God
- Written by David Hall
- Category: God
Let's consider God's omniscience, or all-knowing awareness. It may generally be assumed by people who believe in God, that God is all-knowing, that nothing is hidden from God and that God knows all things. We can understand this more closely.
In Non-Duality God is understood as the One Infinite Being. There are no beings other than God. What we assume to be a multitude of beings and a vast world of separate shapes and forms is nothing other than the One Infinite Indivisible Being. The apparently separate beings may seem to be close to God or far from God, but truly God is without end and it's not possible to be outside of God. The world appears as a contrast of what is like God and what is unlike God. This contrast of opposites is God's expression of God's Singular Self. God is formless, shapeless, so any expression of God is not complete and accurate as God. Yet there is nothing other than God. God is the complete Whole, the entirety of What Is.
It follows then that God does not know every thing. God does not know 'things'. God does not know division and separation, because these are not real. God's wholeness is never divided; it only appears to be divided. We could say that God is indeed All-Knowing, as God is Pure Knowing of all that is. And all that is is God. God does not know others, because there are no others.
So it would be a mistake to consider that God knows arithmetic, because God does not see a multiplicity as humans imagine it. This may at first seem controversial, but God does not see a division of the Infinite One into many. God knows only infinity. Knowing infinity just means Knowing, not knowing this and that. God's nature is Knowing, or Awareness, or Consciousness. We use these terms to indicate the core nature of intelligent being.
God's Being is the Heart of all seemingly separate beings, and the Heart is the Whole. So resting in this God Knowing or God Consciousness does not mean that all things are known. Rather it is known that there are no things, or to be more accurate, Nothing is known. Knowledge is an addition to the Clear Knowing or Pure Awareness of God. So it's not that one resting in God Consciousness will know how to fix a car engine, how to successfully cook a lasagne, or how to solve a complex mathematical equation. That knowledge is based in the human mind or mental activity. However, resting in Pure Awareness can bring a clarity to the mental activity, which can make the human mind more in tune with the workings of the apparent universe.
So God does not know every thing, but we could say God knows Everything. There are not many things. There is nothing other than Everything. There is nothing other than God.
- Written by David Hall
- Category: God
This may seem far from the truth, but the world is an expression of God. By 'God' I mean the Infinite Indivisible One Being. And by 'the world' I mean this human experience of the universe. I'll explain.
We could say that the world is a manifestation of God, a creation of God. It 's an expression of the Infinite Timeless Being. The world isn't separate from God, but we wouldn't generally say that it is God. One way to put it is that the world is an expression of God that is less than God but made of God. God, being infinite, is not detached from the world we experience. We can substitute the word God for Spirit or Consciousness, meaning the One Being.
How can the world be an expression of God if it is so flawed? How can evil, suffering and despair be an expression of God? Well, the expression of God needs contrast to appear. When you consider that God is an Infinite Formless Being, the only way this can be expressed is by contrast; and by 'contrast' I mean the use of opposites or reflection. That means that the world that appears uses opposites to express God's nature. And further, the appearance of the world is itself the opposite of God. The world is flawed because it is an expression of the pure perfection of God.
In other words, the Invisible is expressed by use of the visible, the Formless is expressed by use of forms, Imperceptible Perfection is expressed by the use of imperfect forms. Also, Stillness is expressed by use of movement and change, Life is expressed with the contrast of death, Imperceptible Peace is expressed by the use of disturbance, and Oneness is expressed by the appearance of separation. The world that we experience is this expression of God/Being/Spirit/Pure Consciousness as a world of opposites. The Infinite Oneness of God expresses itself as a world of separate finite forms. Or so it seems. It's not wholly accurate, because the expression is imperfect. The visible cannot truly express the Invisible. Sound cannot truly express silence.
So the world that appears is not actually a world of opposites or a world of separate forms. It only appears to be this. In reality it is nothing other than God. The expression of God, though not a wholly accurate representation of God, is nonetheless God, as there is nothing other than God. It's not really possible for God to create something outside or separate, because this infinite indivisible oneness is the nature of God.
It helps to understand that what appears as the world is a flowing, changing universe that seems to have fallen out of a Singularity and divided. It hasn't really fallen out of a Singularity, but it is playing the game of separation through what we call space and time. The sum total of the expression of space and time is zero. I mean that the opposites ultimately balance out, as the timeless Singularity is never lost. Nothing is gained and nothing is lost in the universe. God remains timelessly as God is.
The further understanding of this is that we are not other than God. The human expressions are inevitably flawed, and some may seem more flawed than others. Some humans may seem to be far from God in their behaviour, thinking and actions, and some may seem closer to God. The ultimate truth of this is that God/Being/Spirit/Consciousness/Oneness is never far or near. God is right here, throughout this expression of what is like God and what is not like God. Truly there is only God.
- Written by David Hall
- Category: God
Aware Being is the fabric of the universe. There is no universe outside of consciousness. The universe appears in consciousness, made of consciousness, known by consciousness. All that you can ever know is consciousness knowing itself. That needs a bit of exploration and explanation.
What are you aware of right now? Maybe some warmth from the sun, rain on the window, a comfortable carpet underfoot, a soft bed or sofa, or a firm chair. Maybe you can see the inside of a room or the expansive outdoors. You may hear voices or distant sounds. You may feel the wind blowing on your face or body. It may feel hot or cold. And what of the mind? When reading this the thoughts appear in the mind. If you pause reading for a while, the mind considers other thoughts. They float along, from this to that, and disappear.
All this that you perceive is in consciousness. The thoughts, the sounds, the sights, the smells, the tastes, the feelings, the buildings, the cars, the animals, the people, the music. All of life. Everything that you've ever known has been in consciousness. It's not possible to get outside of consciousness, because you are consciousness. It is the root of all that is perceived. It is awareness or knowing. It doesn't mean there is a knower, a separate self that is aware of other things. The sense of identity is thought based, and this too is perceived. Who perceives the sense of who you are? Consciousness, or Aware Being.
The universe is the play of Consciousness or Aware Being. It's a play of opposites, of what is and what isn't, of this and that, of me and other. Yet there is no other. There is no this and that. There is no what is and isn't. What isn't cannot exist. The play of opposites and reflection is necessary for the universe to appear. It's the contrast of opposites that allows for manifestation to happen. It is the seeming separation of subject and object, the perceiver and the perceived. But it is all a play of separation into opposites. Remember, there is no other. There is One Infinite Aware Being. We are This. This is all there is, everything and nothing.
It helps to understand intellectually that nothing can ever be experienced outside of consciousness. Nothing can ever be proved to be outside of consciousness, and ultimately the whole of our experience is consciousness itself. The whole universe is a fluctuating, reverberating flow of consciousness within itself. There are no limits to consciousness. There are no limits to the universe. There is nothing outside the universe. There is truly no inside or outside. Opposites and limitation are the play 'within' Consciousness.
This Aware Being that is the universe plays at being and not being, being aware and not aware, alive and not alive. But Aware Being, or the Universal Being, is Life itself. Life plays at being alive and not alive. By this use of opposites within the singularity of Being, Consciousness expresses itself within itself.
We are One Universal Being, and this Being that we are expresses itself by nature of opposites, giving rise to a multiplicity of forms. The appearance of many beings arises from the play of opposites within the One Universal Formless Being: Consciousness.
- Written by David Hall
- Category: God
We've all heard of satan, diablo or the devil, but what is it really? It's the personification of the force in the universe that divides, separates, opposes and limits. In itself it's not an evil force. It's a force necessary for the world to appear. The world is created by (and ultimately destroyed by) the force that seems to separate Oneness into opposites, creating division and limitation simultaneously. Or at least appearing to do so. Division and separation in the world is not a real thing, but an appearance. The world appears by virtue of the force that gives the appearance of separation from a Singularity.
The Singularity, of course, is God. The Infinite One. Diablo (the duplicitous one) is deemed to be the opposite of God. It is separation, limitation and opposition taken to the extreme. It seems to be the ultimate opposite of God. It is the Selfish One, as opposed to the Selfless One; the one who opposes all, as opposed to the One who is all.
This opposite force is the opposite of truth, but the human mind has been tricked into believing that it is true. The human mind has been duped into believing that separation and limitation are true. The consequence of this is that the human mind believes itself to be a being separate from others. This brings suffering, need, greed, loss, incompleteness, competition, war, envy, hate, sadness, defensiveness, cruelty, power struggles etc. These all arise in the human world due to the dominance of the belief of separation and identifying as separate beings. But truly there is no other. There is only God, the Infinite One, without limit or division.
There are seemingly those that choose to follow the duplicitous being, and consider 'him' to be the god of the world. They depict him as two-horned, cloven footed, holding power over others, the high and the low, the chequerboard of opposites, and the subjugation of the human spirit. It's a recognition of the force of duality in the world, but positioned in way of control or dominance over the human being. However, this control, this duping, is only in the human mind. We are not the human mind. We are That which is beyond the apparent world of opposites. We perceive the human mind, and we perceive the world through the human perspective, or the human experience.
It is in this current state of development of the human mind that it has fallen into the confusion of mistaken belief. It's a natural development, as this planet gives an appearance of separation and competition, in its ‘survival of the fittest’ system. The human mind will continue to develop and rise out of its subjugation. It will free itself from its entanglement in the belief that separation and limitation is real. It will free itself in the realisation that there is only Freedom. Boundlessness is the nature of Being. It is the nature of the One Being, that we can call God. There is nothing other than the Infinite One Being. There can only be an appearance of others.
The spirit is not subjugated by matter. Matter is nothing other than spirit. The opposites are not really separate. There is only Infinite Oneness, and if the mind limits itself it will necessarily encounter problems, as the natural balance of Oneness seems to bring about its restoration. Truly there is never an imbalance. There is never a division of the Singularity. It only seems to be if looked at from a limited perspective.
Truly there is nothing other than God. What seems to be ‘other’, ‘opposite’ or ‘against’ is not what it seems.