"Belief" or "unbelief /
disbelief" in "God" remains for me a superfluous
curiosity. Superfluous because it has more than anything else
to do with, not
God, but "God" – that is, someone
else’s conception of God which you don’t want to buy into – or
which you do. Curious is, why so much energy is expended in a)
wanting others to believe in your God, b) cajoling, even forcing
others to believe in your God, c) rejecting / denying God at all and
copping an Attitude over this, d) worrying about God, or e) spreading
death and destruction on account of your God.
This believing or not believing in God is as superfluous to –
well,
God – as we would naturally see any notion of belief
or unbelief / disbelief/ nonbelief in our own Body, our own organs,
our own circulation, our own respiration and respiratory system.
This body functions; as this body is so, God is so. As
these organs, this circulation, this respiration are so, God is so.
Try this: stop believing that your heart pumps blood
through the arteries which carry nourishment throughout the body and
the lungs, which blood returns for nourishment and reinforcement of
oxygen through the lung passages – all of this functioning,
entirely indifferent to your knowing or believing or denying
it. So stop believing in that going on without let-up, and stop
believing that those lungs draw in all that life-reinforced fresh air
into themselves, to go through the conversions and transferences
which make your Body a rich tapestry of perfectly orchestrated
harmony and wholeness, well-Being, with or without your being
consulted; that your brain is in constant coordination with all
functions, that your glands and your tracts, from growth and
development to consuming, digesting and expelling, from over all
defense to activity and rest and the in-joyment of both. All
this is there.
Now, here’s a catch:
believing, you give attention
to, offer your attention to, perhaps even your concentration and even
devotion to, that which is being
consciously contemplated –
that’s contemplated, folks,
not complicated – by doing
this with your Body you become no longer the indifferently passive
non-participant, you become the active, creative participator, you
are now
with your Body, and
in it by being conscious
of
it. Does it mean becoming a "Vegan" from another
planet? Or hitting the fitness center like a fanatic, or
jogging your guts out? Or preaching granola? None of
this, it means just being with yourself, with your body, loving this
Body merely by knowing it and validating it and being in it. This
kind of attention already wards off illness, this kind of attention
is entirely oriented toward your health because it addresses the
wholeness. When you are bending, talk with your back, through
your breath, ask it if it’s alright with what you’re doing, let
it suggest something better. If you are eating, does your
stomach have a vote? Every single part of you is indispensable,
and part of every other part of you.
Be clear in your Mind that you are not about illness, that you
don’t need sick leave to feel whole about yourself. And as this
makes the question of belief, for me, so superfluous - because Body
is so - likewise and even more does this apply toward God - because
God is so. When you love you have every reason and power to
believe, and as this belief develops into faith and into devotion and
into Knowledge, then you become the active, creative participator of
that inner life which expresses outward in all directions. Kabir,
as rendered by Robt. Bly, tells us: "What is God: he is
the breath inside the breath."
Making that subtle, you become subtle. Becoming subtle in
that, you meet with the subtle. Meeting with that, you come
into contact with That, about which we bandy about words like
"belief" in the first place – which then makes the latter
superfluous.
