The Pageless Book

Photo Above by Ngader. Photo Below by Aldo Cauchi Savona. Final Photo by Robert Jagger.

The nature of the Divine is probably the most debated issue in human history. This question has been the subject of more books, wars, and conversation than any other issue. Debate of what God is and what the Divine represents has divided families, nations, and humanity as a whole since the dawn of time. Only ignorance or arrogance would lead someone to believe that their understanding can somehow end the debate; I’d like to think that I’m neither ignorant or arrogant…

The Gated Emptiness offers a few passages on the nature of God spoken in the first person, as if the Divine itself was trying to explain its nature to us. I’ve come to adapt this perspective on the Divine as my own. To me, it seems the most logical explanation of the nature of God - but then again, I’m bias.

The passage reads:
There is nothing that separates you and me; we are one and we are falling to gather continuously.

The idea that God is one with everything and every one is not new - Eastern religions have been saying this for centuries. Yet there is this strange turn of phrase at the end of the passage - “falling to gather continuously” - which is in itself a paradox, as well contradicting our unity with God. My first impulse upon seeing this phrase is to read “together” rather than “to gather,” if only because is seems to be nothing more than an extraneous pun. But it isn’t a mere pun.

Falling together with God would indicate that there wasn’t a choice to be had regarding our oneness with God. Gathering with the Divine would suggest that it was a choice. Yet how the passage is phrased would seem to argue that both scenarios are somehow intertwine. We are one with God, but choosing to recognize that oneness over our own individuality is our choice. It is as if we are fish aspiring to be one with the ocean.

The Gated Emptiness continues:
This is my nature. I am so simple you can’t conceive of me, and I am there. You see me not, you feel me not, and you hear me not. I would blind you, numb you and deafen you if would perceive me completely, so I give you pieces. Your wine shall be my blood, your bread shall be my flesh, and your incense shall be my bone. I am the only ecstasy.

Ever wonder why Jesus compares the Kingdom of Heaven to a mustard seed? Here is my take on that parable; he is indicating the size of Heaven in relationship to the size of God. If our earth is a mustard seed compared to the Kingdom of Heaven (or even just the expanse of the universe), what does that say about our relationship with God? It’s all very figurative, of course; size is merely a human means of relating to a thing and may not actually matter on a spiritual level. However, it does allow us to understand the magnitude of God in relationship to our own existence. It is more than the human mind can handle.

Still, we try to understand the totality of existence through our sciences and reasoning. I’d say we get pretty far in this endeavor. However, I wouldn’t be surprised if the average scientist agreed that the questions we don’t know the answer to still vastly out number the questions for which we do have answers. All we have are merely pieces of the puzzle, and often times the pieces that we have don’t always fit together. It is from this perspective that we should relate to the Divine.

The next passage reads:
I am one in many, many in one, of many, of one and not at all. I am like a voice; you may attempt to describe, but one must hear it for their self. Hear you will, but impressions in the sands of the mind fade so swift that you will dismiss it for an illusion. You will doubt, and I will speak again.

Here, The Gated Emptiness gives us another clue as to the nature of God. The Divine’s existence is “one in many, many in one, of many, of one, and not at all…” It is almost like this passage is saying that polytheism, pantheism, monotheism, and atheism all are valid and are equally incomplete views of the nature of God. Which is, of course, the main message I keep honing in on with my articles on spirituality.

Comparing our understanding of God to a voice of someone we heard once is a fitting metaphor. I attempt here to describe God, but to no avail. I could try to describe my voice as being high bass/low baritone, soft and nasally, but until you hear it for yourself, you can only guess as to what I mean. If you heard my voice only once and were asked to recall how it sounded a week later, you would no doubt have some difficulty.

God is like this, in that our experiences with the Divine are hard to put into words. When we do finally put our experience into words, we begin to remember those words better than the experience itself. Ultimately our description of the experience proves to be untrue as those words were just an approximation. We then begin to doubt we had that experience at all. Yet if we seek that experience again, we will inevitably encounter the Divine again.