Of God, Gods, Monsters, and Aliens
Just because something is more awesome than you, does not make it God
There is but One God. (God’s) name is Truth; (God) is the Creator. (God) fears none; (God) is without hate. (God) never dies; (God) is beyond the cycle of births and death. (God) is self-illuminated. (God) is realized by the kindness of the True Guru. (God) was True in the beginning; (God) was True when the ages commenced and has ever been True. (God) is also True now.—Guru Nanak
Eyes on the Sun/Son, people!
So caught up are we in spiritual advancement and desire to know the deep and hidden things in life, we quite often forget the distinction between God and gods. Depending upon our inclination, we may even let monsters, demons, and aliens slide in as superceding, divine entities. We end up praying to objects, like the cross, rather than letting the Cross (the spiritual vertical meeting the physical horizontal at the heart) shine radiantly within us, as the above picture attempts to capture.
God
In all religions, at heart, there is but one God, one Truth, one Love, eternal and all-pervasive. (Guru Nanak, quoted above, is the 15th century founder of the Hindu mysticism called Sikhism, but this quote could easily originate from the Bible.) But for many, this One-God Reality, Pure Being is too abstract. This True God, therefore is experienced by many as lacking intimacy, like the God of deists— impersonal, unconcerned, and remote, having set the universe into motion and then moving on to other things!
Many people need something closer, more accessible, so they reach for the lowest hanging fruit. They reach toward entities, methods, gurus, churches, systems (like astrology) that can provide a sense of power, prediction, and security amid the changes of the world. Even when provided by God with a mediator between the Eternal and the temporal (Christians believe this to be Jesus Christ, while other religions have their own great teachers and mystics), we end up spiritualizing the physical, instead of letting the spirit shine forth through the physical.
This has unfortunately can lead us to confusing more advanced “beings” with the Being which is God. There is a tremendous human blind spot in this. These “higher” beings, like us, are logically created by the same God that created universes and dimensions, and, they would be, as all created things, bound by time, space, and change. We are all, therefore, unified in our blindness! These “higher beings” cannot taste FULL eternity even if they may have higher capacities to taste eternity more fully. Both of us, higher beings and humbler beings, cannot experience higher connection if we do not open to and accede to the Uncreated Light or Divine Darkness of God through our Spirits, the Eternal-in-us.
So-called higher beings may have some capabilities and habits that makes it easier for them to connect to and embody spirit, if they be angels, or harder if they are demons, but for all beings this connection with God requires actual work! It requires faith, trust, and surrender to the immanent spirit within us and to the transcendent beckonings of a deeply intimate God. Far from being uncaring, God CARES IN EXCESS. And the demands of this divine love can feel so overwhelming as to be frightening for some.
Marianne Williamson’s now cliched quote also happens to have the virtue of being true:
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us."―Marianne Williamson,A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of "A Course in Miracles"
What will be become if we follow God’s call! We can be assured it will be at the very least “inconvenient”!
But, then again, ever-lasting Love IS inconvenient, isn’t it! You cannot cheat your neighbor or take the occasional shortcut, or cede our sovereignty to aliens coming to save us, or engage in fantasies and dramas as if they were real. One has to instead accept that fantasies and dramas are unreal activities that occupy the space of our lives, as our spirits patiently wait for us to grow into the power and glory of a more mature, adept, and appreciative being. This “being” does not descend from the outside but ASCENDS to save us from WITHIN us— a deeper being, hidden in our own depths, that welcomes God as a surprising, delightful, and commanding Creator.
There is no need to be frightened or intimidated. This path to the One Truth is not grim, but filled with joy and love, insight and epiphany to accompany the challenge. God provides through Spirit all the bountiful supports and salves to calm our fluttering hearts for the inevitable trials to come as we awake from this dream into Reality and journey toward the invisible and available heart of God.
Gods
Gods take on many forms, but generally they are subservient beings to God, who possess both higher and lower capabilities than humans. (We have our own genius, and should not be overawed by the apparent power and magic of higher ethereal and lower elemental beings). Even the Ancient Greeks and Romans believed in a distinction between God and gods. If one listens to the translated wisdom of Greek Stoic Epictetus or Roman philosopher-emperor Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations, one notes the distinction between God, the One God that created everything, and gods (beings of myth— i.e. Zeus, Ares, Hades, Hermes, and Aphrodite corresponding with the Roman gods Jupiter, Mars, Pluto, Mercury, and Venus).
It is not coincidental that the Greek and Roman gods match up with planets, rooted in in Hermetic and Ancient Egyptian philosophy, which saw the solar system as ruled by certain god-like beings and having an influence on human lives and personalities. This is the basis of astrology, the influence of the the alignment of the planet-gods when we are born. This is also where sun-worship came to be. Far from being strictly pagan, it was the acknowledgement of the life-giving and life-sustaining light of the sun not as merely physical (visible) but spiritual (the hidden or invisible sun behind the visible sun).
Socrates, the father of Western philosophy also acknowledged in his beliefs a God, gods, the soul, and various forms of divinity as various and intermingled forms of spirituality:
In Alcibiades Socrates links the human soul to divinity, concluding "Then this part of her resembles God, and whoever looks at this, and comes to know all that is divine, will gain thereby the best knowledge of himself."[129]
(I)n Phaedo (the dialogue with his students in his last day) Socrates gives expression to a clear belief in the immortality of the soul.[139] He also believed in oracles, divinations and other messages from gods.
(Socrates) claims that since there are many features in the universe that exhibit "signs of forethought" (e.g., eyelids), a divine creator must have created the universe.[137] … At times, Socrates speaks of a single deity, while at other times he refers to plural "gods". This has been interpreted to mean that he either believed that a supreme deity commanded other gods, or that various gods were parts, or manifestations, of this single deity.[142]
Not unlike the Trinity in Christian religion, no? Here is the English translation and design of the age-old “Shield of the Trinity”:
Angels in the Bible and other religions appear to be divine beings (gods of a sort) that serve God as translators and helpers between the upper realms and the lower.
Monsters
Demons, on the other hand, seem to be the servants and “translators” between the arena of humans and the lower realms. What an interesting thing it is to be human! The “angel on one shoulder and devil on the other” advising us in two opposite directions (seen in so many cartoons) is actually a fair approximation of why being human is so interesting and enviable. We get to experience both enlightened, truthful/Real, and unenlightened, or deceived/illusory, existence simultaneously. No wonder we are so confused! Our poor brains cry out for a strong and perceptive heart, which is provided if we but open our hearts to God.
Torment, damnation, and hell, summarized are simply aspects of REMOVAL from the presence of God. My dad once mused to me that he thought God had abandoned him. I told my dad (now deceased) that I don’t believe God could ever abandon us because we are of God. Now we, in our confusion and fallibility, CAN abandon God, or more accurately, shut God out from our awareness and presence. But we can also throw ourselves, in our suffering, on God’s mercy and in prayer, gratitude, and deep opening and desire, we can reconnect with God at any time.
God is simply providing a generous space for free choice and free experience which gives the truth of spirit its living validity and vitality. This is what is meant by the Living Word (Spirit experienced) vs. the dead words of even sacred texts that are mumbled without much of a thought, much less care, in many churches across the world. Again, as I am wont to say,
“We are created in Love, to create in love.” We can see what it is like to do otherwise. Falling away from spirit and God is not punishment, though it can feel like it. Once the illusion of a substitute for God has evaporated, and spiritual reality sets in we tend to lose our romance with pseudo-religions and demons-passing-themselves-off-as-angels alike. I will talk about the actual operation of this dawning mystical growth and awareness in a separate post.
Aliens
Some people have a made a religion out of UFO’s and god-like aliens from outer space or inter-dimensional energetic planes (or both!). Usually, these aliens are seen as saving and benevolent as with the so-called “Shining Ones” spotted in many lores (9’ to 25’ tall humanoids) and often mistaken for angels. Here is a description of an “Ancient Aliens” episode on the topic:
In Ireland, the notion of the fairy folk dates back thousands of years and originates with stories of powerful shining beings who came down from the sky. Could these tales have been inspired by ancient alien visitation? And if so, do the Shining Ones still inhabit the Irish mounds, existing in a parallel dimension?
Alternately some of these aliens with advanced, almost god-like powers are enslaving and malevolent, as with the ostensible Anunnaki.
From Wikipedia:
Over a series of published books (starting with Chariots of the Gods? in 1968), … Erich von Däniken claimed that extraterrestrial "ancient astronauts" had visited a prehistoric Earth. Däniken explains the origins of religions as reactions to contact with an alien race, and offers interpretations of Sumerian texts and the Old Testament as evidence.[69][70][71]
In his 1976 book The Twelfth Planet, author Zecharia Sitchin claimed that the Anunnaki were actually an advanced humanoid extraterrestrial species from the undiscovered planet Nibiru, who came to Earth around 500,000 years ago and constructed a base of operations in order to mine gold after discovering that the planet was rich in the precious metal.[69][70][72] According to Sitchin, the Anunnaki hybridized their species and Homo erectus via in vitro fertilization in order to create humans as a slave species of miners.[69][70][72]
My own thoughts
I believe that so much of what we believe is determined by what we can handle. Different beliefs seem to attend different spiritual developmental levels, with the more neophyte believers clinging to more condensed and physicalized forms of worship, whether it be bodily resurrection and the Eucharist (in which the wine and wafer is “transubstantiated” into the actual blood and body of Christ or the “aliens will save us” convictions of Ascension groups or Heaven’s Gate. (Here is a humorous review of some of the more “out there” alien Ascension cults.)
As we gain spiritual confidence and knowledge, we tend to loosen ourselves from our “physicalized” religions, beliefs, symbols, rituals, and moorings. We learn a certain discipline and discernment which distances us from our own sin/error and confusion. False gods and more primitive beliefs, give way to more ennobling and vivifying possibilities. The heart starts to get into the game as the limits of the head are made manifest. When we cannot explain miracles, we must shift our apprehension of reality and our avenues into the higher realities that produce the “impossible” in a physicalized world. We become more creative and artistic, following “muses” rather than our own prejudices and addictions.
We may way-stop with a guru or a committed practice (as I did with Kundalini yoga for 15 years, and Mahayana Buddhist meditation for 3 years, Christian seminary for a year and half, and Kabbalah for a year and a half) before discovering that these “sophisticated” practices and study are also restricting of the unbounded Spirit. Inspiration and intuition begin to replace instinct, ideation, imagination, and intellect. The mind learns to serve the spirit and the heart, as the heart opens to a provably superior intelligence and care.
In Christian mystic and spiritual genius, Evelyn Underhill’s words:
Here, then, stands the newly awakened self: aware, for the first time, of reality, responding to that reality by deep movements of love and of awe. She sees herself, however, not merely to be thrust into a new world, but set at the beginning of a new road. Activity is now to be her watchword, pilgrimage the business of her life. “That a quest there is, and an end, is the single secret spoken.” Under one symbol or another, the need of that long slow process of transcendence, of character building, whereby she is to attain freedom, become capable of living upon high levels of reality, is present in her consciousness. Those in whom this growth is not set going are no mystics, in the exact sense in which that word is here used; however great their temporary illumination may have been.
What do you hold as your spirituality? How does it manifest for you, and what do you do to increase it? Is it an amalgam of Eastern and Western, of physical, mental, emotional, intuitive, and spiritual, of God, gods, monsters, and aliens? What do you feel is the link between creativity/art and spirit/God?
Let me know in the comments!
All blessings, Zeus
Thank you! This is so beautiful and timely. I had an encounter once when I was much younger with an energy that I knew was God. It was disturbing for me at the time because it wasn’t the kindly father I had been indoctrinated with but a constantly shifting and beautiful pulsation of light, color and geometry. It didn’t offer me affection or reassurance and that was deeply unsettling at the time. It felt distant and detached and yet immediate. I have sat with that for years and am only beginning to understand the essence of that encounter. You have in many ways touched that essence in this post. Thank you.