Friday, November 2, 2012

Does God Have Eyes?


A spiritual advisor said:

In trying to discover your true identity,
do not fixate on yourself;
simply gaze into God’s eyes,
and you will know all that you need to know about yourself.


The first thing that came to my mind upon reading this was, "Does God have eyes?"

Most people would say yes, of course, God sees all things.

But God is not a person. When asked, God said, "I Am." Or at least, that's what Moses thought he heard God say. Which begs the next question, "Does God have a voice?"

My dear friend and spiritual mentor Wilfredo suggests I rethink the statement above.  He says the following:

“What does it mean to gaze into God's eyes? Also, does God have a name? I think the question is a spiritual question, more than a physical one. It involves an act of imagination; perceiving God' eyes. The practice of gazing into God's eyes is merely a practical vehicle that at some time is disposable.  How about this as an alternative. It really is the same practice:”

In trying to discover your true identity,
Do not look out from yourself with your own eyes;
Replace your eyes with God's eyes and look out through them.
And you will know all that you need to know about God/yourself
.

Now I am thinking about whether God has eyes, a voice, and a name. What else? Ears, fingers, arms, legs, toes...

If you/I were drawing God, what would God look like? Does God have a face?

The most reasonable answer for Christians is that God was made manifest in Jesus so we would have answers to these simple questions. But not everyone is a Christian, and I am a firm believer that God most certainly is far more than "Christian." God actually precedes Christianity, yes? God precedes humanity if I am to remember my catechism:

Question:

Who is God –

Answer:  God is the Supreme Being of All Things—God always was and always will be.

Nowhere have I read the answer to the question… What is God?

There are tons of websites on the topic of “God and Reality.”  One of my favorites, as it expresses the ideas of many theologians and spiritual beings is this one:


Here’s a thought on God from Albert Einstein:

I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it. ... I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings.

Again I see the limitation of language… words to be exact;  Einstein calls God “he” and “himself.”
Another excellent website is: http://www.closertotruth.com/

Here, narrator and seeker, Robert Lawrence Kuhn says “To believe in God I need to understand God…” And he goes on a search far more intense than I have ever conceived I would do, though if given the means, I might.
Kuhn says, “Maybe doubt can be liberating… a passionate uncertainty.”

Other participants in the video called, “Does God Make Sense,” say these words:
Daniel Dennett, “There is no positive argument for the existence of God.”

Hossien Nasr, “God is infinite reality, beyond being, of which we cannot act or interact with…”
V.V. Raman, “God is not an entity but rather an experience… it doesn’t matter if we believe [in God] or not.”

Richard Swinburne, “God is like a personal being with infinite powers… not influenced by rational desires...”
Kuhn goes on to say that “If God exists in these ways, God would have built into our brains the capacity to simply believe [in God.]”

This seems a rather reasonable, logical answer, and it wouldn’t matter then if God were personal or not personal or had eyes or ears or a mouth to speak.  God would be in everything and in the nothing. 

Huston Smith, “Regarding God… what else makes sense?  No one has ever seen a thought, or a feeling…”
Now this last comment has me very intrigued and wondering… Does God exist as thought?  And if we all think of God as the essence of love and compassion, would that make this world or this life any different?

(I welcome your comments… and thoughts.)

2 comments:

  1. Marvelous opportunities for "thinking" about God...

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  2. From Mentor 2:

    The Holy One does not see as we mortals see. For the One who sees into our depths, who recognizes our ultimacies and intimacies; the labels that we use to separate ourselves into comfortable categories are… meaningless. The One from whom “no secrets are hid…” sees straight into who we are, into the heart of the matter, straight into what really matters…. With God, there are no cases of mistaken identity.

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