What is God?
“Religion”
as the Absence of God
Unitarian-Universalist
Fellowship Talk-September 2003
What is God?
The riddle:
v
What is the “creator of all things” but nothing
in and of itself?
v
What is immanent and transcendent at the same
time?
v
What is that in which we “live, move, and
have our being?”
The Implications: 4 Insights drawn from Neurotheology
•
The
“evolutionary perspective” – from the reptilian unconscious mind to universal-awareness;
Return to the Garden!
•
The universality
of spiritual awareness on the journey from ego-consciousness to
Self-realization/integration.
•
The importance
of mind/ spiritual-training and emotional regulation.
•
Institutional
religions serve the evolution of consciousness and spiritual development
The Evolutionary Perspective
v
The brain as a computer for processing
(interpreting) information
v
The “Big Clue” running through the work of
physicists, biologists, and neuroscientists = “everything exchanges
information”
v
What program are we running to interpret the
data of life?
Amazing Implication!
v
Neurotheology says we CAN choose what program
we want to run on the “hard drive” of being.
v
Do we run fear, hatred, tribalism, “me
against them” program to interpret reality?
v
Do we run the love, compassion,
interconnected program?
Amazing Implication, 2
v
What program we run radically changes our
interpretation of the information exchange that is life.
v
It has never been the circumstances in the
information exchange of life that limited human consciousness; it has been our interpretation
of those circumstances!
God is Love
v
God is relational energy
v
Relational energy = love
v Love,
as God, is the conscious, creative, relational energy of Being.
v
Love is ever-present, as close as ones own
consciousness
v
Love is the essence of everything that exists
Relational Energy
v
RE exists as a hologram in all
phenomena as the conscious, creative energy of the cosmos.
v
RE is the dynamism of consciousness that
compelled the first hydrogen electrons to dance with (relate to) the oxygen
electrons in the post-Big Bang cosmos
v
RE “moves us” in all our life interactions
Relational Energy
v
RE is the same energy that empowers DNA
molecules, spins the planets in a million galaxies, mothers the sun and moon,
and puts a smile on a dachshund.
v
RE is “no thing” that empowers everything
v
RE is God as Love
Hologramic Resonance
v
“God” is relational energy
v
Relational energy is love
v
“Love” exists as a hologram in all that
exists
v
Love is the conscious, creative energy of
Being
v
God is love
Hologramic Resonance
v
Love is “self.”
v
To align “yourself” with the conscious,
creative energy of Being is the secret to a life of happiness, joy, and peace.
v Hologramic
resonance = the process by which an “individual consciousness” aligns with
the hologram of love present in everything, that is, aligning with God.
Religion as the Absence of God
v When
“religious people” describe “God,” they are actually speaking of the absence
of God.
v
Absence of God is simply the absence
of love.
v It
is an illusory, false state of being in which a person has cut themselves off
from hologramic resonance.
v Ego-consciousness
blocks the flow of love
The Absence of God as Love
v
“Religion,” then, becomes a sorrowful lament,
a song of sadness describing the existential misery and despair of experiencing
life without love.
v
Key topics of this song:
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Fear
v
Longing for healing and wholeness
v
Descriptions of distance between God and
human kind; apart seeking a part
Knowing God v. Believing in God
v
There is nothing you need “to do” in order to
know God.
v
To know God, you need stop doing one
thing.
v Stop
running the ego program on the hard-drive of your computer
consciousness.
v
Ego consciousness restricts, even
blocks, the natural flow of relational energy which is the presence of
God
Ego-consciousness
Ego-consciousness “creates” a reality in which:
§
Humans are separate, competing individuals
who must struggle to gain power over others to survive
§
Leads to our sense of loneliness, guilt,
anxiety, insecurity, hatred, and fear
Ego-consciousness
v
Personal level: gives rise to insatiable
desires for pleasure, power, and possessions; “I, me, mine” is the world!
v
Social level: gives rise to violence, wars,
exploitation, racism, sexism, class-ism, social and economic injustice
Ego-consciousness
Ego = Ahamkara, a Sandskrit word with two roots:
•
Aham = “I am”
•
Kara = “to make”
•
Ahamkara, the ego, is your “I-maker”
•
makes you feel alone and separate in a huge
uncaring universe
•
distorts all your relationships
Ego-consciousness
Your Small Self:
•
An egocentric mass of conditioned
characteristics and responses
•
Defense mechanisms
•
Your “savings account” of emotional pain
•
Stores negative patterns of behavior that
create “bad decisions”
The Small Self
v
Most of all, the small self (ego
consciousness) keeps you from being a part of life.
v
Right here, right now “life” is happening in
the present moment.
v
Most people “miss life” because their
attention is lost in the “long gone” past or “imaginary” future.
Ego Consciousness
v
Most of all, ego consciousness blocks the
natural flow of love
v
“In-love” vs. Love: love is ever-expanding
v
Social constructs, human institutions, any
attempt to control love releases emotional indicators we equate with fear, suffering, anxiety,
anger, jealousy, and so forth
Examples of “the Absence of God”
v
Ontological
dualism – removes love from experience – all is empty, devoid of energy
v
Anthropomorphizing
God = leads to blasphemy (restricting the flow of love) and idolatry (trying to
contain love)
v
Negative
Identity Formation
v
Apocalypticism
v
Morality over
experience
v
Ontological
dualism/personal agency
The Goal
v
Knowing love is knowing God is practicing hologramic
resonance with the conscious, creative energy of Being.
v
To know love requires “retraining the brain”
to “let go” of ego-consciousness and be an open conduit for the natural flow of
love.
v
Love is the fundamental healing principle for
every human woe and worry.
Living Love Always
v
“knowing what to do” in any life situation
v
It is not life’s circumstances but the interpretation
of circumstances that makes the difference between joy and sadness
v
Trust
v
Abiding joy
v
Caring, compassion, consensus in
relationships
v
healing