The presence of God

More objective than all the theological and scientific theories is the fact that man, since his most remote origins, has considered himself and his material surroundings as something ephemeral, changing and transitory. The mutations of beings and things made him realize the evidence that death inexorably follows every birth, but also that every one of them must have a justification, a meaning, a reason.

He saw that herds moved in search of water and food: the rivers flowed to the sea, fire inexorably rises to the sky. And from all these things he deduced (or mysterious voices spoke in his ears) that also he and all living beings are heading towards somewhere that is beyond the immediate surroundings. Millions of years before Aristotle, metaphysics was born.

With the teachings of his spiritual guides and the observation of the cycles that are manifested in nature, man gained the certainty that nothing disappears definitively and completely, everything returns and is reborn. Thus he considered his body to be his house: an impermanent dwelling that has to be replaced from time to time, through old age or through damage, it being no longer useful. He discovered his own immortality and his renewed presence on the stage of the world. He also discovered that the places of the living and the dead are separated, but by a wall that is very thin, through which one can hear and can even see.

An insubstantial universe, but tremendously real, opened before his feelings and his intelligence. And along with farming implements, he carved amulets and raised altars that, like magic stairs, allowed the inner man, that is above suffering and joy, to appear, in a world where the herds of animals were immense and the hunting was never exhausted, where the trees never fell down... Behind the changing planetary sky, they discovered the stars. The everlasting elements became evident. By linking them together, they conceived the first geometrical figures, pure and stable; they intuitively perceived the Archetypes, that aren’t subject to time, and that regulate space.
They found themselves between a terrestrial world and a celestial world, ascending and descending from one to the other, crossing the invisible bridge of reincarnations which, in almost every case, has been associated with the rainbow with its seven colors.

They admired the creatures that could breath under water, those that could fly higher than the mountains, and the trees that preserved the personal seals of their dead forefathers in their bark. They meditated on the raging will of a falling rock and on the silent surging of a green miracle in each planted seed, and they associated the latter with the fertility of women and the renewed hope that children represent.

When he had to give a definite form to his house, he installed one or more columns that could be cut from the forest, that is, tree trunks. Hunted animals not only gave them food but also skins and leather to cover themselves and make the long walks less painful. From quarries and mountains they extracted the material for the points of their weapons, and also chisels with which they could give useful forms to things. With fishbones they made hooks that provided them with more fish. The fixed stars allowed them to orient themselves at night , enabling them to happily return to their familial group. By heating certain stones with fire, they distilled an incandescent liquid that, once hardened and deposited in clay containers, allowed man to discover metallurgy, hundreds of thousands of years before the time that the current specialists believe to have been- these of the same “race” of those who, in scientific congresses of the last century, affirmed that the cave of Altamira had been painted by a Frenchman.

He understood that he was more than his body, and because of that, when he died, he destroyed it; through fire or burial in the ground, wrapped up in the form of a mummy or ritually dismembered. It was the observation of the esoteric knowledge of his own survival, and of the liberation of the heaviest and most fastidious of his vehicles. The law of cycles will cause him to return to earth; but, as time passed, he preferred to ignore or leave that knowledge for the spiritually strongest: his sacerdotes, mages and initiate-kings. And so, as time went by, the respective “exoteric” and “esoteric” streams were separated.

But they all had something in common... That something is so evident that only the most ignorant in the most ignorant moment of history could deny: THE PRESENCE OF GOD. This thing that we call a presence, is immanent in all things and all beings. In truth, man achieves true differentiation from animals when he becomes sure of the existence of God, mysteriously inserted in his own participation of Nature - Divinity. For our ancestors, there was no dichotomy nor contradiction between the body and the soul. Everything was one and multiple at the same time, infinitely rich in forms, characteristics and sizes.

And so as we picture a hand, saying that it is “one”, and as we imagine fingers saying that they are “five”, so the perception of the one and the multiple depends on the criteria with which it is contemplated. Man was the receptacle of an instruction that allowed him to perceive unity and multiplicity, destiny and liberty, obedience and creation.

Today, at the end of this conflictual XXth century that has had the virtue of teaching us that we know very little and that we often make mistakes, the “positivist” affirmations of the XIXth century appear funny to us, with its “scientific” superstitions and its infantile, not to say simian, atheism. Perhaps the only evidence, that is equal for the learned as for the ignorant, is that “Something” that we call God who gave the will of survival to things, love to beings and a portentiously intelligent plan to bodies and life in all things.

“Causality” could never have painted the eyes of an owl on the wings of nocturnal butterflies to scare off their enemies, designed the double aspirating-expelling valve of a heart, nor program the maintenance of “micro-climates” in caverns by way of alterations in the temperature and adjustments in the concentration of certain gases in suspension in the air. This “Something” saw to it that anaerobic bacteria could survive without air and to the procession of the equinoxes. It ordered the collective intelligences that direct the herds (the “groupal souls” of the esoterists), and the invisible shields that protect the surface of the planet from cosmic radioactivity. From the dangerous ray comes the beneficial ozone, and from the terrible waves that are beating on the highest places, comes the indispensable negative ions. There are many and many of these manifestations.. but behind it all, beyond it and within there is THE PRESENCE OF GOD.

Why then, are there so many atheists?

In truth, there aren’t as many atheists as is commonly believed. As we cannot assume that the entire population of an “officially” catholic country go to church every week and believe in heaven and hell, as illustrated in the Gospels and the Apocalypse, or in the infallibility of the Pope, neither should we consider it certain that all the millions who live in the USSR, for example, are atheists.

Moreover, to not be a strict “practicing” member of a determined religion doesn’t mean that one doesn’t believe, feel and understand that presence that we call God. It is good to reflect on this, since there are many people who believe in God and pray with their work, with the moral rectitude of their lives, with their honor and generosity...And they fervently believe that there exists a “great beyond” and a “Something” that justifies all its forces and the very motion of the Galaxy.

If there is only one God, why are there so many religions?

Of all communisms, “spiritual communism” is the most dangerous. As a single stroke of a pool cue moves several balls, God’s unique presence, being so diversified and acting on so many different beings, causes many religious forms to arise, very different in terms of superficial rituals, but very similar, if not identical, in its essence.

Moreover, different times and places have given rise to varied theological symbolisms. The presence of God could not manifest itself in the same way in Sumer of 5,000 years ago than in India of 2,500 years ago, or in Arabia of 1,300 years ago. The geopolitical, economical and social differences do not allow for a unique expression.

Furthermore, it depends on who is receiving a specific teaching. They say that Gengis Khan, in the XIIIth century, embarrassed his Muslim councilor when, asking him if Allah was in all things, he couldn’t give him a reason why instead of saluting the Mecca, he couldn’t salute the behind of his camel. It seems that the councilor wasn’t very skilled, since he could have explained that Muslims give a salutation to the Mecca not only for God, but also for the mytho-historical event related to Mohammed.

Believing that there is only one true religion has caused rivers of blood to flow in the worst of “racisms”: spiritual racism. All of them are true in the specific place and specific historical moment. Those that, frequently, are not true are the men, those who use the name of religion to force others to follow their political, social and economic concepts. They exploit and degrade them, thus deceiving them.

Are esoteric cults the best religion?

Evidently not. First of all, because those cults end up being simple “makeshift” religions, more or less supported by a greater one; and this is how we hear of “Esoteric Christianity” or of “Hare Krishna”. Secondly, because there is nothing “esoteric” about them... There are only different mixtures of alienations and fragments of incorrectly recompiled traditions.

Without, Philosophy, that is, without the Love of Truth, there aren’t any forms of Mysticism that don’t crush one group in order to elevate another and that aren’t unnatural.

The study of the History of Humanity gives us the eclecticism to see that the faith of Apollo-Helios is as valid as that of “our Father who art in heaven”. And to philosophically respect the path that each one creates and feels is the best, beyond the baptism received at birth from the good will of the priests, or simply through family customs.

The light of Philosophy allows us to distinguish the many colors and forms, and to discover in them, as in the entire Universe, the PRESENCE OF GOD.

Translated from 'La Presensia Divina' http://www.revistaesfinge.com/?p=283