This Life - What Are We Doing Here and Who's This God Fella?

Me and Ma Osho went there this week. What are we doing here and what and who the heck is this God fella anyway? 

My mum and I had an interesting discussion the other day. We catch up on Skype once a week to talk about what we’re up to and share any major news (which we’ve redefined to include anything from California rain to a successful church bazaar).

Every now and again, however, our conversations meander into some very interesting territory. I don’t remember the catalyst but I expressed to my mum how curious it was that evolution seemed to have a forward momentum when there was no reason for that.

We take our forward or at least, onward evolutionary progress for granted but it occurred to me that, where “life” could easily have just stayed at the cellular level, amoebas creating more amoebas until the entire planet was a swarming amoebic love- in, it didn’t. Life developed through multicellular forms, reptiles, birds, mammals, primates until, the (current) crowning glory of all existence, mankind.

Does this mean that Life has an ‘intention’ and in which case, what is it and where is it heading? Not only that but what powers it?

When we humans intend something, it governs our actions. If I intend to get to work, all my actions are shaped around that intention and is fueled by desires such as wanting to be on time and do a good job. 

If this is so for man, could it also be true on a grander scale, for Life? Does Life have a desire that fuels its intention?

I have heard, from a number of different sources, that the existence of life is Consciousness’ way of experiencing itself. That through our eyes, Consciousness gets to experience ‘being’.

I asked mum why Man might have been created and she thought for a minute and then said, “to worship God! That’s it!”

I scoffed. I didn’t mean to but I thought, is God – whoever or whatever that is, governed by the same emotions and needs that we are? Seems a bit petty. I just don't see God as a "Does my bum look big?" kind of guy.

But the idea of Consciousness seeking a subjective experience is a compelling one though, at first I thought, that is a fuck of a long wait. Basically, Consciousness would have been waiting since the Big Bang until the present day to have this experience. But then again, Consciousness has not really been ‘waiting’ in the sense that we understand the word. If you subscribe to the theory that time is a man-made construct and that all of existence is occurring concurrently, then Consciousness isn’t really waiting for anything. The time between the Big Bang and now is only linear to us. To Consciousness, it just is.

So why can’t Consciousness already experience itself? Well, if all things, as scientists and philosophers alike have suggested, are Consciousness (you may prefer the term energy) then if you live in a world where everything is one thing, there is no way to experience that one thing because there is no way to make that distinction.

For example, if you went to a fancy restaurant and the waiter smugly handed you a black piece of paper and said, “the menu, sir” you’d be a perplexed to say the least. The waiter would slowly explain, as if to a simpleton, that the words are written in black on black paper to express the chef’s oneness with the food.

Great, you might say but how am I supposed to see the f-ing words – but only behind the waiters back because you don’t want to cause a scene.

Well, perhaps this is what being a singularity, a oneness is like. If everything is energy or consciousness, then energy or consciousness cannot be distinguished, in the same way that if everything is black on the menu the words cannot be distinguished. There must be black and white for the words to appear. There must be duality.

And so perhaps, that is why mankind is here, to create the perception of duality, a me and God, a me and you to give Consciousness a subjective experience.

But for the whole thing to work completely, humans must completely forget that it is part of the singularity which could explain why our psychology is as it is, feeding completely the notion of the separate self.

But if Consciousness is everything, it starts to feel as if God were something separate from that, an entity that lives inside of the everything rather than IS the everything.

In my teens and early twenties, I was an abject atheist. I thought the whole faith thing was a load of bollocks with no logical foundation but as time went on, I realized it may not be that straight forward. Rather than feeling the need to choose between science or religion, a more powerful place to stand is to look for a theory that allows for both to exist, in their current form, without one negating the other.

It’s a tricky one but I think a more mature question than the sweeping statements that religious and scientific polarities sometimes bark at each other, stating there is or is no God.

I’ve been through many experiences and beliefs since those earlier days and the place I’m at (for now) is that there is a God but it may be created out of the minds of Man.

It’s not that He is a figment of our imagination because that suggests he isn’t real. No, I think he’s real but I think he is a byproduct of man’s consciousness, generated concurrently with our own cognition. 

This is the only way that I can reconcile why, in our understanding of God, he can have an emotional life. The universe seems to be pretty indifferent to us however God seems to have the capacity to be pleased or displeased, angry or happy, vengeful and wrath-filled or benevolent, loving and kind. I can’t see how something as mighty as God would have such a changeable emotional life. It seems odd, the notion that God could be in a bad mood – about what??? Losing His keys??

 The only explanation I can come up with as to why he has those facets is because he is man-made and if man comprehends an entity, of course he is going to endow it with similar facets to those of man, including an emotional profile.

This begs the question why does God exist? Perhaps He is the palatable expression or spokesperson of our higher selves and that our higher self is just an expression of the Oneness, that original entity which intended to see itself.

Anyway, I don’t know anything about anything and what does and doesn’t exist, but, as you’ll have guessed by how often I touch on this particular subject, it's very interest to me.

Who knows what’s so but I shall continue to explore. Let me know what your theories are, I’d love to know.

Other posts which may be of interest: What's So? A post about opinion, The Noise Inside - about the noises in our heads and Let The Cat Sleep on The Bed - the power of the ego.