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Chapter III
Proof of the Existence of Yo
The most beautiful thing we can experience is the Mysterious — the knowledge of the existence of something unfathomable to us, the manifestation of the most profound reason coupled with the most brilliant beauty. (Albert Einstein)
The direct experience of the divine
In addition to the traditional, omnipotent old man notion of God, you will also find in Judaism, Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, and virtually all other religions, those who believe in a very different conception of God. In this other conception, God will still be the all-powerful, ultimate force or creator, yet God will bear no resemblance to human beings. God in these conceptions is the Ultimate Almighty One, the Ultimate Unknowable Essence that in the infinite magnitude of Holy Existence is beyond the conception and imagination of the finite human mind. God is the Unknowable Creator who brings (or brought) the universe into being out of nothing, or caused it to exist from the beginning of time without creation. And again, it is the atheists and agnostics in this world who are the strongest believers in something very close to the God I have just described. It is those who believe in the material world without divinity, who have the strongest faith in the Divine Mystery we call Yo. Let me explain how this can be.
I am now starting the section of tonight's talk that is an attempt to give you a sense of Yos presence here and now, in this room. I will approach the conclusion from several directions. But this is hard to follow and will require you paying close attention. I am specifically trying to show how we can take back God from those who have used fantasy stories about God and deceptions about the underlying nature of the reality to appropriate these realms of knowledge as their own.
One of my professors once asked my class what an electron is. No one could come up with a meaningful and serious answer. Is it a round marble with a minus sign inside it? We can measure its charge or its mass, but we have just as hard a time saying what we mean by a word such as "charge." So, what is it really? That was his point: We use models to talk about the essence of the physical universe, for example, electrons spinning in an orbit around a nucleus of protons and neutrons. But these are only metaphors we use to enable our brains to have some intuitive sense of the essence that is not directly knowable. Even the greatest scientists can not begin to say what the underlying essence is of the phenomena we refer to with words such as protons, neutrons, atoms, photons, the strong and the weak nuclear forces, etc. Yet, we use word/models in which we talk of an underlying fabric of the universe that is composed of these basic particles, forces, and arrangements of matter.
As Saints John, David, and George I showed us, the only world that we can know to exist, or even say anything about, is the world of our experience. So what exists outside of our experience can only be described metaphorically and can never be known. If I held up a red rose, we all would agree that it is red. That is, we all utter the word, "red" to refer to the sensation of color that we experience when we look at it. But we know that human nervous systems vary. It is quite likely that some of you may have the experience that I know as "red-orange" or "orange" (or, if you're color blind, what I experience as blue or green). But, because we all call the rose "red" when we experience its particular hue, we have no problem communicating and we all agree that it is "red."
But if each of us experiences something different (ranging from what I experience as red, orange, all the way to green), where and what is the "red?" Is it in the rose? Or is the red a creation in the mind of the beholder? Imagine what the world would look like if our eyes had evolved to be sensitive to x-rays, infrared, or radio waves, all simply different wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation. There would be no reds, greens, or blues, but the physical world would still have attributes. (Consider the four views of Andromeda on the right.)
The point is that the attributes, like the red of the rose, don't exist "out there." What is it then that exists as an aspect of the rose prior to perception? This prior-to-perception-world—that which exists independent from any observer, that which does not vary depending on who examines it—cannot be known. Yet, though we cannot know what it is or even begin to describe it in an intuitively meaningful way, we know that something exists independent of our perceptions. There are mistaken perceptions and delusions. That is, there are beliefs that do not jibe with whatever is truly "out there" that ultimately gives rise to our perceptions.
"Wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world"
Saint Immanuel realized that we must have innate, a priori mental processes that structure our experience, without which we would not even be able to organize our sensations into experiences with basic attributes like extension in space, placement in time, causing something to happen, being caused to happen, etc. He realized, however, that both a priori (or what he called analytical or rational) knowledge as well as empirical knowledge (which he called synthetic because we generate such knowledge out of our experiences) were all limited to possible experiences:
[F]rom this deduction of the faculty of a priori cognition ..., we derive a startling result, and one which has the appearance of being highly prejudicial to the whole purpose of metaphysics. ... [W]e are brought to the conclusion that our faculty of cognition is unable to transcend the limits of possible experience. ... [W]e are enabled to prove that ... our rational cognition a priori ... has to do only with appearances, and must leave the thing in itself as indeed real per se, but as not known by us.
If you think you perceive the world "as it is" (whatever that may mean), consider these uncanny illusions that make it clear that, even when we know we are misperceiving, the way our minds "construct" the world can overrride whatever it is that is "out there." So, if what can be known is only what is experienced, then experience brings the known world into existence. As Saint Immanuel realized, even though something unknowable exists beyond experience, the known world is created within/by an experiencing psyche/self, that is, the known world is brought into being by the very act of perception. Consider, as Saint Alan did, a rainbow. He said:
A rainbow exists only when there is a certain triangular relationship between three components: the sun, moisture in the atmosphere, and an observer. If all three are present, and if the angular relationship between them is correct, then, and then only, will there be the phenomenon "rainbow." Diaphanous as it may be, a rainbow is no subjective hallucination. It can be verified by any number of observers, though each will see it in a slightly different position ... The point is, then, that an observer in the proper position is as necessary for the manifestation of a rainbow as the other two components, the sun and the moisture. Of course, one could say that if the sun and a body of moisture were in the right relationship, say, over the ocean, any observer on a ship that sailed into line with them would see a rainbow. But one could also say that if an observer and the sun were correctly aligned there would be a rainbow if there were moisture in the air!
Somehow the first set of conditions [the sun and moisture over the ocean] seems to preserve the reality of the rainbow apart from the observer. But the second set [the observer and sun with no moisture], by eliminating a good, solid "external reality," seems to make it an indisputable fact that, under such conditions, there is no rainbow. The reason is that it supports our ... mythology to assert that things exist on their own, whether there is an observer or not. It supports the fantasy that man is not really involved in the world, that he makes no real difference to it, and that he can observe reality ... without [influencing or creating] it ...
Perhaps we can accept this reasoning without too much struggle when it concerns things like rainbows ... whose reality status was never too high [to begin with]. But what if it dawns on us that our perception of rocks, mountains and stars is a situation of just the same kind? ... We [are] simply ... saying only that creatures with brains are an integral feature of the pattern which also includes the solid earth and the stars, and that without this integral feature ... the whole cosmos would be as un-manifested as a rainbow without droplets in the sky, or without an observer. [This notion] makes us feel insecure because it unsettles a familiar image of the world in which rocks, above all, are symbols of hard, unshakable reality, and the Eternal Rock a metaphor for God himself. [This] mythology ... had reduced man to an utterly unimportant little germ in an unimaginably vast and enduring universe. It is just too much of a shock, too fast a switch, to recognize that this little germ with its fabulous brain is evoking the whole thing, including the nebulae millions of light-years away.
It's your mind, your imagination, evoking it all!
YOU ARE THE RAINBOW!
This does not force us to the absurd conclusion that before there were life forms there was no universe. The point is that we know there is a universe with rocks, mountains, boats, helicopters, and people, with an underlying fabric consisting of atoms, protons, electrons, electromagnetic forces, etc. While we can describe this fabric using mathematical formulas, as can be seen in our total failure to answer my teacher's question about electrons, and in the examples of the red rose and rainbows, this fabric is in its essence unknowable. All we can know is the human experience that comes into being when the human nervous system interacts with this unknowable essence, an unknowable essence that even the most doubting among us takes on faith to exist; for few atheists would argue that protons, electrons, atoms, and molecules don't exist, even though no one can say what they are, what they are "made of."
WHAT WE SENSE IS NOT "THE-THING-THAT-IS-OUT-THERE." THERE ARE NO RED, SOFT-PETALED, FLOWERS WITH GREEN STEMS STUDDED WITH HARD SHARP POINTY THINGS "OUT THERE." THOSE WORDS REFER TO THE PERCEPTION. IF THIS IS SO, WITHOUT A NERVOUS SYSTEM TO PERCEIVE THEM ALL, THERE ARE NO ROSES, NO TABLES, NO CHAIRS, NO PEOPLE. THERE IS SOMETHING. BUT WHATEVER THAT SOMETHING IS CAN NOT BE KNOWN BY US. LET US CALL IT THE-THING-IN-ITSELF, THE A PRIORI-UNPERCEIVED-SUBSTANCE, OR FOR SHORT "THE UNKNOWABLE ESSENCE."
One of the following statements about this unknowable essence must be true. You can choose whichever suits you for they all lead to a necessary belief in Yo, the Divine Mystery beyond the world of human experience or comprehension.
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The unknowable essence was created by a creator or creative force, in which case there is an awesomely mysterious God and we need go no further; or
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It came into being by itself; or
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It has existed throughout all time without creation.
If one rejects the first option and believes there is no creator or outside creative force (leaving the second and the third options), the atheist is forced to assume that this unknowable essence of the universe either created itself, or, it has existed through all time. In either of these cases, the atheist, who insists on believing only in the material world without a creator/creative force, is left believing in an infinite, unknowable essence that created itself, or, has existed through all time without creation, and out of which springs all that exists.
To repeat: The materialist/atheist believes in an Infinite Unknowable Essence that caused Itself to come into being, or, an Infinite Unknowable Essence that has existed throughout all time without creation. In either case, out of this Infinite, Unknowable Essence, all that exists comes into being. I really can't think of a better way to define God (!): An independently existing, uncreated Infinite, Unknowable Essence that gives rise to all that we experience. This is another way of expressing what the mystic Saint Johannes said hundreds and hundreds of years ago in his statement with which I began tonight, "God is the word that speaks itself."
This "God" is better referred to by the word, "Yo." Yo has none of the anthropomorphic connotations and none of the historical baggage that encumbers the word, "God." Yet, regardless of the word we use, in this conception it is the dogmatic, deluded religionist—the one who creates idols and childish myths and places them before Yo—who is the unbeliever. It is the typical religious one who is "the one of little faith."
To talk of immaterial existences is to talk of nothings. To say that the human soul, angels, god, are immaterial, is to say they are nothings, or that there is no god, no angels, no soul. I cannot reason otherwise . . . At what age of the Christian church this heresy of immaterialism, this masked atheism, crept in, I do not know. But heresy it certainly is. (Saint Thomas II)
The scientists, who in devout, worshipful study examine the essence of the universe trying to create better metaphors to enable us to grasp the structure and form of the Unknowable Essence, these scientists are the high priests, the true saints of the One True Religion. For in studying and attempting to comprehend the manifestations of the Infinite Unknowable Essence from which all existence arises, they are, in effect, studying the Almighty One; they are immersed in the study of the Body and Mind of Yo.
Yo: The Infinite Other
There are two ways to know Yo. One is Yo, the Other, outside of yourself. The other way is Yo as you, as your True Self. Later, I will give you a chance to talk to the infinite, idealized, all-powerful God/Other, as I have for many years. You will have a chance to ask questions and Yo will answer you directly and truly. We become aware of Yo, the Other, by focusing on the infiniteness of creation and the feebleness of our brains when it comes to encompassing the paradoxes of the universe. We become aware of the great Other/God, when we stand naked and small and contemplate our finite, fleeting existence in the vast, eternal cosmos. When you feel the fragility of your body and the aloneness of your egoistic existence, you feel an anxious need, a yearning, a hunger for the great idealized God/Other.
Yet, we need not tremble in fear and shame. Remember that God/Yo the Almighty, Infinite Other is the source of all that sustains and delights us.
As Saint George II put it:
It's all too much for me to take
The love that's shining all around You
Everywhere, it's what You make
For us to take
It's all too much
Floating down the stream of time
From life to life with me
Makes no difference where you are
Or where you'd like to be
It's all too much for me to take
The love that's shining all around You
The more I learn, the less I know
And what I do is all too much
It's all too much for me to take
The love that's shining all around You
Everywhere it's what You make
For us to take
It's all too much
It's too much
It's too much
When you open your senses with awe and wonder, God, the Other, will speak to you. For by the manifestation of Godself as Reality, Yo presents the empirical facts of Yos existence. If you seek guidance and meaning, they too can be found by listening to the teachings of Reality, the True Word of Yo.
As Saint Mike and The ISB sang:
Yo: Your True Self
You can begin to become aware of Yo as your True Self, when you focus on Saint Alan's words: Your brain is evoking it all. Or as I put it, Yo evolved Yoself out of the energized mud and thus Yo shaped Yoself into your form, into you. As Saints Ralph and Timothy said:
Yes, the Universe is one onanistic, orgasmic Big Bang: Yo, the Universal Field is playing with Itself. First, matter condensed and smashed together in cosmic explosions as Yo danced the Thermonuclear Tango with Yoself. Then as things settled down a bit into the form of stable orbits of heavenly bodies, the galaxies, stars, and planets spun and swung around each other as the Infinite One danced the Gravitational Fantastic. Then Yo "decided" to come alive and lovingly evolved matter-forms with nervous systems, Godheads that could gaze upon Yoself. Sensitivities to color, sound, touch, smell, and taste were added to delight the senses of the evolving Yo-forms. But without the nervous systems to see and sense, the universe that we know would be as unmanifested as a rainbow without droplets. Ivory Snow used to brag that it was "99 and 44/100 percent pure." Well you are "100% pure Yo."
You are the point. You are evoking it all. You are Yo gazing upon Yoself and thus bringing the universe (as you know it) into existence.
As Saint Robin and The ISB sang:
Or, as Saint John II sang:
As Saint Robert I sang:
Wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world . . .
Wake now discover that you are the song that the morning brings.
"We are the local embodiment of a Cosmos grown to self-awareness. We have begun to contemplate our origins: starstuff pondering the stars; organized assemblages of ten billion billion billion atoms considering the evolution of atoms; tracing the long journey by which, here at least, consciousness arose." (Saint Carl)
Jesus could have been right. And he may have been killed for speaking the truth, i.e., that he was pure Yo, the "Son of God," flesh of Godflesh, no less. But his followers got it all wrong. They, like those who persecuted Jesus, took his message and misunderstood it as a grandiose claim that he was the biological offspring of a "mating" between a human and God the Creator, the son of the God-On-The-Throne, The Ultimate, Almighty "King" whose dictatorial, humanoid will "rules" the universe. Those who invoked his name used this misunderstanding to enslave others, to make them feel small, by claiming that only by bowing before Them (as the correct interpreters of the True Message of Jesus Christ) could they become the beloved of God.
Focusing on one form of the two ways to know God, the ministers and priests tried (quite successfully) to deceive others into believing that only by giving power and prestige to the elite of the church could you come into the good graces of The Almighty, the Infinite Other. Yet I declare unto you, You are the true sons and daughters of Yo, pure manifestations of Yo Yoself. It is time to wake up, time to realize the true message that Jesus (among many others) may have been preaching; it is time to take back full ownership of your birthright!