A student recently questioned the use of the word God, saying she could not relate to that concept, and that the idea of God leads to fanaticism. She said she was much more comfortable with the notion of Nature as a final term, or emptiness, or nirvana. It is important to recognize that this allergy to the word God is itself a kind of fanaticism, and that it is based on an incorrect understanding of the real source of fanatic mentality.

 Let us recognize at the outset that the term God refers to the great mystery of ultimate reality. We must not confuse the philosophic concept of God with the imaginary notion of a bearded man on a cloud, or some other anthropomorphic image. Such images are employed by religious establishments to attract, pacify, and control those whose consciousness functions at a low level of concrete thinking, naïve sentimentality, and childish wishes for parental protection from the dangers inherent to existence. Freud did a wonderful job of demolishing that level of religion in such books as Civilization and its Discontents, Totem and Taboo, and Future of an Illusion.

 But the falseness of the imaginary level of religion, which is aimed at optimizing the formation of children’s character, should not be confused with the deep truth of adult-level symbolic religion, which exposes the inadequacy of human egocentric ideation that is cut off from the transcendent source of life. God is not an object, entity, or fact, but rather, a symbol of that which lies beyond the capacity of the mind to grasp. God signifies the Supreme Real that surpasses the jurisdiction of our most fundamental concepts of mind, matter, energy, number, space, and time. God refers to what is forever unknowable by egoic consciousness, forever indescribable, outside all the categories possible to human thought. For that reason, no scripture can rightly claim to be the last word or the only expression of God’s will.

 But to do without the signifier God would be to maim our capacity to think. We require an agreed-upon concept to represent the un-representable, the noumenal, the intelligent presence both immanent within and transcendent of the Whole. One can use the word Nature, but then one must recognize two levels of Nature, one that signifies the manifest forms, and the other that refers to the intelligence that designs those forms. Biologists since Darwin have tried to eliminate the latter, but it is becoming ever more clear even to experts in that field that the irreducible complexity of both the intracellular and inter-cellular mechanisms of living beings, as well as the complexity of ecological interdependence, requires the invisible hand of a transcendent designer.

 To cut oneself off from the inherent richness of the concept of God, when correctly understood, would be an error that would stunt our spiritual development. And to give the message to others that we are not comfortable with their use of the word God would alienate all those religious believers who come looking for a more direct path to realization of our Supreme Being.

 It is not the idea of God that spawns fanaticism. Rather, it is ignorance of the true meaning of the term God. It is also a sign of ignorance of other religions than one’s own, and the false assumption that only one’s own religion has a true understanding of God, and everyone else is a devil worshipper. That is why in Sat Yoga we study all the world’s religions.

 We can thus learn for ourselves, as our understanding deepens, that the same One God is worshipped by Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, and Taoists, not to mention the tribes of the Americas, and indigenous peoples around the world. Of course, it is easy to see the differences between the religions, rather than the structural and metaphysical congruences. At the imaginary level of religious iconography, the notions of deity are expressed in widely different ways. But when we see with the eye of esoteric wisdom, we can easily perceive the transcendent unity that lies behind the many different ways of expressing the inexpressible reality of the Source of Being.

 But to understand from that higher perspective, we must learn the language of symbols, which is also the language of dreams. The more we understand this higher symbolic vocabulary, the more we become universal beings. The more universal we are, the less fanatic we become. And it becomes clear that the arguments between religions do not have to do with God. God is universally understood as emanating such qualities as love, mercy, compassion, wisdom, healing, peace, strength, courage, and unity.

 The problem comes from a religion’s adamant refusal to recognize these qualities in the religion of the Other. Our own shadow is projected on the Other, and their religion is demonized. Each religion takes its authority not from God, but from a human being who has been designated as the particular incarnation or messenger of God through whom it came to be disseminated. Thus, one religion will say that there is only one way to reach God: through recognizing His only begotten son. Another will say that the final prophet, and thus the last word of God, was theirs, and all must submit to their particular scripture. Another will say that their people was at some historical moment chosen to be God’s people, and that is just the way it is. Such arguments for religious narcissism can only be maintained by those who do not have a refined grasp of the metaphorical subtlety of metaphysical truth. In such cases, the ego can easily appropriate religious ideas for its own narcissistic purposes, and this leads to the corruption of religion into irreligion.

 But the way out of this error is not to make the further error of throwing out God with the dirty bathwater of egoic ignorance. Fanaticism is not the monopoly of theists. In the twentieth century, we have many examples of fanatic atheism. There were many communists who participated in mass murder in the name of progress and materialism. Today, there are many genocidal wars pursued under the banner of secular democracy, or for the earthly plunder of natural resources. Scientists are no less capable than others of fanatic distortion of facts in order to protect their social bases of power. Corruption and fanaticism are rife among both atheists and theists today. But this is not a function of their beliefs, but of the condition of their consciousness. One must awaken to the awareness of the Real Self, and come out of the false paradigms of the ego, whether they are religious or non-religious.

 The problem with many religious believers is that they do not go deep enough into their own religion, but simply accept it at face value. To understand accurately a concept such as God, or Brahman, or Buddha-Nature, or Emptiness, or the Tao, requires deep study and long meditation upon the innermost core of one’s Being. It requires the immensely subtle work of dis-embedding our consciousness from every level of identification, from every fear and desire, and from every false assumption about reality and every obstacle to union with the Absolute. This is the great work of purification of the soul. Atheism leads to the same result, if one will pursue it profoundly enough, and question the reality of one’s self-concept until you unravel all the beliefs about the self, materialism, and meaning, and reach complete depersonalization. Once you face reality completely naked, without egoic coverings, the awesome Ground of Being will be realized.

 It is this work that we must focus upon wholeheartedly. Whatever term we prefer to use to signify the Supreme Real, whether it is God or Absolute Nothingness, it is essential to realize that there is a Source within (although that Source is Absolutely No Thing) that offers unconditional love, truth, empowerment, and unity that is the goal of our efforts to achieve liberation. The help of that Source is always available to everyone, but our power to receive that help is augmented immeasurably by our humble surrender to that Supreme Presence.

 The idea of God is attacked not only by atheists, but by some Advaitins and Buddhists as well. It is useful to read the words of Ramana Maharshi, perhaps the greatest exponent of Advaita in the modern world, who refers often and reverently to God. “There is no difference,” he says, “between knowledge [of the Self] and absolute surrender to God, in thought, word, and deed.”  So long as one believes oneself to be an independent ego, it is important to believe in a higher power. Eventually, after dedicated self-inquiry, it will be discovered firsthand that God, the world, and the Self are one. In a similar way, Buddhists who declare that there is no self or god, but only Emptiness, are referring to the same Primal Awareness that is both nothing and everything, the Supreme Consciousness that is the creative power that manifests the universe as a co-dependent whole.

 Once consciousness has extricated itself from identification with the body and the personality, and thus with gender, ethnicity, and other lower-level fusions, our higher, more sublime feelings come into play. These increase the aspiration to achieve the ultimate realization of God that is the fulfillment of our existence and purpose on Earth. Once that transcendent awareness is within one’s horizon, it becomes clear that all the arguments about the reality of God are simply defenses against having to face one’s inner demons, having to go through the dark night of the soul, and having to let go of the addictions and perversions of the ego complex. Sooner or later, voluntarily or through hitting bottom, we must all face our need for the help of God. Let us not wait until the eleventh hour, since then it will come with agony and gnashing of teeth. Let us instead cure our allergy against God, and turn it into an all-urgency of realizing the healing love of God within our own hearts now. This is the way to bring to birth a new world of harmony and happiness.

Namaste,

Shunyamurti