What is Existence?

When I was in college, I took a class in which I studied different religions as well as atheism and agnosticism.  This class had a profound affect on my spiritual path, as I was absorbed in the writings and theories of Immanuel Kant, John Hick, Bertrand Russell, and other philosophers.  I sat in on an existentialist class with my good friend, and listened to parts from the book “Nausea” by Jean-Paul Sartre.  I was searching for an answer for myself to the question, “Does God exist?”

I think in order to answer the question of whether or not God exists, we need to first ask a more fundamental question, “What is existence?”  We ask the question, “Does God exist?” and never ponder the very nature of the question we are asking.  What does it mean to “exist?”  We say something “exists” when we can confirm unique properties and characteristics of a specific thing or phenomena by one or more of our senses.  We can also say something exists if it can be confirmed through our senses by a device which can show us evidence of its existence.  A great example of this is the telescope and the microscope, which reveal the existence of planets and organisms we would otherwise be unaware of.  In short, the perception of some thing or phenomena by our senses enable us to conclude something “exists.”  Science can demonstrate existence and examine characteristics and properties of different things as well as phenomena, such as gravity, which is a phenomena, but not a “thing.”  It is a force which is a fact our senses confirm every day. Still, these things and phenomena are all distinct, limited “facts” if you will, which I define as consistent, unique characteristics observable and agreed upon by the majority. 

What then can exist, by definition, must be something with distinct properties which differentiates itself from other things or phenomena.  This definition requires only that which is distinct and limited to the properties of itself can exist.  Therefore, God cannot exist because God is ALL.  This is why science and our senses cannot “prove” God because science can only observe the material, dualistic world – that which “exists.”  When all comes down to One, with no duality, that is where science has no answers since fact is not Truth.  Science can only observe “fact” – that which is dual.  Truth must be seen, but this seeing is not of our physical senses through which we observe fact.  It is awareness of Truth, the Oneness of All, God, Love, the Holy Spirit, whatever name we give it.  It IS.  

In a sense, the Buddhists and atheists are correct to say God does not “exist” since God is All.   The ALL cannot be limited in any way because All… is ALL.  Another way of saying this is, God does not exist.  God IS.  God is that which is never born and never dies, the essence of All things and phenomena seen and unseen.  The True, timeless nature of God is reflected in John 8:58, “…before Abraham was born, I am!”  So, we see God, Love, Truth, all words for the same One simply IS.  It is All, without beginning and without end.  All which is made manifest within creation is of the One, but not the One itself, since the One cannot ever be limited to a distinct entity.  The closest I have found in any “organized religion” to this paradigm is Buddhism, which is atheistic in that Buddhists do not believe in a “creator God” as separate from creation.  In a sense, atheism is correct since there is no separate God from creation, as God is both within and without creation.  Yet in another sense, atheism is not correct because there is the Absolute, Truth, Love, God, all names for the same One, even though God is not a separate “big guy in the sky” with a long, flowing white beard who dolls out rewards and punishments based on how well we conformed or failed to conform to his standards of behavior. 

We are in a sense all “God’s children” in that we are all of the same One Essence, but that One is not a “separate being” that makes “decisions,” that has a “plan” or a “will,” with “likes” and “dislikes” as God is thought of having within traditional Judeo-Christian thought, the way we think of individuals possessing these characteristics.   These are all characteristics of a self, or an ego.  God is not an ego, as Judeo-Christian projections of Him would have us believe because God is no thing. That means God, the One, has no preferences, no judgement, does not make things happen nor prevent things from happening.  Action comes through God’s creation, as God cannot act, nor see Himself without creation.  Our lives, our egos, and the whole of manifested creation is both God’s dream and God’s nightmare.  And just as we have no conscious “control” of our dreams and nightmares, so too God has no control over the “dreams” and “nightmares” of manifested existence.  God, Life, All, simply IS.

In many ways, God is absolutely nothing like us since nothing is like the All, egoless and complete unto itself.  Still, in some ways we are amazingly like God because we, like the One, have one body, but many parts and aspects of what makes us.  God is everything and nothing.  He has no  face.  He has no identity, without ego, only reflected in the ever-changing manifestations of the same One of Itself. 

Like sunlight, which is never seen, but only its reflection, all of manifested creation reflects God, but is not in and of itself God. Since ego is illusion, then the notion of God being a “self” or an ego unto Himself who is “supreme” over all of creation is also an illusion.  For if God is a separate “supreme” being, then He too, is an illusion since no being, no ego whatsoever is Truth.  That is why the “god” of the Judeo-Christian tradition is untrue.  The entire foundation of  Judeo-Christian tradition depends on the reality of the self, on the ego, because everything within Judeo-Christian belief, from God to Satan, to individual “souls” are all nothing more than individuals, selves, egos.  Since all egos are illusion, then the very foundation of all Judeo-Christian belief, its very conception of God and salvation, is also an illusion. 

The implications of this truth are beyond all measure.  To come to grips with this enormity, one must understand the tremendous lies billions of people throughout millennia have been taught and continue to be taught.  The countless wars and miseries in the name of “god” which could have been avoided leaves one staggering in the realization of such senseless butchery.  If Christianity, and other religions such as Islam were so “good” and the product of a so-called “just” and “holy” god, would the result be all of the bigotry, intolerance, butchery, wars, anti-Semitism and massacres belief in this “god” has produced and continue to produce?  Any rational mind can see the answer plain as day. And by their fruits we shall know…

Our egos are just one tiny, temporary manifestation, one piece of the One.  All pieces are temporary, which come together for a moment, then go apart.  The Truth of our natures is the same as that of God – One.  This is, in a nutshell, what all mystics from the foundation of the world have said time and again…all is One. It really comes down to nothing more than this…

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