Three Doors to Freedom

God Knows

It's not that God conceived us in His likeness. The trouble is that we conceive him - or her - in ours.

And you non-theist seekers out there, you're not exempt in this. Even when we use a different term for what we're after, what we think might save us, that too is a projection - by whatever name it's called (englightenment, nirvana, freedom, buddhahood, salvation).

Any God or goal we vainly try to bring to mind, to conjure up, can only be a creature of our own conjecture - a limited and inherently dubious higher power that suffers from the same ultimate dilemma we do.

Yet all but the most enlightened mystics among us continue to heap ideas, descriptions and doctrines upon that which we seek, often only serving to obscure it further. Then we fight, with ourselves or with others, to defend our version as the real one. Depictions of the divine may be very helpful to encourage spiritual maturation, but who decided they were to die for?

How can our merely mortal, fleeting theories and theologies furnish a salvation that transcends all worldly woes, even death itself? Wouldn't any God born of our theories be ... just another theory? And so subject to the fickle way in which whatever we think or feel is subtly filled with doubt, capable of being called into question, dissatisfying.

Who needs a God that is less than conclusive, that has to compete with all the other idea-ologies, that is open to debate? That is why T.S. Eliot refers to the ultimate as "costing not less than everything": all our feeble efforts to define it (and ourselves) have to be forsaken. This "condition of complete simplicity" - not a barren emptiness, but a completeness replete with joy and blessings - cannot be attained through mental machinations. It is the result of genuine spiritual practice, a peeling-away of our habitual tendency to cling to partial formulations.

We do well to remember why in earlier times it was forbidden to utter (or even write, in most cases) the name of G*d. Any label we choose to use is a pale, inadequate reflection, a mere glimmer of the true glory before which every knee would indeed happily bow, in its own way. So let us hold our ideas of God or goal as "this" or "that" just a little more lightly. Theories about God do not matter too much. Direct experience does.

God is Back

A new book, God is Back: How the Global Revival of Faith Is Changing the World by John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge (respectively Editor in Chief and Washington Bureau Chief of The Economist) is causing a stir. The New York Times is derogatory, whilst the BBC's North America editor says it's "brilliant". Meanwhile the authors explain their premise in a Fox News blog and sum it up by saying:

• "The deeper reason why God is back is that the American religious model is spreading around the world: religious establishments are being weakened and upstart religious groups are using all the tools of modernity, from megachurches to radio and television, to spread the world" (sic)

Whether you subscribe to the authors' theory or not, the growth of new delivery means - and meccas - for old religious messages is a fascinating phenomenon of our time. Do these new ways water down the salvific strength of the ancient teachings? Or do they bring solace to thousands of disillusioned souls who might otherwise never set foot on sacred ground? Or both, or neither? Even Buddhists might have a thing or two to learn by studying such trends - with an open mind!