Seventh Day part 3

Hi again,


Today we will explore two more elucidations from 'The Seventh Day':

The English word for God is misleading, however it is useful to see it as synonymous with the Unconscious,  and also Reality.

The English word 'God' is thought to have Anglo-Saxon origins, related to the relativistic Germanic word Gut, which also means ‘good’ (as opposed to ‘bad’). It has been suggested by some scholars that the Anglo-Saxon term in turn, came out of an earlier Indo-European word (Ghu-tó-m), meaning one who is called or invoked. This would place the original meaning of the word ‘god’ into the context of Pagan gods who could be invoked for example, to win battles, give successful crops or a hunt, give blessings, for fertility and children, wealth or curses on enemies or enhance survival in the face of the elements. This primitive concept, along with the capitalisation of the ‘G’ by later Christian sources to denote the God of Monotheism, has promoted the popular belief in a supernatural being, who when invoked by the prayers of the faithful has to apparently break the laws of physics to answer them. Modern Atheist scientists of course find it impossible to accept the existence of such a supernatural being. However, controversially it could sometimes be said that some people simply replace the word 'God' with the word 'Nature', which is an equivalent anthropomorphism, (as for example in 'Mother Nature').

The Greek word for God; Theos, as well as the Latin Deus, are almost certainly related to the Indo-European Sanskrt word, Deva (or its feminine form; Devi). The etymology of God’s Hebrew names is also very interesting, and God has many names in Hebrew. Since that was the ancient language known by the founders of Judaism as well as Jesus (who was not the founder of Christianity), it is worthy of further examination. The most commonly used names of God in Hebrew are EL (God), ELOHIM (God, literally Divine Mother), ADONOI (My Lord), SHADDAI (Almighty), HAKADOSH BARUCH HU, (Holy One Blessed be He) and finally YAHWEH. We will write this name as YHVH. That is because in Hebrew this Holiest of God’s names contains four Hebrew letters; Yod- Heh- Vav and again Heh. In Greek this was known as Tetragrammaton (four-lettered name). Some Hebrew names of God may be derived from earlier cultures, EL for example, occurs in Ugaritic and Canaanitish inscriptions and almost certainly pre-dates Judaism. Other names may be epithets, such as a HAKADOSH BARUCH HU, but the origin of the name YHVH is unknown. This name is the most mysterious and does not occur in any antecedent culture. We must therefore assume that it is uniquely Hebrew in origin. 

It may be easier to understand Jewish mystical texts such as the Kabbalah, if we realise that the names of God, although often anthropomorphic, are not so much descriptions of rather large supernatural beings, as cardinal aspects of reality, or as CG Jung would call it, the Unconscious. He would also call these cardinal aspects of the Unconscious, Archetypes. According to all mystical traditions, reality is comprised of the Macrocosm, which is ultimately unknowable, and the Microcosm, which contains an 'image' of the macrocosm and is expressed generally in the physical cosmos but specifically within human beings. Once again, CG Jung would echo this idea in his description of the 'Personal Unconscious as a subset of the the Universal Unconscious.  This idea also has some commonality with the more recent Holographic theory of the Universe (for example Pribam and Bohm), who believe that they found scientific evidence for this concept. Jewish mystical scriptures give us an extensive description of the Macrocosm and its creation, but although they hint at it, not so much the knowledge of how human beings as Microcosms may unite with the Macrocosm. Indian tradition, portrays God in part, as a state that may be attained through the practice of Yoga, and also describes in detail the anatomy of the Microcosm (for example through the knowledge of the Chakras), and how a human being may attain uniion with the Macrocosm. The Sanskrit term, Atma Paramatma, (meaning individual spirit and universal spirit), suggests that union between Microcosm and Macrocosm. The Hebrew name YHVH is the Hebrew symbol of the union between the Macrocosm and Microcosm, which describes the ultimate nature of reality. The first pair letters YH (Yod plus Heh) depict the masculine and feminine aspects of the ultimate reality in complete union. Yod describes the singularity that underpins existence itself and Heh is the Primordial Mother (also known as ELOHIM). The second pair of letters (Vav plus Heh), describe the Microcosm, epitomised as a perfected human being (cf the term, 'Son of Man). The constant theme here is the letter Heh, which represents the Divine Mother, who as ELOHIM is involved in the creation of the Macrocosm and ultimately the Microcosm (which could pertain to the physical universe and also to human beings, depending in which sense it is being used. As Shechina, She also helps human beings on their ascent towards Her Union with the Divine. In this respect, both Hebrew and Indian traditions seem to broadly be in agreement, in spite of cultural and etymological differences. In the Kabbalistic Book of the Zohar, there are many references to the importance of this union of the what they term, 'the Bride', and the Supernal King.

The impression of external, objective reality is an illusion which works most of the time

The online Oxford Dictionary defines 'reality', amongst other more prosaic meanings, as: “The state of things as they actually exist, as opposed to an idealistic or notional idea of them”. 

Philosophers have long occupied their minds with such questions. In the 19^th century Rene Descartes coined the phrase; ‘I think therefore I am’, and today’s problems are no longer epistemological or doctrinal, no longer questions of national identity or race, but of who or what we are in relation to reality. Science has blown a huge hole in our theoretical theology, which was the boundary of our old reality. Today’s problems are existential, a search for personal ontology, for the nature of existence, for truth and who we are in relation to it. In the past we thought we knew answers to such questions, and for many, even to question the established religious view would have been considered heretic. 

The Oxford Dictionary definition is very interesting in as much as it suggests reality is not a function of our perception or desire of how it should be, (bounded by our belief systems), as much as a theoretical hyper-reality, of which we can only know a small part. This also raises the question of the experience of subjectivity and objectivity. 

The rational mind works well enough at the level of the mundane world most of the time, for solving practical problems and reasoning out theories from existing evidence. However what we take to be reality is often coloured by our attention in the past or towards the future. It is interesting that there are those in the past, (for example the early Christian Philosopher Augustine), who have described an 'Eternal Present'. We will examine this idea in more depth in future blogs, but it would be good to consider where reality may be found and whether the rational mind is really always in contact with it. If we decide that we will judge “the state of things as they exist” by describing the world through the logic of the rational mind, we should understand that the rational mind is itself a product of a greater reality. If we accept the principle of Darwinian evolution, then the rational mind must have evolved from something else - so however important it is, it cannot be fundamental to reality. Our whole experience of the world is subjective, and in all probability there is no possibility of pure objectivity in our normal conscious state. 

If the rational mind is not fundamental to reality then what is? We spend two thirds of our time awake and approximately a third of our time asleep. So we can say that our most common experience of reality comprises around 66% being awake and 33% asleep. In these two states of consciousness, most of us experience for a large part of that time, mundane thoughts and perhaps mundane dreams. However, for some a more salient third state of awareness may manifest. When an artist for example, creates or performs, or when an athlete is at their best, they enter into this third state. Some have described this state as being an instrument for an unconscious stream of creativity that seems to work through them. It has been likened to being connected to a reservoir of a greater intelligence that is neither personal, conscious nor rational, or of being 'in the zone'. One may be highly trained and talented, yet it is often not the rational mind that made people create the greatest works of Art, compose the most sublime pieces of music, invent life changing technology or come up with new scientific theories.

A very few people in history have described a fourth and ultimate state of consciousness, which we know of as 'Enlightenment', Nirvana or Self Realisation. The most famous such experience is that described by the Buddha, who after much searching and deprivation, attained it some two thousand five hundred years ago in India. In this state of rapture, all consciousness of being an individual is lost, there may be an overwhelming sense of divinity, love and peace. They may see great visions or gain great insights into how to help the human state. However, for most people this state remains unconscious. Because this state was thought, (by CG Jung), to underpin all of human consciousness, even though most people are unaware of it, he named it the 'Unconscious'. He described the process of 'Individuation' as being the force that even unconsciously, drives all human beings to try to seek it in some way in their own lives. It is also the force that urges a few to consciously seek their Enlightenment.

Reality for most of us is a subtle combination of these four states of consciousness, conditioned by our senses, conditioned reactions and social skills, rather than it being solely controlled by our rational mind and personal emotions.

Jewish Mysticism primarily focusses on the creation of the Macrocosm. This knowledge is expressed through the Four Worlds (Arba'a Olamim), which is a description of the descent of the Ultimate through descending Worlds of decreasing subtlety, until we come to our own physical world. In Indian tradition, because their focus is on the Microcosm and its path towards Self Realisation, they describe Four States of consciousness of increasing subtlety, that are only accessible through successively deeper states of meditation until Divine Union or Enlightenment is experienced in the highest and fourth state, (Turya). 

Next time :

• The Jewish God YHVH (Jahweh), is a close equivalent to the Hindu mantra; AUM
• The Son of God/Man, Holy Trinity and word Amen all have their origins in mystical Judaism, not Christianity.

Please do let me know if you have any questions, comments or corrections.

Thanks again for reading.

Ray

Seventh Day part 2

Hi again,

Just in case you thought you were seeing double, this is in fact a re-published version of my second post from last Monday, with some corrections. Here we look more closely at the statements I posted in my previous blog, and then pose some more.

Before the 'Beginning', what was there? It is only now that science has started to discover the unimaginable vastness, the abyss of time and the incomprehensible multi-dimensionality of the universe. We now believe that the beginning of our physical universe may not have been the 'Beginning' at all. No wonder scientists and those of a scientific nature, often reject the over simplistic idea of the God that they learned about in Sunday school. Last time, I proposed that Atheism was simply a negative belief system based upon the flawed belief system of others. It is true that the Christian, Islamic and Judaic beliefs of religious fundamentalists, may often seem peculiarly unattractive to the rational mind. However, in 'The Seventh Day', I contend that the metaphysical root of the World's major religions is very different from the rather unsatisfactory view that we hear put forward by many clerics. The problem is compounded when fundamentalists and fanatics commit acts of racist bigotry, child abuse, sex abuse, terrorism and violence in the name of God. Any civilised and humanist soul will rightly rebel against such things.

Scientists now maintain that what we have discovered about the universe, means that we no longer require a supernatural explanation, either for the Creation or for the natural world. This means that nowadays, many scientists are also often professed Atheists. Yet Atheism, for all its good intentions, often comes across as a rather stark and unsatisfactory view of the world, based as it often is on the rejection of traditional Anglo-Saxon Christian religious beliefs. Atheism, however rationally conceived, is often little more than a gut reaction to an outdated belief system, both sides of which are stepped in ignorance of the nature of spirituality. Atheism is of course certainly not a threat to world peace in the way that fundamentalism often is. However, simply holding a strong dislike of religion, and denying God, the soul or any manifestation of spirituality, is in truth probably no less unscientific and irrational as the radical beliefs of religious fanatics who use the scriptures as a carte-blanche to commit crimes and atrocities against humanity.

As I said last time, belief does not necessarily equate to reality; and that is true for both Atheism and religious belief. At the heart of all the World's major religions lies the knowledge of the Metaphysical. By this I do not mean a fuzzy, supernatural world that can neither be seen nor proven. The 'Metaphysical' in this context, refers to the vast experiential, inner world that we all inhabit, that is in fact every bit as natural as the external world that is known through physics and other scientific disciplines. The gateway to the metaphysical world is the five senses, and according to spiritual tradition, at the heart of our innermost being lies the singularity of existence itself.

Both Jewish and Hindu mystical traditions seem to agree, although couched in rather different terms, that beyond the five senses and the rational mind lie three other contiguous and subtler levels of awareness. These are: the emotional world, through which we access our dreams, then at a deeper level, we encounter the inspirational or abstract world (often termed somewhat misleadingly as 'mental'), from which we derive creative inspiration and vision. Finally, for those who learn to access it, lies the level of reality or 'Existence itself', which we call 'spiritual', and where we may encounter the awesome singularity of the 'Self'. It is probably no accident that the 'Ultimate', the 'Universal Unconscious' or God, is also known in Jewish Mysticism as 'Existence Itself' (Ehi'yeh). Although the level of pure existence may not be accessible to most of us with our rational mind, there is no reason why these inner worlds should not yield some of their secrets to science. However, to make any significant progress in this area, our approach may need to change quite significantly.

Many scientists see no need to postulate a spirit that exists within human beings - it has been said there is no 'ghost in the machine'. Perhaps though, this may simply be a confusion about a term that the British Philosopher, Gilbert Ryles used in his 1949 book ('The Concept of Mind'), in which the 'ghost' referred to 'mind' rather than 'spirit'. The human spirit is of course beyond mind and is not a ghost, and neither are human beings machines. On the other hand, science has never proven the absence of spirit, rather it has simply raised a whole lot of new questions about the issue of human consciousness. The idea that the physical universe originates from a singularity, has parallels with the metaphysical view of the Creation expounded by the Jewish mystical work of the Kabbalah. Here the meta-universe is also conceived in an existential and experiential singularity, from which the physical universe 'later' appears as a subset. As human beings, we still carry that image of the Creation (known as the 'Image of God'), and the singularity that gave us birth still exists within us as our deepest spiritual self. This idea has been around, perhaps for thousands of years. The concept that our awareness might simply be an aspect of a universal consciousness, in no way contradicts what we know from science. What we can say is that what we are now discovering through science seems to concur very well with what is already known from metaphysical descriptions. That is why the contention here is that the metaphysical and physical are simply two sides of the same coin of reality.

I was fortunate, living as I do in the UK, to have been able to watch last week's Horizon program on the BBC. This fascinating program covered the problem of good and evil and examined what scientific evidence might exist for a 'moral molecule'. It turns out that most people are programmed from childhood, to be caring and emotionally sensitive to others. They will typically make the best moral choice that they can in the circumstances, in order to help others. However, research has shown that in a few cases, the psychopathic personality be accompanied by an abnormal genetic and brain activity profile. Combined with right (or wrong) circumstances in their childhood, abuse for example, those examined, seemed to have had a much higher probability of becoming serial killers. They may be less sensitive to emotions and often cannot empathise with their victims, so they may not make the same moral choices that most of us would do.

It turns out that many business leaders also have a psychopathic profile, which they cover up with charm, force of personality, intelligence and an utter disregard for others. That surely should not excuse them though - or should it? In one murder trial, in the execution happy state of Texas, a psychopath escaped the death penalty because it was demonstrated that he had diminished responsibility due to his genetic and brain profile, and the fact he had been abused as a child. Interestingly, one of the scientific researchers featured in the program also turned out to have a psychopathic profile. However, the fact that he'd had a wonderful childhood fortunately meant that he did not become a serial killer.

The interesting question here though, is not whether choice and moral strength may be influenced by genetics, but whether our choices and behaviour may influence genetics, particularly at a collective level. Another question is: what is it in us that makes that choice. If we could understand that, we could have a powerful mechanism for physical, emotional and even spiritual evolution. In the Metaphysical worlds that are described by many of the world's scriptures, evolution appears not just in the physical world, but on many levels once we know how to decode the texts. 'The Seventh Day' book provides a guide for doing just that, for chapters one to three of Genesis. Far from the literal view, of a supernatural 'Designer' taking a week out to create a universe just over 6,000 years ago, the Genesis texts when decoded, using knowledge hidden in Jewish mystical tradition, reveal many hidden facets, some of which we have now only just begun to appreciate through scientific discovery. That is not to say that I believe that there is an intrinsic need to prove the Bible right for a predetermined religious reason, but there is definitely much more to it than we first thought.

Next time, we will talk around four more elucidations from 'The Seventh Day':

• The English word for God is misleading, however it is useful to see it as synonymous with the Unconscious,  and also Reality.
• The impression of external, objective reality is an illusion which works most of the tim

By the way, I am pleased to report that you can now download the 'The Seventh Day' as an eBook on Kindle -  https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B005LPEBBI

Keep following the Blog, (next one is now due on Monday), and thanks again for reading.

Ray

The Seventh Day

Hi I'm Ray Harris.

For the spiritually and philosophically minded out there, or for those who just like to ask difficult questions: this is my new blog. It will ultimately track the vast array of subjects covered in a new book I have recently completed, called 'The Seventh Day'.

This is the first edition of the Seventh Day, and it addresses the existing argument between Materialist Atheist Scientists and Religious Fundamentalists, about whether the Universe was really created by a Divine Being in a week some six thousand years ago. It attempts to build a third hypothesis, based upon an extensive study of Jewish Mystical scriptures and Indian Yogic tradition, and in doing so, re-examines our assumptions about God and Spirituality. It also attempts to reinterpret and decode the deeper meaning contained in the first three chapters of Genesis. This dramatically reveals many inconsistencies and absurdities that have been taken for granted for over two thousand years. It contends that the ultimate goal of all religions was not racial superiority, but union with God, and that this may only happen with the help of the Divine Mother. Surprisingly this knowledge is embedded in traditional Judaism as it is in the other major World Religions.

In this blog I will specifically cover some of the dozens of elucidations which are covered in more depth in my book. In this first blog I have listed four of them below and if there is any interest, in future blogs I hope to cover more of them. These are not meant to necessarily echo my beliefs, but represent interesting discussions I have had with people over the past few years. I am not an Atheist, but I do respect many of the very valid points that they make about religion and its more negative effects on the World. My book does not set out to provide answers, but it does pose possibilities and theories based upon wide research.

• Atheism tends to manifest as a negative belief system based upon the non belief in someone else's, often flawed belief system.
• Religious Fundamentalism worships belief, and thereby agrees to disregard common sense and the obvious, which denies Reality.
• Belief is not synonymous with Reality.
• God is not a supernatural Designer being, but is Existence itself.

'The 'Seventh Day' will be available on Kindle in the near future with a physical version to be published soon.

Thanks for reading.

Ray
6 Sept 11