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It would feel wrong to us if our God made it a condition of our
eternal life that we should befriend Him in a personal way, so we enhance the
meaning and value of that friendship when we realise that it is an unconditional
choice, just as real friendship should be. But there is also nothing wrong in
choosing to unite with all the beautiful values and qualities which belong to
the Divine Impersonal Being. Therefore if we unite our impersonal nature with
the impersonal nature of God, then that is a proper expression of our Divine
Individuality.
William Arkle - Caption to a painting
http://www.billarkle.co.uk/greatgift/pictureseq/fset051.html
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My understanding of this, would be that a person who chose to unite his impersonal nature to the impersonal nature of God would be someone who either simply did not, or could not, believe in God as a person; or who did believe in a personal God but could not love him - or, it may be a person who rejects the gift of consciousness which comes from being a Son of God (one of the Children of God).
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My understanding is that humans have an unique personal spark, some essence which precedes us becoming a Son of God - and it is this which is the cause of our autonomy, our free will.
When we became Children of God, to this personal spark was added a spark of God Himself - and this spark of God is what made us conscious, aware, capable of relationships (and that we all share this spark is what makes us really and truly children of God, brothers and sisters in Christ).
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But the spark of divine consciousness brings with it attachment, especially empathic pain, worry, regrets, sorrow - all the intrinsic realities of family relationship - and some people find this awareness simply too painful, a source of intolerable suffering.
At a profound level such persons reject the spark of God, and yearn to return to their original state of being an unique personal spark yet unaware, unconscious, assimilated to the universe.
To such souls, God provides the third option - neither Heaven nor Hell but the opportunity to "unite with all the beautiful values and qualities which belong to
the Divine Impersonal Being" - in an unchanging, eternal, present state without memories or anticipations.
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Sounds like you are reinventing bits and pieces of Buddhism / Taoism.
ReplyDeleteI have no idea why Christians and Western thinkers consider personality a good thing, a feature, not a bug. I.e. why don't they see the impersonal higher than the personal, and therefore why don't they think an impersonal absolute would be higher than a personal god?
Spark? A spark of personality? No, a curse of personality. Without personality, we could be perfect, have courage, love, everything. With personality we are petty, in a Christian lingo sinful, committing sins to protect and endear our own selves, because we see the self as separate from the world.
In reality everything good in us is impersonal and everything bad is personal.
Personality means separation. It means I am here, and that is you are there. It means: I like you, because you helped me, I hate that other guy, because he harmed me. This picking and choosing is the essence of personality, and not only a god would not do that, even people on higher spiritual development don't do that.
Courage is impersonal. It means if a body is in danger, I will act to save it unless in endangers other bodies more, no matter if it is my body or yours. Cowardice is personal: it means my body should not be hurt, yours is not so important.
Love is impersonal. Properly spiritual love is like the sunlight shining equally on everyone. Hate is personal. We always find individual, specific reasons to hate people.
Wisdom is impersonal: by being one with everything, by removing the barrrier between the self and the world you know and understand everything. Ignorance is personal - it means your mind is shut off, fenced off, separated from some thing.
Humor, laughing is impersonal. It is about seeing the irony in everything.
A personal god is just the poverty of imagination: even people can be much, much better than personal.
This would be the buddhist view.
@Shenpen
ReplyDeleteWell, the good news seems to be that if you regard impersonality as higher than personality, the personage of God will give you what you want!
(Although he will be somewhat sad about about your decision.)