation: a teacher of gods and men.

3. Jesus proclaimed the kingdom: a new society and a new consciousness.

4. Indra released rain from heaven. He personifies the beneficent aspect of nature.

5. Prometheus stole fire from heaven. He personifies human action on nature, control of natural forces, technology, "Prometheanism."

6. Odin sacrificed an eye and himself to seek wisdom.

7. Thor killed frost giants with his hammer, thus protecting mankind from the hostile aspect of nature.

8. The Triple Goddess: Maiden, Mother, Crone.

9. The sea god: Neptune, Poseidon, Lir, Njord (sea giant). The sea is the source of life and the Biblical pre-cosmic chaos.

Krishna and the Buddha are avatars of the comprehensive deity, Vishnu.

Addendum: Since the Sun is the source of light and life, the Nine should include a solar deity. However, I think that Krishna fulfills this role among many others.

Acceptance Of Belief

To anyone who believes in a hereafter, I ask the following. You are confident that, if you travel west across the Atlantic, then you will arrive in North or South America. Can you be equally confident that, after death, you will find yourself in some particular version of a hereafter? How can you be certain? If you merely believe what you have been brought up to believe, then consider the fact that many other people have been brought up to accept very different beliefs. How can you be certain that, of all these different beliefs, the one that you have been brought up to accept just happens to be the one that is true if indeed any of them is? 

The One, Part Two

Molecular motion causes fluidity.

Molecular cohesion causes solidity.

Neural interactions cause consciousness.

These effects are properties, not discrete objects.

"We know consciousness by being conscious" means that subjects of consciousness are conscious of consciousness by being conscious.

"We observe conscious behaviour" means that subjects of consciousness are conscious of the behaviour of other subjects of consciousness.

Thus, consciousness is irreducible.

Any newly discovered cellular, molecular or subatomic process is objective.

An objective process is neither subjective nor intermediate between objectivity and subjectivity.

Empirical observation is consciousness, not an object of it.

Subjects empirically observe objects but not consciousness.

A spirit would be an invisible subject, thus a subject but not an object.

The One is a mostly invisible subject and its own object.

To be an object, the One must become partly visible or audible, tangible etc.