(Relative to the "fallibility" of the bible, other comparable religious texts, their sources, etc).
<<<REAL GOD IS THE INDIVISIBLE ONENESS OF UNBROKEN LIGHT: Part Four, by Adi Da Samraj
The Real Intention and True Message of "Creation" Myths
(1) Popular traditional religion tends to be associated with "Creation" myths, or archetypal and allegorical stories (which certainly do not qualify as eyewitness reports on the origins of the physical world) that, in their proposed details, try to account for the existence of the world and mankind as the effects of acts on the part of either one or many Deities (or cosmically Powerful Beings). The origin of such stories is in the "primitive" awe of existence experienced by (generally) pre-"civilized" human individuals and groups. That awe was experienced in relation to the mysteriously and unaccountably existing natural and human world, and the "Creation" stories were themselves human psychic creations, or projections of the human psyche onto (and through) the natural forms of existence.
(2) Indeed, "primitive" myth-making expresses a fundamental and profound (and, ultimately, Spiritual) Realization, that the "natural" world is not merely physical, but it is entirely psycho-physical, or an interplay of the psychic (or the mental, or the "invisible") and the physical, and that both the "visible" (or physical) and the (generally) "invisible" are Rooted In What Transcends both psychic and physical phenomena. Likewise, that same Realization affirms that human existence (fully embraced) is not merely a matter of knowing and suffering (or, otherwise, manipulating) physical events, but it is a kind of Quest, or Great Ordeal, wherein the human individual (and human cultures) must ever strive to achieve psychic unity (or psychic reunification) with the natural world, psychic (and total psycho-physical) association with the Power that Pervades the natural world, and Ultimate Realization of the Inherently Perfect (or, Inherently, Perfectly Free and Happy) Condition beyond even the total (or psycho-physical) world. And this Great Ordeal is (or was, and must be) presumed to involve the constant transcending of merely physical reality by the constant invocation (or evocation) of the psyche, the Great Power (or many Great Powers, or many lesser powers) that can Help it, and the Great (or True and Inherently Perfect and Perfectly Subjective) Self-Condition That Is its Ultimate Source-Condition. Therefore, the "Creation" stories (and even all culturally operative myths) were (or are) intended not merely to account for natural existence, but to project human beings into a participatory psychic (and not at all abstracted, or merely intellectual) relationship to the natural world (including its "invisible" or "inner" dimensions).
(3) "Creation" stories generally communicate via images associated with the physically (or gross1 bodily) based psyche (although they may contain representations of psychic contents that are meaningful in the context of each and all of the first five stages of life). And although one "God", and many "Gods", and many "Goddesses" are described in "Creation" myths as the Causative Powers (or "Creators") of the world and mankind, the original motive and source of these descriptions was not any otherwise independent experience of either the local or the universal Deity (or Deities), but the primal (or psychically "primitive") experience of awe (or fear and wonder) in the context of gross bodily existence in the "natural" (or conditional and cosmic) world.
(4) In other words, the "creative" source (or productive motive) of "Creation" myths was (or is) not "God", "Gods", or "Goddesses", but the psychically (and psychologically) mysterious and terrible experience of physical existence and the physical world (or physically defined bodily existence within the physical periphery, or "outer" limits, of the psycho-physical world). On the basis of that experience, the human psyche anciently began (and always presently begins) its "natural" work of generating (or spontaneously Revealing) psychically effective means for transcending fear and for Realizing true (or fearless) participation in the apparent world (and the "Beyond"). And once human beings began to participate psychically (or psycho-physically) even in the gross phenomenal world, they (or the psyche itself) began to develop complex mythological (or archetypal and allegorical) representations of the Mana (or Spirit-Power)2 that (it was naively presumed) magically, or miraculously, or omnipotently causes (but, really, only Pervades) all effects (and can, therefore, Help human beings in the Great Quest).
(5) The fully developed ancient "Creation" myths originally appeared (or began their development) in animistic societies (wherein every thing, event, person, or process was felt to be a manifestation of its own individual mana, or spirit, or power). As collective myths (and societies themselves) developed over time, a hierarchy of powers was conceived (just as societies themselves were conceived hierarchically-from the chief, or king, at the top to the slaves at the bottom). Thus, animistic myths of local powers were progressively enlarged toward a cosmic description of senior and great Powers. And these descriptions were themselves often developed to the degree of hierarchical grandness, with the "One" (or the One "God", or the One "Mind") at the top and all multiplicity (of "Gods", "Goddesses", powers, worlds, things, and lesser beings) expanding (by stages) below. (Therefore, the "One", even as "Creative God", was not the exclusive and original discovery-or, as some would have it, the exclusive and original invention-of any particular society or culture, although some proponents like to argue or claim that the Jews were the originals in this regard. However, the Jews in particular-in reaction to their early historical disintegration as an independent political collective, and in anticipation of the dispersal of Jewish people among the peoples of all nations-did raise their own tribal, or local, "God" to the status of a universal and Absolute "God"-King of all nations. And this universalizing-and rather political, or "civilizing"-tendency of progressive Jewish, and, later, Christian and Muslim, monotheism eventually provided a basic justification for all Western political, social, and cultural efforts toward the unification, and even the universal "Westernization", of mankind.)
(6) In any case, the truly original and really "creative" source of all ancient and traditional "Creation" myths was the native "interior", or the archetypal and hierarchical design of the human psyche itself (which apparently is eternally existing, or is, at least, existing prior to, and sometimes coincident with, and not merely subordinate to-or merely dependent upon, or existing merely as an effect of-gross bodily existence). And, as it was perceived by shamans and psychic visionaries and seers of all kinds (for whom the "invisible" sometimes becomes "visible", or Revealed even within the interior mechanisms of gross perception), the "Great Within" is (from the gross bodily point of view) grounded in the body-and it extends upwards, even bodily, to the subtler reaches of the body-mind and the subtler (or higher) reaches of the mind itself (and of the psycho-physical cosmos itself). Ultimately, both high and low are to be Most Perfectly transcended in the Beyond That Is the Heart Itself, or the One Divine Reality of Being (Itself).
(7) Clearly, the ancient "Creation" myths (and all myths in general) were (or are), by virtue of traditional (or, otherwise, spontaneous and "natural") techniques of psychic inversion (or inwardness), psychically inspired (or, at least, inspired via the psyche)-and, therefore, all types of mythic "thinking" express the many and various possible levels of traditional (and possible) human psychic (or psycho-physical) participation in the apparent world. Therefore, no such traditional myths are Absolute, and none of them are based on any kind of scientific (or analytical and basically non-participatory) conception or perception of the physical world. Rather, all of them are based on a purely psychic (or entirely participatory) urge toward the total (or psycho-physical) world. And, in all such myths, it is not the physical world (or its array of physical causes and physical effects) but the innate design of the human psyche (and even the total psycho-physical and-as it may, in due course, be Realized-Spiritual anatomy of Man3) that is the principal subject displayed by means of myth.
(8) Ancient myth-making was fundamentally an expression of "primitive" magic (or magical ritual), mysticism, and Spirituality, rather than an early (or "primitive") form of science. The myth-makers were not merely trying to describe how physical forms are (in the mechanical, or merely physical, sense) produced, but (since physical forms already existed) the myth-makers were trying to raise human existence to a greater level of participation (or ecstasy) in the total context of natural (or psycho-physical) existence. Therefore, myths were, originally (and rightly), psychic tools (used along with many other cultural and psycho-physical means) for the achievement of magical, mystical, and (ultimately) Spiritual "intoxication" and ecstasy, or the Realization of a psychic state of non-separateness, non-fear, and Ultimate Unity (or even the Realization of the Ultimate Identity). And myths (or myth-making societies) were (or are), therefore, not merely pre-scientific-and, thus, according to the scientific (or, really, materialistic) view, wrong-but myths and myth-makers represent the specifically religious (or non-scientific, and non-materialistic) form of human culture and individual endeavor, which form of culture and endeavor is, even now, in its greatest (or most difficult) moment of struggle (in the face of the worldwide trend toward submission to the materialistic philosophy and culture of scientism and gross technology).
(9) In the process of the pursuit of hierarchically greater and greater levels of ecstasy, visionaries (or ecstatics of all kinds) developed the ancient concepts (or psychic perceptions) of the "chain" or "ladder" (or innate hierarchical structure) of the cosmos. And the ecstatic experiences of Ultimate Unity (and even Ultimate Identity) achieved by certain uniquely great individuals eventually led some cultures to postulate (or give mythic acknowledgement to) an Ultimate Singleness (described in theistic cultures as the "One God").
(10) The ancient and traditional myths have been culturally transmitted down to the present day via traditional religious cultures and sects. And each culture or sect tends to value its own myths as exclusive and final "Truths". However, now that mankind is gathered as an intercommunicative whole, the provincialism (or tribalism) of exclusive myth and exclusive religion has become both obvious and untenable. Therefore, more and more, mankind must receive all traditions, together, as a basically single Great Tradition-and that Great Tradition must be rightly interpreted and fully understood (and final Truth must be clearly discriminated from the progressive display of partial and tentative truths).
(11) Relative to "Creation" myths themselves, they should not merely be criticized and dismissed as pseudo-science, but they should be understood as exoteric artifacts of "primitive" (and even esoteric) magic, mysticism, and Spirituality (and even Spiritual philosophy). And it is no longer either necessary or appropriate for religion itself to base itself on (or otherwise depend on) "natural" or cosmic arguments for the existence of "God". As all the Great Seers have proclaimed, Real God (or Ultimate Reality, and Truth, and Happiness Itself) is not "out there" (at the beginning of a long chain of events in the objective context of the merely physical world). Rather (as the myth-makers themselves were demonstrating in the very making of "Creation" myths), Real God, Truth, Ultimate Reality, or Happiness Itself Is "within" (or In the context of the total-or psycho-physical, and, also, as it may, in due course, be Realized, Spiritual-world). Indeed, Real God Is Existence (or Being) Itself. Real God, Truth, Ultimate Reality, Happiness Itself, or Existence (or Being) Itself Is Self-Evident (unless the mind interferes and disagrees and seeks). And Real God, Truth, Ultimate Reality, Happiness Itself, or Existence (or Being) Itself is, therefore, not to be "proven" by conceptual argument-but Real God, Truth, Ultimate Reality, Happiness Itself, or Existence (or Being) Itself is to be directly Realized (by ego-transcending psychic participation in the psyche itself, or the total psycho-physical design in which the personal self inheres-and, Ultimately, by Inherently Most Perfect transcending of the psyche, or the total body-mind, itself and the entire psycho-physical world).
(12) The Message of all "Creation" myths is a Call to magical, mystical, and Spiritual ecstasy, progressively transcending the hierarchies of "Creation". Myths themselves (or myths of every kind) are not a call to mere belief, but a Call to ecstatic (and, therefore, effectively ego-transcending) Real-God-Realization (or to even Spiritual Realization of the Truth, or Real Condition, of cosmic existence). And, once myths themselves (and all the categories associated with the first five stages of life) are Out-Grown, the final Call is to Realization of That Which Is-Beyond all conditional and cosmic categories. As long as the propagation of "Creation" myths (and religious myths in general) is limited to the domain of popular exoteric religion, all myths are used more or less exclusively to support the popular (and "creaturely") social, political, and institutional purposes of public "civilization"-but, if religious myths are visited in the context of the real process of self-understanding and participation in the esoteric Spiritual culture of ecstasy (or effective self-transcendence), then they serve as psychic reminders of the Great Ordeal that leads, Most Ultimately, not to a "Place" above the stars, but to the Transcendental, Inherently Spiritual, and Self-Evidently Divine Self-Condition and Source-Condition (transcending both "outside" and "inside")-the Beyond That Is the Heart Itself.
(13) And just as that Great Ordeal does not (or should not) stop either in the world of the gross body or in inner visions of the cosmic Man, it is not necessary that religion itself begin in (and it is certainly neither appropriate nor sufficient that it end in) belief in a "Creator-God" (or even many "Creator-Gods" or "Creator-Goddesses"). Indeed, such "Creator and creature" beliefs are primarily about the world (and only secondarily about Real God, or Truth, or Inherently Perfect Reality)-and, therefore, they tend to affirm and idealize gross (or "creaturely") human and social existence, rather than to effectively guide human attention to ego-transcendence in Real God, or Truth, or Inherently Perfect Reality, or the Most Ultimate Realization of Happiness Itself. Therefore, may not religion begin as it (in Truth) must end-with self-understanding and a (soon direct) Spiritual Awareness of That Which Merely (or Inherently Perfectly) Contains, Pervades, and Transcends the world (while the world itself is made and unmade by every kind of conditional, and even Godless, cause and effect)? And is it not by religion itself that Real God, or Truth, or Inherently Perfect Reality becomes "Creative" (when Man opens at the core, and, by psychic participation, opens the world at the core, thus giving room to Spirit-Power), whereas, otherwise (apart from total, or psycho-physical, and ego-transcending Surrender to Truth), the world and Man are "Created" and changed by much and all that is not Divine? Indeed, if Real God, or Truth, or Inherently Perfect Reality were the Direct, Simple, and Only "Creator", religion would not be necessary to convert, and raise up, and "Perfect" any one at all, but Perfection Itself would "Picture" here in the Perfection of all "Creation" (from the beginning, unchanging, and never ending).
(14) Until the One and Perfect Is Realized (and "Perfected" in Its "Bright" Demonstration), all the countless imperfections gather in twos and threes to pester and break the heart. And this begins at the "beginning" itself, or in every present instant of perceived (or, otherwise, intended) separation between "light" and "dark", "this" and "That", "Heaven" and "Earth", and the "other" and "I". Therefore, the true Message of myth (or of religion itself) is ego-transcendence. If by myth (or by any other means) the natural (or psycho-physical) world and the human self are conceived and perceived to arise within the Context of the Spiritual and Transcendental Divine, then the total world and the human self are not merely to be desired and clung to for their own sake (as if they were an irreducible necessity), but the total world and the human self are to be progressively (and directly, or even immediately) transcended In the Spiritual and Transcendental Divine (Which Is the Only Necessity).>>>
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Notes
1. Avatar Adi Da uses the word "gross" to mean "made up of material (or physical) elements". The gross (or physical) dimension is therefore associated with the physical body, and also with experience in the waking state.
2. "Mana" is a South Pacific word for energy, or power.
3. Avatar Adi Da Samraj has Revealed that just as there is a physical anatomy, there is an actual Spiritual anatomy, or structure, that is present in every human being. As He says in The Basket Of Tolerance, it is because of this structure that the "experiential and developmental process of Growth and Realization demonstrates itself in accordance with what I have Revealed and Demonstrated to be the seven stages of life".
For Avatar Adi Da's extended Instruction relative to the Spiritual anatomy of Man, see The Seven Stages Of Life and Santosha Adidam.
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Namaste!
Jim |
