The God of Matter

As we all know there are many Gods, and many names for many Gods, even though the Gods themselves never know themselves as Gods nor do they have any use for names. Some Gods are greater, some are lesser but the greater Gods do not see themselves as greater, nor do the lesser Gods see themselves as lesser.

Once upon a time, one of the lesser Gods had a bright idea. But of course, this God did not see himself as a lesser God, nor did he think upon his idea as bright. He just knew he had something to do, and, among the Gods, when they want to do something they just do it, no other Gods need to agree or disagree. 

Gods don’t make mistakes. They just do things and move on, never looking back. So this little lesser God thought he would do something about all those trillions of tiny souls, barely glimmering in the twilight - some of whom were so tiny that even the greatest Gods sometimes forgot they existed. And there were so many of them! Like grains of sand, huddled together endlessly, beaten by the sun and the wind and the sea, metaphorically speaking, of course, for in those times there was neither twilight, nor sun, nor wind nor sea. For this lesser God, every tiny soul was also a God, and just as he did not see himself as a lesser God, he did not see, not even the tiniest soul, as a lesser God either. 

That was how, and why, he had that bright idea. And no sooner did he conceive of it, there was a Big Bang, and what we know today as the Universe, was born. Gradually, (and I say “gradually” for now Time had come into being) those non-descript little-grains-of-sand-souls became beautiful creatures, so diverse and so perfect in their own self expression, that even the least of them, while not knowing that they were the least, looked heavenward in gratitude and gave thanks. For now the eyes of their souls seemed to have opened, they felt blind no more, and so rejoiced in this new-found relationship with themselves and with the other souls. Waking up from the oblivion, now dressed in the garment of matter,  was, for them, the greatest blessing they could have. And even though these creatures could see and feel only as far as their material body allowed them to, it was better than the oblivion before the Big Bang, and that was enough for them, and so they were content and happy.

One among these tiny souls, as we all know, was man. But, from the very instant that he was clothed in matter, there was something different about him. He stood apart from all the other other tiny souls, and though he too rejoiced in the blessing of matter, at times he was a little puzzled too.

There were times when he thought that he saw things he was not supposed to see.

He knew he was also a creature born into the material world, but for him, unlike the other creatures, it did not seem all that enough. And, unlike the other creatures, he did not feel as though he had woken from an absolute oblivion, but instead that he had woken from a very deep sleep.  Why, some human souls even had memories that stretched  back and spilled over from the before the Big Bang and such souls were all the more convinced that in those days, when there were no days, when there were no stars and no moon and no sun, that they had been living nonetheless, even if it were in a kind of deep and dreamy sleep.

Despite these suspicions, they could never be sure of it, and so continued to cling fiercely to their flesh, to fight against annihilation, and, just like all the other creatures around them, did everything they could to survive and thrive. Though feeling somehow constrained, their desire to live within the comfort of matter far exceeded that hidden sense of imprisonment; and for the greater part, they lived much like the other creatures, driven, often blindly, by their inner needs and desires. This need to live seemed to dominate every other need, and they did everything they could to preserve themselves, just so that they may continue to see vividly, to feel with their fingers and smell with their noses and experience everything else that the vast riches of the created world had to offer. 

Now, as Time had come into being, and was deeply entangled in matter, Time enveloped all creatures great and small, even Man. Yet Man knew something about Time that the other creatures did not know, or, at least, to him, did not seem to know. If he held his breath long enough, it was as if he saw its passing, right before his keen, observing eyes; flowing towards him, swirling about a little, especially when he was deep in thought, percolating through him like water filtered through sand, during those times when he struggled with old memories, and then suddenly fleeing away from him every time he tried to grasp its meaning. He was both within it, and outside of it, and this confused him a great deal. At times he would breathe deeply, boldly embrace it and live like a clockwork, in harmony with the rest of nature, at other times he would vanish into himself, into a deep, dark, still pool where no light could enter, where no material law could penetrate; and where he could live in a very sacred, very wild sort of solitude to which he felt deeply drawn to, as if by its own power. In these latter moments he experienced a different kind of harmony - a harmony that was outside of Time, a harmony with the Gods - the Gods who he had once loved so naturally and so easily, but was now increasingly afraid he may forget. 

Time

Time. Man’s most intimate friend and most intimate enemy. He knew not from whence it came to be. It made him feel pulled apart, as if living a dual life between the perfection of the eternal and the perfection of the corporeal. By day he was a mortal body like every other body, like the trees and the grass and the deer and the fish, and, like his fellow men, he rejoiced within it all; but by night, he longed to leave it all behind, to rest within himself and remember from when, and from where, he had come to be. To remember a time when there was no time, and when there was no distance between him and the Gods, and where faith was just about everything there ever was or ever needed to be.

Why then was he here? Was his faith lacking in some way? Of course not! He knew every God, yet without knowing their names, and it was enough. In his faith, he had felt no need to know any names, because he already knew them all, in that special, anonymous way that only faith can understand. But now, it seemed as though Time was slowly taking the place of Faith, and though he felt more fulfilled and more sharply aware of himself, it was not quite the same. In time, he had become increasingly accustomed to knowing the differences between material things and also between the material creatures. He came to know which fish were good to eat and which snakes were poisonous. He came to know which fruit were sweet and which were sour, and, even among his fellow men, he liked some and disliked others, and he thought nothing of it. 

His knowledge of the world increased rapidly by the day - and still he thought nothing of it. 

Not only did he grow accustomed to finding differences, to discern, he even began to enjoy it. His thirst for knowledge, for exploring the world of creation, became a thing in itself. Every evening after his day was done, he would lie awake and play games in his mind. And to keep from getting confused, he started naming the things of the world so that their differences were easier to keep track of, and for every day that he played these games, the more words did he bring to life, the more names did he invent. But never once did he name the Gods, for in his heart he had kept that place sacred, a place for Faith, just as it had been before the Big Bang, a place where Time could not enter. 

The Reluctant Animal

As man thrived and multiplied, as he prospered and grew, he explored more and more of the blessings of Nature, and, seeing as how Nature was so abundant, he believed he could grow and expand indefinitely, even infinitely. Time rolled endlessly before him like the sprawling green meadows, like the wide open skies and the huge oceans. He gazed up each night at the stars and saw an infinity that boggled his mind and made him drunk with the perfection and richness of the Universe. Unbeknownst to him, he had begun to believe, somewhere in the deeper recesses of his mind, that Time was probably much the same as Faith. 

But despite these little self betrayals, every night when he found himself utterly alone, he visited his sacred space, and remembered the Gods, and gave thanks as would one soul to another, with humility and dignity, for he had not entirely forgotten and did not want to forget either. He struggled, as always, to keep Time and Faith separate.

Solitude

Now his faith was, and had always been, a well-kept secret. It was his and his alone, something he never shared with his fellow creatures or even with his fellow men. But even more importantly, he also knew that he could not share his faith even if he tried. He just had no words for it. He as yet dared not invent names for it. Even though he yearned for his fellow men to to understand and share his faith, he just could not find where to begin.

Am I alone? Am I alone in this faith or do my fellow men also have that same faith hidden within them? Do they remember the Gods as I do? Do they love them and yearn for them as I do? Questions like these came to him every solitary night when he visited that sacred space within himself, questions that, after the joyous camaraderie he enjoyed with his fellow men each day, were now beginning to make his nightly solitude rather painful to bear. As the days passed, his nights became increasingly lonely, and eventually his human heart cried to break that loneliness, for he had now come to dread the solitude of the sacred. 

So it was during one such night that man gave thought to naming the Gods of his inner faith - naming them who had never been named before. Naming them so that he may share his faith with his fellow men. So that he may be no more alone in his faith.

The awe-full stranger

His heart sank with a strange kind of fear as he pondered this impossible task. Some of the Gods that he remembered the most, and who he loved the most, appeared to him as the greatest, and those that he least remembered, appeared to him as the least. He began with the greatest Gods, then downwards to the lesser Gods. Yes. In the process of this naming, he felt the need for categories, he had begun to see the Gods as greater or lesser, and even though he knew this was somehow inappropriate; his mind, which had become accustomed to the ways of Time did nothing to reject or deny it. Already he was beginning to neglect the ways of the Heavens. Faith just did not seem enough. His earthly mind needed to organize and structure his deepest feelings so as to make them communicable and coherent, first to himself, then perhaps to his fellow men as well. But every name that he thought of, sounded, to his human tongue not at all like the Gods he knew through his faith, and quite differently than he imagined when he spoke it out loud for the first time. Like a note of music that was a little out of place, though not out of tune, it felt as if the sounds he uttered were not a part of the original score. It felt strange and alien, as if something unborn was forced into birth, a presence that was not meant to be present. It felt as if there were someone else within him, as though a stranger had nonchalantly walked into his house, and now sat at his table, eating his food and drinking his wine, and talking to his wife and children without bothering even to introduce himself. But of course, that stranger was not only just a part of him, it was him. 

And yet he did nothing about it, he held on to those names, and spoke them again and again, for to him it was a bridge that both separated the eternal from the corporeal and also linked them together, even if only in his own mind. And he certainly needed that link, he certainly needed to transition between the two sides of his own self without feeling as if he had exploded through a brick wall every time he went from one side to the other and back. He did not know it at that time, but that was when Religion was being conceived

Communion

So that night he broke the silence of the sacred, and as he lay with his mate, he whispered to her a deep question, “Do you believe in an after-life?”. She rolled over and stared at him blankly for a while, trying to make sense of what had come over her husband. But when she looked deeper into his eyes, she realised he was serious, and strangely his seriousness entered her heart and opened her mind, and she began to remember things, sacred things; things of her own, things that she, like her husband, had never told anyone before. Her eyes widened as she looked at her husband in a completely different light, and with a sudden sense of recognition, then, her lips parting as she struggled for something to say, she reached out gently to hold his hand in hers. And that was enough. It was as if her space had joined his. They lay their, utterly emptied as if something had pulled the plug of their world, and yet overflowing with a different kind of fulfillment, something new, something transcendent. They spoke nothing, thought nothing and yet felt so fully present to one another that it was as if the two had become one.

Gradually they fell asleep. The next morning, woken up by the noises of people going about their daily chores, and, remembering the events of the night before, they somehow found it hard to look each other in the eyes, and so hurried off to return to doing the usual things that the world demanded of them. Their daily chores seemed no more important, at times even trivial, and between tasks they would take long pauses to disappear into themselves. 

Faith had met Time, and it was a strange mix of emotions. 

That was the longest day of their lives. Time seemed to have stood still, and everything around them, even the most familiar things, looked different. The world, existence itself looked like a dream they had only just woken from, stubbornly familiar and yet strangely alien at the same time. Even the chores they were so accustomed to doing felt mechanical and labored, exhausting them quickly, so that they had to pause many times just so as to re-orient themselves. By sunset, however, they had begun to feel more relaxed and at ease, knowing that it was nearly time to go home, and of course, to each other again. 

What happened?

Something had happened to them but they just could not understand it. It felt as if they had come closer to each other, yet somehow estranged and pulled apart. The old and familiar was still there but there was also a powerful new potential which they could explore. They no longer saw each other as they did before, but more sharply, more objectively, and every time they looked at each other this way, they felt increasingly separated, increasingly shy and self conscious.

For now the simple and easy love that they had known before was lost. Not because it had died, but because the new light, which felt like a wealth so great and so abundant, threatened to swallow them and drown them forever.

They felt like crying all the time and yet no amount of tears could heal that strange feeling in which, having gained the greatest treasure beyond their wildest dreams, they had also lost something priceless.

So every night after gazing at the stars they would eventually turn their backs to each other and pretend to fall asleep, but would stay awake, with eyes closed, stifling the tiny sobs that welled up uncontrollably from the very core of their being.

They felt let down, like they had been cheated of their divine rights, and somehow feeling as if they deserved it, and their eyes often lowered when they looked at each other too long, as if in empathy and forgiveness for each others weakness

Mato had always been a good man. But now it was as if he knew it. As if he somehow owned his goodness 

"Just as every star has a fixed place in the heavens", said Mato, "so also every God and every soul of every living thing has a fixed place" 

The deep finality of Mato's words sank Pathe into a long meditative silence. She was deeply impressed by these words from her husband, words that had captured her own belief so accurately. And yet something disturbed her

"What about freedom, then?", she asked. "What if someone doesn't like the place that they have assigned?"

Mato smiled, his eyes turning soft with love. "No one is assigned any place that they themselves have not chosen", he said. And as he spoke, he himself learned truths he had never uttered before. That is why he loved Pathe so much. She brought out the best in him.

As he reflected on this, he realised he had discovered a paradox and so began to think about it. 

Pathe always wondered about Mato's wisdom. Where did it come from? Mato had once told her that the universe is made from laws that existed even before the universe was born, even before the Gods realised them. And yet she hadn't ever fully shared his faith in this sacred, this primordial lawfulness. She admired and loved him for this faith, but always as if from a distance, agreeing, understanding, but never fully experiencing the deep solemnity in which he was often immersed.

For Pathe, laws were just the comfort of familiarity, something necessary but not quite what the universe was all about. To her the universe was a constant seeking, seeking, seeking, driving it ever forwards and with every new milestone in its evolution, the laws that Mate believed were so immutable and eternal, also changed in subtle ways. For Mate, these changes appeared more as changes in his depth of understanding, as discovering new facets to the same original system and he was probably right, too. Every time Pathe discovered these differences, Mate would find the most elegant way to accommodate them into his existing model and to show how a few tweaks here and there would make the two models perfectly compatible. 

Godspeak: the language of the biosphere 

... to be continued

Note to Sandra: I have been stuck at this stage of the story for a while now. My next goal is to understand and introduce the concept of the “transitional object”. I read up on DW Winnicot and Martin Buber’s ideas but I was afraid to continue for fear of getting overly influenced and have it sabotage the natural flow of my thinking. Essentially my approach to the problem of the “bridge between the temporal and the eternal” is that something happens, like “being struck by grace”, a redemption from this feeling of living a split existence between the “inside and the outside”. The transitional object is both holy as well as material, like the “bread” of communion, which, while being wholly physical is also imbued with the holy. Of course this holiness is not a part of the bread itself, but resides in the hearts of those who partake of it, and through the transitional  object humans overcome the utter solitude of the inner sacred space and enter into a kind of shared sacredness - communion. 

I would like to discuss this more with you before continuing my note and venturing into the exploration of the transitional object

By the way, I believe it possible that the collective unconscious is a storehouse of transitional objects  - yet, I have a very tentative and new idea about the symbols and images of the collective unconscious, that, despite being endowed with the eternal nature of the sacred, these symbols are more like a historical archive of man’s existential struggles, they have a temporal component also; they are the fruit - the end result, the evidence and while they may provide clues and intuitive validations, they are more like goal posts, and not the “goal” as such. The collective unconscious is not a static but dynamic and growing all the time, and being universal, diffuses into the consciousness of every living thing everywhere in the universe independently of the constraints of space and time.