You asked: “Say What?”
That’s what I first thought when I came upon this in spiritual texts:
- Form is Form, Emptiness is Emptiness
- Form is Emptiness, Emptiness is Form
- No Form, No Emptiness
- The universe is just “Like This”
But if you think about it, when conceiving of (or naming) God - isn’t “Say What?” the only response that indicates you ‘get it’ - or at least ‘don’t get it wrong.’ In other words, the moment you think you ‘get’ God, you are furthest away from whatever the word ‘God’ points to.
Because Quantum Mechanics and Einstein’s Physics operate at (and within) the level of Name and Form, the truth will always appear to be whatever is measured.
It’s very difficult to understand if you’re trying to conceptualize it - you can read all you want about hitting a baseball, but if you are thinking about what you read when the pitch arrives, you will not even know the ball has already passed to the catcher’s glove.
So to know God, you have to let go of all opinions, conceptions, knowledge and then this ‘Say What?’ is unproblematic. ‘Say What?’ is about as close to the true nature of Heaven that you can get while confronting it from Name and Form. (this ‘Name and Form’ world is ‘The World’ as Jesus called it, as opposed to the ‘Kingdom,’ which existed along side, as it were.)
Concepts can not hit a baseball, no matter how accurately you describe it’s mechanics.
A Zen master once said it this way: “Only you can pee for yourself.”
So to understand ‘neither zero, nor one, nor many’ ... only you can pee for yourself :-)
I know it sounds weird, but Einstein and Quantum Mechanics will never get out of their frustrating fish bowl where zero becomes one becomes infinity and returns to zero until they see something like “ahhh, the light is both a wave and a particle, at the same time, though it never is, and never was, nor will be, it was everything all along, eternal, yet never existed - neither zero times, nor one time, nor many.”
Our eyes are covered by the dust of space and time (The World), connecting dots that aren’t. With language like the verb ‘to be.’
All that is necessary is to put these things down, for even an instant. Would God really manifest in a realm constrained by ‘must be zero or one or many Gods.’
Above is not dogma. Just a way of looking at ‘The World’ that helps clear it away so what’s already there behind the illusion can manifest.
Very nice post. Thank you.
You make a good point about the peril of being fooled by world’s dark illusion — we all need the light of God.
“Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father but is of the world. The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever.”
Fortunately, “There came a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to testify abut the Light, so that all might believe through him. He was not the Light, but he came to testify about the Light.
“There was the true Light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man. He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.”
God is, by his divine character, incomprehensible to humans, but He is easy to get to know. He is not far from us, ever, unless we first turn away from Him.
“The heavens are telling of the glory of God; And their expanse is declaring the work of His hands. Day to day pours forth speech, And night to night reveals knowledge.”
Many good people take this awareness of God’s greatness and seek him.
“The woman said to Him, ‘Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. ‘Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and you people say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.’
“Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers.
“’God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.
” The woman said to Him, ‘I know that Messiah is coming (He who is called Christ); when that One comes, He will declare all things to us.’
Jesus said to her, ‘I who speak to you am He.’”
Unfortunately, many people come to the wrong conclusions about God “because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.…”
But the way to the light is before us even today, “Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, ‘I am the light of the world; he who follows me will not walk in the darkness, but will have seen the light of life.’”