Authored by Adrián Ángel Inchauspe*
Introduction
There is a tendency nowadays among Yoga beginners to try to understand God’s participation in the Theory of Everything. In fact, some of them have suffered from a deep existential crisis, caused by feelings of guilt that have led them to experience a complex and unfair sensation of “devotional sin”. This is often the result of forcing trainees to learn a dogma that is different to that they were taught during their childhood, which is no other thing than the same reality, but with different names. That is why I have accepted the request of the editorial committee to try and contribute my view on the subject.
I have known many Yoga masters who fervently and enthusiastically embrace the Hindu doctrine and hurriedly transmit it in a literal manner to their western students, without trying to integrate it as “comparative theology”, to avoid the distress of novel trainees, which would alleviate the anguish of having to opt for a “forced conversion”, which may finally lead to a distorted understanding of the doctrine.
Religious doctrines are clearly different from one another, and this becomes even more obvious when undertaking their analytical study. Of course, we know that Patañjali’s aphorisms are different to the beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount. Likewise, the “Confessions” of Saint Augustine are not identical to the “Repentance” that the Sixth Patriarch of Zen Buddhism, Mahayana Hui Neng, imposed on his disciples when transmitting to them the Diamond Sutra.
But there is something we cannot doubt: all these teachings are clearly intended to lead to our spiritual evolution. They help and guide their supporters in their inner path, marking out their Road towards a more intimate and personal understanding of the Absolute. And it is precisely at the beginning of the Theory of Everything where there is strong disagreement between eastern doctrines and religious cults practiced in western countries, regarding the conception of Everything and its origin from a Primary Void.
In the Judeo Christian Mahometan doctrine, God “was, is and will always be”, which dismisses the theological possibility of having originated from Nothingness. Nevertheless, qualified mystics such as Ian Eckhart considered God Father/Son to be “the Fruit of Nothing”. Maybe he had meditated deeply on the Gospel of John. For Saint John, as he expressed with his first words, the Original Void contained the wonderful redeeming promise of the process of Creation: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that was made.” (John 1-3)
The brilliant philosophical teachings of this Bavarian abbot were rescued tens of centuries later by Nishitani and Tanabé, recognized philosophers of the Kyoto School. The East provides us with a very different significance of the Void: it is not a concept that suppresses itself – similar to existence – but all the contrary. This same happens when trying to define the Void in Quantum Physics and the sidereal dark matter (occupied by neutrinos and leptons, which are particles that are so small that cannot even be considered material structures). Nothingness is an environment of “power in reserve”; a potential energy that can manifest itself as an explosion of inconceivable scopes, as modern physicists have proved with the Big Bang Theory.
To define Nothingness in English, we generally use the term “nothing”, which can be divided into two parts: “no” and “thing”. This term implies absence but at the same time proposes an un-limiting sense, previous to the conception of opposites. From the semantic point of view, it is very strange to accept the existence of a term “to name what cannot be named or what has never been”. Lao Tsé was faced with this same dilemma when trying to announce the“One without Two” concept; he did not dare name it; he just called it Tao.
China wholeheartedly accepted the Theory of Everything proclaimed by the Vedantic and Tantric philosophies in which – also through an Original Void – there was an Absolute Consciousness or Shiva Shakti, from which everything evolved. This cosmic vibration, which in China is called Wi Chu, implies that the universe was originated from an Original Void (or Absolute Yin), upon which the first phase acted (or First Yang), generating thus the creation and a pair of opposing polarities: the Yin and Yang, the antithetical synthesis of everything that exists, either tangible or not.
As we have already said, in Western cultures God is, has been and will always be. Nonetheless, I believe it would be wise to analyze in detail and to disaggregate this monolithic statement. In the beginning – during this Original Void-God had not yet manifested, as John said. It was then only “Divinity”, that “first motionless mover” Aristotle referred to in his Metaphysics. Then, one may infer that, within a ground of speculative controversy, such Divinity, in an act of infinite compassion, decided to lavish its Creation on every existing being.
If we revise the pantheon of Hindu deities and the hierarchy of angels, we will find that Shiva Shatki or God Creator, animating an infinitely pure and subtle energy, started to condense in celestial entities of decreasing value, up to the human being, in whom It will manifest Itself in the energetic levels of the subtle sheaths (the five “koshas”, equivalent to the eight bodies of T’ai Chi Ch’uan), until materializing at a physical level.
And then we will not disagree either with the archeologists who found that featherless biped mammal ape in Tanzania – known nowadays as Australopitecus afarensis – which would also evolve into the present Homo sapiens sapiens, who was previously Neardenthales and felt the need to “honor” the dead, aware of the possible existence of an “Afterlife”.
That same man we are talking about was the one who heard the ploys Satan used, jealous of the Love of his Father for his imperfect son, to dissuade him from hearing His warnings and to convince him that God did have knowledge of Evil but no experience of it. Such assertion led the man to follow his recommendation and taste the Tree of Knowledge.
However, it is that same man the only one in that wonderful scale of spiritual powers who is capable or releasing himself from the law of cause and effect. The other entities – endowed with infuse science and the presence of God – have no chance of failing in their attempt. In fact, that same Light Bearer fell because he was jealous of God’s “faulty creation”, by being insistent since then, in an infertile attempt to convince them of their worth as Sons of God.
And this is why I have written all of this: I do not believe that the human being is just an ape who has evolved on Earth with the hope of meeting their future celestial fate. I think all religions consider the human being to have a heavenly origin, and to have come to Earth to walk along an earthly path in order to complete their evolution. So much so that – beyond every conclusion and philosophical speculation-the Absolute recognizes the Divinity that there is within a human being, without distinction as to cult or belief.
Both Babaji and Enoch and both Elijah and Moses were taken bodily into Heaven.The body incorruptibility of Rita of Cascia, Bernardette Soubirous or Saint Pio of Pietrelcina is identical to that of Hui Neng or Paramahansa Yogananda.According to the Gunas of Yoga, the Tamas did not remain in these bodhisattvas; but the Sattvas did. And thus, the Absolute, defying the natural laws themselves, has not allowed in them the degradation or corruption of the sacred.
As we have learned today to accept diversity from its deepest version – since I can be part of the miracle of being transplanted the heart of a woman and, in turn, if I die, I can offer her mine –, the Absolute will make no distinction between men and women of good faith. Here in our world we can also find the Everything for all of us: with no indifference for those who are honest seekers of the Absolute Truth, whichever their creed, race or idiosyncrasy may be in this holy planet.
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