God as "Energy," Part 2

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A few more details about God:

The Scriptural texts of the world's great spiritual traditions do not present "God" as mindless energy, devoid of will, intelligence, discernment, or discrimination. God is the deepest Mind, or deepest Self, in mystical traditions. They make it crystal-clear not only that God has mind, but that God is Mind. And since God is Mind Itself, how could Mind be mindless? It is mind-boggling just to realize just how seriously that God can be misinterpreted and misunderstood.

Some people want to believe that God is just mindless energy that can be manipulated, because they selfishly, greedily want to get something personal. Some want "success" that will harm others, or even the environment. If God cared, they would find themselves on opposite sides from Her/Him. So, it is more comfortable for greedy types to present God as an energy, just waiting to be used by them.

Some very primitive peoples in history have worshipped energy. They worshipped lightning, thunder, waterfalls, storms, hurricanes, and often, even saw these natural phenomena as "spirits."

Modern uneducated people can make the same mistake when they try to turn "God" into mere energy. Mystics have always spoken, for example, about the "will of God." "Will" means "desire." How can energy have a will? It does not.

God loves and comforts Her/His children. How could dumb energy do this? It couldn't.

But God is not interventionistic, and this has led some down the dead-end alley of atheism. But it has driven others to "energism"-- the fallacy that God is "nothing but" energy.

And it is true that God does not intervene in the affairs of the natural world. Giant hands do not come down from the sky and stop horrendous tornadoes and destructive hurricanes.

"Why not?" screams the inner four-year-old, within all of our minds. It desperately longs for God to be a "big daddy,"to save and protect the inner child.

But the simple truth is this: Protecting you from life is NOT one of God's functions, or jobs. For God is Love, and it is our job to turn every event of our lives to the discovery of interior Love. Events direct us, force us,to do this until nothing matters but Love. For this is precisely where God wants us. He/She wants us to grow to the point where nothing else is important, nothing but Love counts. For that is a real kind of enlightenment, and leads, later, to supreme enlightenment!

Love is to support and aid us in our pain, agonies, and suffering. And this Love does not shower down upon us from the sky. (Remember, there is no God "up there.") No, instead, Love emanates to us from other creatures, beings whom God has "exteriorized" into the "outer" world. We might draw Love and comfort from a puppy, or from a brother or sister, but there is no Love without minds to carry and manifest it. This is why God "needs" the universe of living beings, including yourself. The Mind of God "externalizes," or sends itself out, as "your" mind, and His/Her Love then becomes "your" Love.

If God were nothing but a morally "neutral" energy, it would be just fine to torture small animals, or even human beings, killing them mercilessly. But no, it is the fine element of God within that prevents this sadistic and sickening behavior. God cares for Her/His world through us, and this care includes puppies, kittens, other creatures, and other people. Every time that we love, God flows into the world.

Mystics worship Mind. More specifically, we worship Love, or Lovemind. It is the nucleus of the entire Enlightenment Tradition that God is Love.

So, it is spiritually unsophisticated, and hopelessly uneducated, even backwards, to see God as mere "energy." That sucks the very lifeblood from all spirituality, for real spirituality is not about "spooks" or "spirits," but about Love! And Love is as far from "neutral" as you can possibly get!

The will of Love has two forms: active and permissive. God's active will is for all creatures to enjoy life maximally, with no pain, no problems. But God's "permissive" will is different. It allows free will. That means that creatures must be free to sow the seeds of karma.

It is impossible for any being to be "partially free." For if you are "partially free," you are not free at all! It is an all-or-nothing state, which is almost unheard of!

Since we are totally free, we can sow the seeds of "bad" karma. This explains why there is so much evil, suffering, and loss in the "material, external" world of dualism (illusion).

To explain our terrible world, then, does not require that we abandon Love, or God as Love. It does not demand that we reduce God to a mindless, willess, unthinking, dumb, blind energy. For Love truly does exist right smack in the middle of all the hatred, fear, suffering, and loss. If we respond to Its call, we have chosen the highest path possible for any human being!