God the universe and man volume 6a

GOD, THE UNIVERSE, AND MAN BY WILLIAM MITCHELL VOLUME 6 GOD, THE UNIVERSE, AND MAN GOD, THE UNIVERSE, AND MAN For my Dad, who believes that he believes; and for my family, wherever they may be found G.

G OD , T HE U NIVERSE , AND M AN

BY W ILLIAM M ITCHELL

For my Dad, who believes that he believes;

and for my family, wherever they may be found

I do not just want the peace which passeth understanding,

I want the understanding which bringeth about peace

– Helen Keller †

I do not seek to understand in order that I may believe, but I believe in order that I may understand,

for this I feel sure, that if I did not believe,

I would not understand

– St Anselm

† May the inhabitants of earth become one in their hearts, Unite their plans and designs with the dwellers in heaven!

– Rumi in Teachings of Rumi

† How can we live in harmony?

First we need to know

we are all madly in love with the same God

– St Thomas Aquinas †

I have come into this world to see this:

the sword drop from men’s hands even at the height

of their arc of anger

because we have finally realized there is just one flesh to wound

– Hafiz in Love Poems from God

19: ON PANENTHEISM IN RELIGION, PHILOSOPHY, AND THE FUTURE

_ _

_

This chapter consists of my Masters’ thesis It was written in the autumn of 2009, and thus was

written after the majority of these volumes, excepting volumes 5 and 7, the two being written

at roughly the same time, and thus you may perceive similarities For the most part, however, I

have striven to make sure that they contain different material This next chapter, 20, will be all

of the information and evidence that I could not include in this thesis due to my word

restriction I have retained its title, though its original title was “Centering Our Worldview,” and

I have therefore used that for chapter 20

PANENTHEISM

TO “WHEN WE KNOW MORE”

C ONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION – WHAT IS PANENTHEISM?

CHAPTER TWO: PANENTHEISM IN THE RELIGIONS

CHAPTER THREE: PANENTHEISM IN PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY

CHAPTER FOUR: PANENTHEISM IN THE PERENNIAL PHILOSOPHY

CHAPTER FIVE: CONCLUSION – PANENTHEISM IN THE FUTURE

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION – WHAT IS PANENTHEISM?

Our era may be on the very cusp of a revolution in thought that many are not yet aware of This revolution is thus one of awareness, an ontological awareness of the nature and being of things, where and what we are This possible dawning of awareness is what is

currently coming into our understanding by the term panentheism – though it is also known

variously in established traditions by such names as nondualism and oneness Everywhere we look in our culture, some say, we can perceive the notions and aspects of this reality And its advocates suggest that its appearance may also be timely, for many separate reasons, but in the greatest sense because if it proves to be true, or even workable with the world in which

we live today, it is what will prolong us upon this earth Indeed, advocates of panentheism claim that it is able to save us in many ways, religiously, politically, ecologically, and more If it

is as it claims to be, then it is the revelation of the oneness of God, creation, and mankind, collectively and personally

John Cooper, author of Panentheism: The Other God of the Philosophers, a book

which reviews the majority of the Western philosophical expressions of this as it has manifested throughout time, defines panentheism as such that “although God and the world are ontologically distinct and God transcends the world, the world is ‘in’ God ontologically”

(18) Panentheism literally means ‘all-in-God-ism.’ This is the Greek-English translation of the German term Allingottlehre, ‘the doctrine that all is in God,’ as Karl Krause, a contemporary of

Schleiermacher, Schelling, and Hegel, coined the term to distinguish his own theology from theism and pantheism This specific term wasn’t popularized, however, until it was used by Charles Hartshorne, a co-founder with A.N Whitehead of Process philosophy and the

twentieth century’s premier panentheist The Oxford English Dictionary of the Christian

Church defines panentheism as “the belief that the Being of God includes and penetrates the

whole universe, so that every part exists in Him, but His Being is more than, and not exhausted by, the universe” (1213) In other words, God is greater than the sum of his/her parts

As this thesis will show, many, if not most, religions are inherently or foundationally panentheistic For example, the Jewish Kabalistic tradition, the Muslim Sufi tradition, most if not all of the Hindu philosophical tradition, and nearly all the other mystical traditions of the world religions are panentheistic Indeed, even the orthodox aspects of these traditions or world religions exemplify panentheism, though most people are currently wholly unaware of such For example, St Augustine, one of founding fathers of the Church and its canon, has this to say in his

Confessions, despite the fact that many would deny he was a panentheist:

I set before the sight of my spirit the whole creation, whatsoever we can see therein (as sea, earth, air, stars, trees, mortal creatures)….But Thee, O Lord, I imagined on every part environing and penetrating it, though every way infinite:

as if there were a sea, everywhere and on every side, through unmeasured space, one only boundless sea, and it contained within it some sponge, huge, but bounded; that sponge must needs, in all its parts, be filled with that unmeasurable sea: so conceived I Thy creation, itself infinite, full of Thee, the Infinite (Clayton 118)

Hartshorne gives us a more technical definition in his and Philip Reese’s book Philosophers

Speak of God:

God is not just the all of “other” things; but yet all other things are literally in him He is not just the whole of ordinary individuals, since he has unity of experience, and all other individuals are objects of this experience, which is

no mere sum of its objects; moreover, his identifying “personality traits” are entirely independent of any sort of ordinary actual individuals whatever To

be himself he does not need this universe, but only a universe, and only

contingently does he even contain this particular actual universe The mere essence of God contains no universe We are truly “outside” the divine essence, though inside God (22)

Panentheism differs from both pantheism and classical or supernatural theism in many important ways Pantheism makes an ontological identification of God and creation, that is, God

is the sum of the parts, but no more, whereas classical or supernatural theism has them to be wholly separate, that is, God is not part of the world but is rather another being outside of it that acts upon it from the outside Pantheism stresses God’s immanence, while panentheism allows for immanence but does not downplay God’s transcendence Panentheism also says that God does not work miracles in creation or in our lives, but rather works through the very laws that constitute our world Often panentheism, in fact its primary metaphor, is that creation is the body

of God, while God’s true being is reserved for what is “beyond” creation yet still one with it Panentheism on the whole, as well as all metaphysics, can even be said to be nothing but an analogy or metaphor, for the truth of the matter – forgive the pun – can never be truly known, for

it is beyond human comprehension Thus the preposition “in,” as in the world is “in” God, can only be loosely used This will be important as we move on in this essay

John Cooper’s volume, mentioned above, is destined to become a classic as well as a primer in understanding the history of panentheism, and likewise for a book edited by Philip

Clayton and Arthur Peacocke entitled In Whom We Live and Move and Have Our Being, a phrase

borrowed from the biblical verse of Acts 17:28, and from an ancient pagan source, meaning Greek, that Paul himself borrowed from The difference with the latter volume is that it deals with the

issue in a more contemporary setting, being subtitled Panentheistic Reflections on God’s Presence

in a Scientific World It is a collection of twenty essays by various writers from scientific, religious,

and philosophical persuasions, all discussing our knowledge of things as they stand today as well

as the possible implications for the future, both near and distant

In his book Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality Matthew Fox, a major force

in contemporary theology, says that panentheism is desperately needed by both individuals and religious institutions today (90) Indeed, Michael Brierley, a chaplain and research assistant to the Anglican bishop of Oxford, observes that this is already occurring to some depth and thus speaks

of the “panentheistic turn” in our thought and world (Brierley 1) Philip Clayton traces this modern or contemporary turn in religion and philosophy back to Nicholas of Cusa, a medieval mystic, scientist, philosopher, and writer, and also to Rene Descartes (2) For the modern era, we may look towards Alfred North Whitehead’s Process philosophy which is considered a “subset” of panentheism, and it is making strides and being felt throughout the academic community, combating both apathetic scholars, that is, those who don’t feel metaphysics has any place in their field, and postmodernism in general, which feels that metaphysics, which is what panentheism is, has no place in the world or our thinking at all

On the other hand, as Brierley further tells us, the “concept has biblical roots, and indeed

is the true ‘orthodoxy,’ and it has been deemed to respond more flexibly than varieties of classical theism to the concerns of feminists, lesbian and gay, ecological, and ‘economic’ liberation theologies, the demands of dialogue between science and religion, and the demands of dialogue between different faiths” (Brierley 4)

If it is true or demonstrable then panentheism, postulating not only the reality of God as creation but also the presence of God within each and every one of us, also stands to accomplish a great deal in the field of philanthropy and our relations with other human beings, that is, the moral aspect of life This moral potential has another potential outcome, that of the place of the churches and other religious institutions in the world, for as Brierley put it, if “God’s goodness is at work more diffusively in the world,” meaning through each of us, “then the church can have no monopoly on goodness or salvation” (Brierley 6) True or not, some are beginning to envision monumental changes about to take place, within and without

Further, some think that such ideas as metaphysics, and panentheism in particular, attempts to explain away everything or to take the mystery out of life Indeed, its adherents seek

to do the very opposite, to demonstrate once and for all that the world is ultimate mystery itself, and likewise is God While trying to “balance divine transcendence and immanence” (Gregersen 19), panentheists understand that neither creation nor God can be explained, let alone claimed to

be understood, by anybody, not just panentheists Panentheism, as stated above, is ultimately just another metaphor for the God-world-human relationship, and according to its adherents it

seems to be the most complete one, if not the one most suited to what seems in fact to be reality The fact remains, however, that no matter what model we take, the sheer fact of existence, God’s, creation’s, and humanity’s seems to elude our comprehension, and perhaps always will Indeed, a foundational question of philosophy is, “Why is there something rather than nothing?”

Panentheists say that creation is God’s body, which is immanent, while God’s essence remains transcendent – another way to put this is that God is the soul of the world As I will argue

in the final chapter, this is why we should stick to something we do know and can accept, that God

is in each and every one of us Those who accept it say that this metaphor for, and particularly this aspect of, the divine-world-human relationship is something that we can believe, somehow, more readily, and thus act on more readily, than the vague state in which many currently live in the 21st century But it will perhaps take the understanding of panentheism in all its ways to get

us to accept God’s being in persons, personally and collectively As Gregersen puts it, “Only that which is born out of love is attuned to the love that God eternally is, and only that which is attuned to divine love can dwell in God” (27)

Another positive doctrine of panentheism is that it more fully explains the reason for evil

in the world and in people, for it leaves us wholly free as individual agents to live out our existence within God in the way that we choose, without postulating the need for God to interfere in personal or world events This is clearly more in line with the scientific perspective And a third positive doctrine is that according to the panentheists all God will do is try to influence or persuade within us through love; and, many argue, this influence and inspiration is the reason that prayer seems to work in many instances, in appropriate instances (Knight 50) To put this biblically, it could perhaps be why Jesus was so adamant about prayer and faith, that is, it’s the only way such can happen, if we open ourselves to the influence of God within ourselves “As Drees has noted, it can affirm ‘an ontological form of transcendence… via a scheme of primary and secondary causes, with the transcendent realm giving effectiveness and reality to the laws of nature and the material world governed by them…God would be the ground of all reality and thus intimately involved in every event – though not as one factor among the natural factors’” (Drees 53) Indeed, Paul Tillich, a hugely influential twentieth century philosopher, put it as God being the Ground of Being, or Being Itself, that all is rooted in and is God himself He also defined religion as that which is of ultimate concern, and in the main this nearly always takes the form of the relationship or being between God, creation, and humanity, individually and collectively

In discussion of this human ultimate concern we should consider the matter of our free will Charles Hartshorne writes that we are “a plurality of active agents within the reality of the supreme agent” (Fowler 28) Or again, “although there is divine influence of every event, there is divine determination of no events” (Griffin in Clayton and Peacocke 43) Some argue that this lack

of divine omnipotence limits God in both perception and fact, but it is said that when one comes

to understand the intricacies of the panentheistic model then all arguments seem to fall by the wayside They seem to have a very profound and sound understanding of things For example,

“even divine power cannot create the good without the risk of the evil” (45), yet is it not better that there be individuals and free choice, rather than God as puppet master and lone personal mind? God would be very lonely without us

Many individuals believe that it could be through people that divine revelation happens, and many panentheists, such as the contemporary intellectual giant David Ray Griffin, contend that panentheism, which he demonstrates is the true postmodernism, is the revelation that has been occurring in the “cultural life of the West…through religious, moral, scientific, and philosophical experience” (36) for quite some time – according to Griffin the past two centuries, though many say since the beginning of history One such example of this revelation is the belief surrounding creation; most panentheists hold, for various reasons, that creation did not have a beginning, that it is eternal and infinite, while classical theism believes that it did have a beginning and that it is finite or of limited space, a greater paradox to be sure

Keith Ward, a comparative theologian and Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford, makes a key observation while speaking of the Hindu saint and philosopher Ramanuja, namely that Ramanuja believes, following the writings of the ancient Hindu Upanishads, that “ultimate reality (Brahman), individual selves, and the cosmos as a whole are identical” (Ward in Clayton and Peacocke 62) This is very similar to what Spinoza – historically a pantheist but with many panentheistic tendencies – called “dual aspect monism.” Philip Clayton rightly observes, however, that “monism leaves inadequate place for individual difference or the integrity of creation… On the other hand, a sharp distinction between God and world has led in the modern period to deism and to the apparent impossibility of divine action” (Clayton 82) Thus, the panentheists argue, the answer lies in between these two philosophies, and thus also the term nondualism, or also “unity-in-difference The world is neither indistinguishable from God nor (fully) ontologically separate from God” (82) Similarly, Hartshorne calls his philosophy “di-polar theism.” And this is the major

meaning of the process of what is called Process philosophy, being able to move back and forth between the divine and human context in understanding or awareness

Also discussing the relationship between God and the world, Keith Ward speaks on the well-known European philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, whom he sees as approaching closest to Ramanuja Of him Ward says, “Hegel sees the universe as an emergent historical process which is the self-realization and unfolding of Absolute Spirit” (64) For Hegel, God is incomplete without the world, for it is part of the self-expression of his nature and part of the divine perfection And Ward speaks also on Whitehead, for whom, as we saw above, God’s acts are limited to those which do not undermine human freedom, and in a certain way, whose being is revealed through human acts Similarly, the body, or even the material world, are not some clothing that we put on and take off, rather the body, whether man’s or God’s, are integral parts

of what the whole being in fact is “The body constitutes, even creates, the self” (68) It is thus that Ward draws our attention to 2Peter 1:4, that people are “sharers in the divine nature.” This

is what Ward calls “eschatological panentheism” (72), and what mystics around the world, as well

as the Orthodox Church, call by such names as theosis, that is, divinization or deification, or some,

such as Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell and their followers, by the term apotheosis

Any discussion of panentheism must also engage the scientific aspect or consideration of the panentheistic worldview There are many scientists, including Arthur Peacocke, Philip Clayton, and John Polkinghorne, as well as philosophical and religious panentheists who propound a model

of panentheism called emergence Emergence is an evolutionary view where God is slowly revealing himself or has slowly revealed himself through time, beginning from the subatomic and atomic levels and concluding with consciousness itself, whatever that may be, human consciousness being the be all end all of God’s purpose in an evolving creation It may further be said that God is revealing himself through this slow process of emergence, revealing himself, thus,

to humanity, who is then able to look back to God within and without and partake of revelation Some even go so far as to say that “humanity is the transcendence of the immanent, emergent God” (Morowitz 134) Evelyn Underhill calls this “the nearness yet otherness of the Eternal” (157)

Alfred North Whitehead takes a similar view of creation, arguing that we can envision things as circles within circles, panentheistic realities within larger panentheistic realities, till we finally get to God himself This is something like the ontological argument as formulated by Anselm in the twelfth century, that is, God is something or a reality which no larger reality can be thought of It also has some loose ties to Platonic philosophy But since God can also be said to be

“an intelligible sphere whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere,” panentheists would say that this is an ontology without ontology Peacocke, a key thinker in this scientific-panentheistic discussion, says that each whole is thus “not logically reducible to those used to describe their constituent parts” (Peacocke 138) Each level or circle “expresses in and through them God’s own inherent rationality” (145) The Orthodox Bishop Kallistos Ware puts it, “creation

is not something upon which God acts from the exterior, but something through which he expresses himself from within” (Ware 159)

The Orthodox tradition, meaning the Christian East, is inherently panentheistic, putting forth the idea of God’s energies and his essence, the latter of which is wholly transcendent and unknown by humans Ware traces this exact distinction back to “at least” Philo of Alexandria, who

distinguishes between God’s “acts of power,” his dynameis and his “nature” or physis, the latter of

which cannot be known However, this distinction definitely goes back much further than that, but in the Western tradition Ware is correct in his analysis Ware then traces this as it has indeed found its place in the history of Western thought Further, as a Christian, Ware considers the immanent aspect of divinity to be the Logos, that is, Christ And he discusses Maximos the Confessor and quotes Gregory Palamas, both highly influential Orthodox voices from the past and both panentheists, to this effect, that Christ is all things, all Form, while the Father is essence behind Form and the forms Palamas finally says that “those privileged to attain union with God are united to him with respect to his energy” (163), that is, to Christ through the agency of the Holy Spirit, for God’s ineffable essence remains transcendent and unobtainable, whether here or hereafter Thus, says Ware, Palamite panentheism emphasizes “becoming rather than being,” for

we must, he argues, distinguish between God himself and the charismatic gifts that he bestows upon living creatures Finally, says Ware, all this is to evoke in us a response, that is, in order to further our becoming Without a response by us all is lost, whether personally or collectively It implies love, “sharing, exchange, self-giving” (Ware 168)

Professor Andrew Louth, in his discussion of Maximos the Confessor, goes as far as to say that the very purpose and goal of God’s immanence in creation, indeed the purpose of creation itself, is to realize God’s immanence in man; that is, to realize “union with God, or more boldly in deification” (Louth 184) He further argues that there is a “particular coinherence of God, the universe, and the human” (185) and that it is this conception that will bring together religion and science Louth, similar to Whitehead’s circles, says that “the universe has a meaning, both as a whole and in each of its parts That ‘meaning’ is logos: everything that exists has its own logos,

and that logos is derived from God the Logos To have meaning, logos, is to participate in the Logos of God” (188) Further, “the logoi, in one sense at least, are created: they belong to the created order In another sense they are uncreated, because they are, as it were, God’s thoughts,” and these are “expressions of the divine will” (188) Louth, like others, also writes that this requires our personal effort and participation, for it is only through our participation that “our understanding is deepened,” effecting an “inner transformation” (190)

The modern era, being the last three hundred years or so, perhaps beginning philosophically with Kant or the Enlightenment, has been very suspicious of if not fully rejecting of anything having to do with metaphysics Indeed, the term itself has met with derision and has come to mean anything outside of the ordinary lines of philosophical discussion But postmodernity is looking again at metaphysical claims, meaning cosmology and ontology One side of the postmodern discussion – for there are two divergent strains – even fully accepts metaphysics, if not yet stating it outright However, those who root themselves in that strain of Heidegger in the last century, who critiqued all such arguments of God as well as all metaphysics, believe the final nail has already been put in the coffin As I will conclude, I don’t think we should

be, or even can be, so hasty in pronouncing metaphysics, and especially panentheism, dead

In this final document my goal is to explain what panentheism is and to cite historical examples of its manifestation in the thought of people through time and place Through this I hope to demonstrate that it is the root and being of all religion Each chapter takes on a different piece of this project In chapter two we will look at the major world religions of Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Sikhism, and The Baha’i Faith I will argue that panentheism is discernable in, among other texts, the New Testament and parts of the Old Testament, the Upanishads, the Rig Veda, the Bhagavad-Gita, in the four-cornered negation of

Nagarjuna, in important Buddhist doctrines, verses from the Tao Te Ching (alt Dao De Jing) and from the philosopher Chuang Tzu, the Koran and the Hadith, the Adi Granth, and in the writings of

the Baha’I founder, Baha’u’llah I will argue that panentheism is the root of all religion, but is expressed very differently throughout them

Chapter three explores some of the major thinkers from history including philosophers, theologians, poets, mystics, and scientists, and show that they have all been inspired by panentheism Since I have explored panentheism in the modern world with Hartshorne and Whitehead in this introduction, in chapter three I will focus on the writings of Plotinus, John

Scottus Eriugena, Ibn ‘Arabi, and Paul Tillich, thus representing the ancient world, the Christian middle ages, Islam, and postmodernism

Chapter four explores the Perennial Philosophy, also known as Traditionalism, through the works of Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Frithjof Schuon, AK Coomaraswamy, and others The Perennial philosophers have developed panentheism most clearly because the Perennial Philosophy includes the thought of all religions Moreover, Traditionalism makes metaphysics the whole of its religious philosophy, and these writers are an important link in understanding metaphysics, as well

as seeing how it could possibly change the way we see the world, as I’ll argue in chapter five

And finally, in chapter five, I argue that panentheism has much to offer both individuals, communities, and the world at large I will argue why religions might want to consider or would benefit from realizing their panentheistic roots and move away from the fundamental trend that has been happening, for as I stated at the outset, religion cannot be unified in any way from the particular doctrines, but must do so from the metaphysical foundation and worldview that is, in essence, panentheism

CHAPTER TWO: PANENTHEISM IN THE RELIGIONS

In this chapter I will explore the religions, showing how panentheism permeates each

I will concentrate on Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Sikhism, and The Baha’i Faith.1 These world religions, despite each having their local colorings, are all panentheistic Thus I will concentrate on their foundational or metaphysical similarities, similarities which are overtly evident yet which have gone largely unnoticed by many scholars and laypeople alike In the final chapter I will discuss their differences and what we might do about both the similarities and the differences, which is to say, how we might bring them together, the very definition of religion, and, in the end, how panentheism relates directly to ethics

Reality and Truth are synonymous in Hinduism, sat, a word that can also mean

existence or being (Fowler 5) The search for this Truth is the search for what is “behind” the universe we perceive with our senses, that is, behind in both the inner and outer universe, for

in Hinduism the within and without are parallel, or mirror images of each other In Hinduism, further, each religion is considered a particular way to view the Truth or Reality, Hinduism

being but one expression of it, a darshana There is the often quoted saying from the Rig

Veda that “Truth is one, though sages speak of it as many.” Hinduism is considered by its followers to be the oldest surviving form of the Truth, and thus they called their religion not

Hinduism, but rather sanatana dharma, the eternal way or path

It can be said that the Hindu religion is one based ultimately on or rooted in metaphysics or cosmology, in short, in ontology, or the science of being, taking the form of panentheism Without knowing this primer, nothing else can be known Therefore I will thus demonstrate that Reality/Truth as conceived by Hindus is panentheistic, utilizing the sacred texts of the religion to do so First of all we should consider the oldest known works, the

Vedas, then the Upanishads, third the Bhagavad-Gita, and finally the Vedanta These four

pieces of Hindu Scripture are called shruti, meaning “what was heard,” i.e by the ancient

seers

The oldest are The Vedas, from the root vid which means wisdom or knowledge,

going back at least as far as 1500BCE,though some say much earlier There are four, but the first and most well known is called the Rig Veda It is here that Indian panentheism originates, primarily in a section called the Purusha sukta which is hymn 10.90 in that Veda It identifies Vishnu as Supreme Being and is paralleled in much later literature All later divine beings, whether the sun and moon or the Brahmans, come from parts of his body He is everywhere and “envelops this world from all sides and has transcended it by ten ‘inches.’” It says outright that “All this is verily Purusha All that which existed in the past or will come into the being in the future (is also the Purusha)…However, the Purusha is greater than this All the beings form only a quarter (part of) Him The three-quarter part of His, which is eternal, is established in the spiritual domain.” “He pervades this universe,” and we are told in the final two verses that all the other gods are under his control (Rig Veda, 10.90)

Brahman, another name for the Supreme Being, is Being itself, that which is “smaller than the small,” that is, it is not measurable, the infinitely small (Chatterji 15) It is “like a point” (16), everywhere and nowhere (17), the manifest and unmanifest, which in truth are the same And it is also the ideal everything (40) It is all forms, but also beyond all form

Another part of the Vedas focuses on the notion of rita, the established order of creation, the natural, the ethico-social, and the religious-sacrificial norms Rita is the Supreme

Law underlying all phenomena, but this doesn’t mean it is merely an impersonal force It is

from this that all other laws are derived, the order of creation It is rita which defines the

sanatana dharma Even the gods are subject to it It is rita which determines the

transcendental harmony of all things, without it there being naught but chaos It therefore is

also the root of social and religious harmony Rita, according to some, is the earliest expression of the concept of deity, a sort of tat that would later be formulated as tat tvam asi,

“thou art that,” what would in the Upanishads be called Brahman It is the Vedic revelation

par excellence (Miller, chapter fourteen)

The aspect of modern Hinduism called Vaishnavism, named after Vishnu, also comes directly from this and holds that creation exists in the mind of the God, being a dream of his, though nonetheless real for us It has often been said that the “world is a dream where all the dream characters dream too.”

Next in time come the Upanishads, which were written by forest-dwelling rishis or

holy men around 800BCE These are also considered to be shruti, or that which was heard, considered as a continuation of the Vedas, as are all the sacred texts of Hinduism, which is further why it calls itself the sanatana dharma, for they are simply trying to find – or hearing –

another way to express and understand the Truth This is also why there are said to be seven incarnations or avatars of the Supreme Being throughout Hindu history, each avatar meant to

dispense, through upaya or skillful means, the Truth in a form that could be understood by a

particular people and time

If the Vedas are said to be incantatory, the Upanishads can be said to be more overtly mystical The Upanishads develop to a greater extent the reality, or Reality, that one is living

in, the most well known teaching from them being, from the Chandogya Upanishad, “Thou art that (tat tvam asi),” meaning that one is Reality, for the inner and outer are one This is expressed through what the Upanishads call Brahman and Atman, or God and Self These are

two ways of saying the same thing, the first being the outward soul of Being and the latter the

inner soul of the individual’s being Brahman is panentheistic and is all-pervasive, and thus he

exists as the inner Self or Atman It is the understanding of this that is the crux of all understanding, devoted Hindus spending the major part of their lives in the endeavor of intuitively understanding this Reality

The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, probably the oldest and most influential of these texts on readers as well as on other such texts, tells us that God is “That which is above

heaven and below earth, which is also between heaven and earth, which is the same through

the past, present, and future” (III.8.4), and that space is woven upon him The Upanishads

thus further teach how to see God in others and in and as all things This is the well known cornerstone of the Hindu worldview, and it begins by realizing that God, or Reality, is “without inside or outside” (III.8.8)

Next in time came what is by some called the cap or last of the Upanishads, the

by many Hindus today to be their most sacred book It consists of a lengthy dialogue between Krishna, an avatar of Vishnu, and his devotee Arjuna It is perhaps the most explicit and unconcealed declaration of panentheism in the world’s religious literature

In no less than thirty verses does Krishna explicitly attempt to clarify Reality to the humble Arjuna 2:17 tells us that Krishna pervades all and is thus indestructible, and 4:11 et

al tells us that all paths or religions are paths towards the reality of Krishna 4:35 explains that all spiritual essence is one with the devotee and that all abides in Krishna Text 6:29 is key, for it tells us that “He who is disciplined in yoga sees the Supreme Self existing in all beings and all beings existing in the Supreme Self He sees equally at all times.” And 7:7 says that nothing is superior to Him, everything resting on Him “like pearls on a thread.” Indeed, Vasudeva, i.e Krishna, is everything (7:19) Krishna explains himself as being “both that which exists and that which doesn’t exist” (9:19), and that “those who worship me with devotion are

in me, and I am also in them” (9:29) 10:39 says that Krishna is the “seed of all existence,” and that “nothing moving or unmoving can exist without [Him],” while 10:40 makes clear that

“there is no end to [His] manifestation,” that is, the universe is infinite, which further is supported by “a mere portion of [Himself]!” And that His true form cannot be seen by human eyes (11:8), and that even seeing a form of Him makes one lose their sense of direction (11:25) 11:38 tells us that Krishna is the “ultimate resting place of the entire universe” and that He pervades all of it And to sum all this up is verse 13:16, “He is outside and inside all

beings He moves and yet remains still Being subtle, he is incomprehensible; He is far, yet near as well.”

And the last of the revelations or shruti is what is called the Vedanta, meaning the culmination or end of the Veda or Wisdom/Truth which has run through these dispensations The Vedanta is the most philosophical of shruti, and it is comprised by many schools of thought, of which we will be considering Advaita Vedanta, that is, nondual Vedanta, the most

influential and well known school Drawing from the other three revelations, it comes as no surprise to see that its two primary lines of thought are, first, “What is the relationship

between Brahman and the Self?,” and second, “What is the relationship between Brahman

and the world?”

The answer it posits is that the three are identical, that God, the universe, and humanity are one in One and One in one, which is the meaning of nondual or not-two-ness

Its main proponents, themselves creating two lines of thought within the school of Advaita

Vedanta, are Shankara and Ramanuja They both proposed that there is no duality to Reality,

that all is one supreme spiritual being and that e perceived materiality is actually an effect of maya, or illusion, that the aspirant must get beyond in order to perceive the Truth, that is,

Brahman, the underlying reality that persists through all time and space This is in accord with

the myths of Hinduism going back to its earliest beginning Indeed, because Brahman is

non-material, it can be said that creation is non-spatial, spatiality and form thus being the most persistent illusion one must see past in order to know the Truth That is to say, one must get

beyond the avidya or nontruth that is perceived by the senses and taught in the world at

large And the quintessential Hindu way of doing this is by meditating on the 333,000 Gods who are each forms of the formless This is what is most often confused about Hinduism, for

it is not a polytheistic religion, but is rather henotheistic, one God and many psycho-spiritual ways of expressing Him

BUDDHISM

One might think that in Buddhism is not panentheist because many think there to be

no God in its philosophy, but such is not the case First of all, there is not just one Buddhism, there are many Buddhisms Under the umbrella term Buddhism there are first of all three

“baskets” or divisions: Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana Theravada is the earliest,

Mahayana the largest, and Vajrayana the Tibetan form which builds off of Mahayana and Hindu Tantrism C D Sebastian rightly makes the point that “Mysticism has got sense if and

only if there is Metaphysics” (267), and that “Metaphysics or true philosophy (prajna) is

nondual knowledge – Intuition of the Real Here the possibility of intellectual intuition is not only accepted but is taken to be the very heart of reality It is the Truth In Intuition, Knowledge and the Real coincide; essence and the existence are identical” (268) And he adds

that “advaya is knowledge free from the duality of extremes,” even of Being and Becoming,

that is, the Truth is “beyond all conceptual tendencies” (271)

The great sage Nagarjuna would later develop the four-cornered negation, for example, 1) the universe is, 2) the universe is not, 3) the universe both is and is not, and 4) the universe neither is nor isn’t This is related to what Buddhists mean by emptiness, that is, empty of inherent existence, which is to say, it doesn’t exist, and yet it is here Everyday thought cannot reach this ineffable reality, which is why Intuition is so important To have

permanently achieved this state is to have reached nirvana, or in another sense, the Zen notion of satori

Again, while some may argue the fact that Buddhists don’t worship a God, it is not true that they don’t believe in one First, that they don’t worship a God means only that they don’t ask the question about him, that is, they see it as irrelevant to their purposes Buddhists

are seeking nirvana, emptiness, and to them they don’t need a God to realize such within themselves Second, in some sects, such as Pure Land Buddhism, there is most definitely the

idea of higher beings It is also true that many Buddhists do recognize a God, especially in the American Buddhism that is beginning to gain strength and support Third and likewise, even many “Eastern” Buddhists do recognize a God, that is, they see the Buddha as God, and some even worship him as what is called Adibuddha, who contains the whole of creation within him And it is well known and fully attested by all Buddhists that Buddha-nature is everywhere and in everything, that it is all creation and also that we are each to strive to attain it within ourselves To clarify, it’s not that Buddhism is theistic, but rather it’s not atheistic, as many people assume to be the case for all of Buddhism

Another way to look at supposed lack of deity is through the doctrine of

pratitya-samutpada, which says that nothing exists independently or apart from all other things

Everything is one To understand this one must have the vision of shunyata or nothingness,

for in truth there is nothing that has autonomous being However, we shouldn’t mistake this

for there being a void, for a void is nothing in another more absolute sense, a sense that is not real but rather illusion It is because everything is one that there is universal harmony on all scales If there were not this essential harmony there would be nothing; existence is harmony Similarly, “All are one in Buddha, for all sentient beings possess the Essence of Buddha-hood It is the all-embracing ground of Buddha-hood It pervades everything and moves everything In it all beings are united…It is the basis for world culture, harmony and unity” (Sebastian 284)

All of this is perhaps artfully summed up in the term “unbounded wholeness,” coming

in an ancient Tibetan text called the Authenticity of Open Awareness If one thinks about this

term, unbounded wholeness, we not too vaguely conceive an infinite space which is ever overflowing, that is, panentheism Further, everyone has the seed or potential for Buddha-nature within them, for it is the ultimate nature of everything Those who can are expected to develop this potentiality both within themselves and as a practice for their outer life Within

oneself this is called developing one’s bodhicitta, the wisdom-mind, which is said to be “vast

as the heavens and deep as the sea.” In developing this mind, which is no-mind, one becomes increasingly perfect or more realized in emptiness, of oneself and in creation One who has achieved such clarity of insight but yet remains in the world to help others do the same is

called a Bodhisattva.i

TAOISM

In Taoism (alt Daoism) there are three main or primary writings: those of Lao-Tzu –

called the Tao Te Ching – that of Chuang Tzu, and that of Lieh-Tzu Some current researchers

conjecture that it’s uncertain if any of these three men existed historically, but I will here consider the works of the first two of them, regardless of their historicity

The name Lao-Tzu means Old Master, of whom it is said that after writing his book in

three days he walked away and was never heard from again The book he wrote, Tao Te

Ching (alt Dao De Jing), meaning something like the Way and Its Virtue, or Power, consists of

81 short teachings designed to help the aspirant achieve the highest realization of the truth of being, that of creation and that of oneself, and how these go together and are one reality Though Lao-Tzu doesn’t necessarily mean a personal God as we understand it, we can clearly

see that these are all panentheistic statements, being-within-Being, as well as immaterial ones Once again we see the union of existing and not-existing (in the technical sense)

Verse 1 is the most well known of Taoist texts:

A way that can be walked is not The Way A name that can be named is not The Name Tao is both Named and Nameless As Nameless, it is the origin of all things As Named, it is the mother of all things A mind free of thought merged within itself, beholds the essence of Tao A mind filled with thought, identified with its own perceptions, beholds the mere forms of this world Tao and this world seem different but in truth they are one and the same The only difference is what we call them How deep and mysterious is this unity How profound, how great! It is the truth behind the truth, the hidden within the hidden It is the path to all wonder, the gate to the essence of everything (Star 14)

Verse 4 tells us that “Tao is empty yet it fills every vessel with endless supply Tao is hidden yet it shines in every corner of the universe” (17) And 5 has that the universe “stays empty yet is never exhausted It gives out yet always brings forth more (18) And more directly relevant to our purpose here, verse 6 tells us that the Hidden Creator who is the whole universe “assumes countless forms, [but] Her true identity remains intact.” Also in verse 6 we are told that “Whatever we see or don’t see, whatever exists or doesn’t exist, is nothing but the creation of this Supreme Power Tao is limitless, unborn, eternal” (19) And

in verse 25 Lao-Tzu calls it “That which is beyond the beyond” (38) It is also said that her voice echoes through all creation

The same ideas appear throughout the text Verse 11 says that this “nothingness,

emptiness, non-existence” (24) is called wu To achieve it verse 12 says “the sage is led by his

inner truth and not his outer eye” (25) Verse 13 says that it is our false sense of self that leads to all suffering and sorrow, that we are identifying with the body and materiality rather than with the truth of our inner being The “great Unity” lies beyond the senses It is

“invisible, inaudible, intangible” (verse 14) If we knew the Tao we would “know everything here and now” (27), and nothing can be truly known without first knowing the truth of the Tao It is thus said, “What could he (a person) grab for that he does not already have? What could he do for himself that the universe has not already done?” (20)

Lao-Tzu, like others, calls this process an unfolding (verse 15) Further, Lao-Tzu tells

us that the evidence of Tao is all of creation, and it is the life-breath of all things (verse 21)

“One who lives in accordance with the Truth becomes the embodiment of Tao His actions become those of Nature, his ways those of Heaven” (verse 23) To achieve this one must know that the “inner is the foundation of the outer” (verse 26) Lao-Tzu calls this path “The Path of Illumination” (verse 27), and it is not a path of accumulation but rather of reduction,

of chiseling away all the excess and all that is not needed, finally reaching a state of fullness The Tao flows through everything (verse 28) and is “without a second” (verse 32), and thusly are we to perceive it, until we are finally able to “hold the whole world,” for

empty-“holding all things within himself he preserves the Great Unity which cannot be ruled or divided” (verse 28) “This world is nothing but the glory of Tao expressed through different names and forms” (verse 32), and nothing is self-existent The great Tao fills everything (verse 34) “Tao does not act yet it is the root of all action Tao does not move yet it is the source of all creation… When there is silence one finds the anchor of the universe within himself” (verse 37)

Speaking metaphorically for metaphysics or cosmology, Lao Tzu writes, “The pieces of

a chariot are useless unless they work in accordance with the whole” (verse 39) Further, he says the “existent world is born of the nothingness of Tao” (verse 40), and though “Tao lies hidden it alone is the glorious light of this world” (verse 41) “Tao gives life to the one The one gives birth to the two The two gives birth to the three The three gives birth to the ten

thousand things All beings support yin and embrace yang, and the interplay of these two

forces fills the universe Yet only at the still-point…can one capture these two in perfect harmony” (verse 42) And Lao-Tzu then tells us that the foundation of his teachings is that “As you plant, so you reap.” This goes for our knowledge as well, and thus Lao-Tzu affirms that

“Without going outside one can know the whole world Without looking out the window one can see the ways of Heaven” (verse 47)

The parallels with panentheism are striking We are told by the ancient sages that realization of panentheism gives birth to understanding within ourselves Knowing the Eternal brings enlightenment (verse 55), and part of this is realizing that “Tao alone becomes all things great and all things small It is the One in many It is the many in One” (verse 63) And when we realize that we find that “Tao is the great treasure-house, the true nature…This is why the ancient masters honored the inward path of Tao Did they not say ‘Seek and you will

find?’ ‘Err and you will be forgiven.’ Within, within This is where the world’s treasure has always been” (verse 62) “Let Tao become all your actions, then your wants will be your treasure, your injury will become your blessing” (verse 63) “He who knows the nature of Tao and Te knows the nature of the universe Tao brings forth Te from its own being Te expands

in all directions, filling every corner of the world, becoming the splendor of all creation” (verse 65)

The second primary source of Taoism is the Book of Chuang-Tzu This work is a

collection of short stories or lessons that seek to instruct one in all we just saw about the work

of Lao-Tzu As with the Tao and all of what the ancient sages tell us, merely hearing and

learning these stories will not help one bit As with all religion, experience is key to both understanding and praxis Without it one has learned nothing, for Reality in the true mind and heart will not have been attained Thus Chuang-Tzu seeks to illustrate the finer points through these stories, oftentimes utilizing laughter as method, as opposed to Lao-Tzu’s contemplation of proverbs In a sense Chuang-Tzu could be considered a shaman, leading us towards realization

Chuang-Tzu is overtly panentheistic in these narratives or dialogues, speaking much

of the One which upholds all creation and of the harmony of Heaven For example, he in another metaphor, one of love standing for the invisible force upholding all creation, he says that “Love embraces all forms of life and Heaven and Earth are of One” (Palmer and Breuilly 305) He also taught that we must go beyond the senses, for if we don’t perceive Heaven then they, the senses, compete with each other for prominence (241) And he too tells us that the

“Tao does not have an existence, nor does it not have an existence” (234) He, like the others, says that the “sage goes beyond confusion and diversity and makes everything into one body Even though he does not know for certain how, he is true to his innate nature He comes back

to destiny and reacts appropriately” (226) This is not only a panentheistic statement, but also reflects on how we must use our heart and our inherent intellect or intuition

Chuang-Tzu also believes in a time when all mankind will understand that “Heaven is

in everything,” which he calls the “great unconfusing.” By this he means precisely panentheism, that all is Heaven but in varying degrees To attain this he tells us to “begin in what is” (223) and reason from there When the sages would do such they came to the realization that the Tao is the “palace of No-Place,” the One where all things come together

(180), much like the Buddhist emptiness It is “complete, all-embracing, universal: three different words but with the same reality, all referring back to the One” (193)

Finally, parallel to the Buddhist pratitya-samutpada, Chuang-Tzu tells us that “all

forms of life give each other shape through birth” (191) Further, creation and life is not ours, but is rather the “combining harmony of Heaven and Earth” (190) Thus there is nothing inherently bad or evil “The value of your self lies within, and is not affected by what happens externally The constant transformation of all forms of life is like a beginning without end” (180) And he tells us that “Heaven and humanity are one” (173) And the enlightened sage is called a Son of Heaven All of this is wrapped up in or derives from the Reality of panentheism

JUDAISM

Panentheism is also evident in, if not intrinsic to, Judaism, for the God of Israel has no body and is both transcendent and immanent, something that would be developed by post-biblical writers Perhaps the greatest of Jewish panentheists is Moses ben Maimon, also known as Maimonides or Ram Bam, lived in the 1200’s, and we’ll look at him in the next chapter Panentheism would become more common in Kabbalah and Hasidic Judaism with the figures of Moses Cordovero and Isaac Luria, and aspects of it are also evident in Reconstructionist Judaism and in the writings of those such as Mordecai Kaplan and Abraham Joshua Heschel After the mid-1800s the idea became accepted in the Orthodox camp as well

It is true that for many Jews the idea of a panentheistic God remains heretical, however, my primary concern here is with the sacred text of Judaism, the Hebrew Scriptures, known to Christians as the Old Testament.ii

The Bible on the whole can be read metaphysically, and when such is done it can be seen to be overtly panentheistic For example, consider these explicit panentheistic passages from the Old Testament, or Hebrew Scriptures: “The heaven and the Heaven of heavens cannot contain me” (2Chr 2:6), i.e that God transcends the cosmos And “The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows his handiwork” (Ps 19:1-2), meaning that God is imminent or revealed through the world but is not only it And even more revelatory is this familiar passage: “Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your

presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make a bed in hell, behold you are there If

I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me If I say, ‘Surely the darkness shall fall

on me,’ even the night shall be light about me” (Ps 139:7-11) And finally, though not exhausting such statements in the Bible, is the blatant remark by God himself to the effect of,

“Can anyone hide himself in secret places, so I shall not see him? Do not I fill Heaven and Earth? (Jer 23:24) And perhaps most significant of all biblical truths is that statement and simply God’s name itself, “I Am That I Am,” that God is all being

And thus we see, the Bible needs to be read in a wholly new way, a panentheistic way that hasn’t been done as yet on the whole, especially not by scholars, or for a very long time,

at least Even the opening words of the entire book, all the way back to Genesis 1, can be read panentheistically, for there is no direction, that is, it doesn’t say whether he is creating within himself or outside of himself From the beginning we have been told that God is above

us, but that is only part of what the sacred texts tell us, and it has potentially drastic implications for culture, indeed, for individuals

CHRISTIANITY

The New Testament is also a trove of panentheistic statements and passages In fact, fully or properly understanding the text depends on reading it within the context of panentheism, of God everywhere and within each of us Here again we must start “In the beginning,” that is, with John 1: “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” As with Genesis 1, the verse doesn’t actually specify whether the Word is meant within God or outside of God, and thus I argue we should understand that both are the case, that God is in man because man is in God Second, the Word is creation on the whole, and we are told that it is God and is yet, somehow, separate from God That is to say, the two things are truly One, nondual

Perhaps the most obvious panentheistic statement in the biblical tradition comes in Acts 17:28 (although in truth Paul is “borrowing” from a Greek source) “He is not far from each one of us; for in him we live, and move, and have our being, as some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are his offspring.’” The profundity and importance of this statement must