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August 19

In the Image and Likeness of God 

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Creativity is our birthright. It is not by accident that we are described as being made in 'the image and likeness of God.' God the creator is the image after which we have been modeled by nature.

Some who favor a more agnostic or atheistic philosophy of life have said that we humans have anthropomorphized God, the idea of God. In the Vedic world view it is rather that we are deomorphic, that we humans are moving via our evolution more and more in the direction of the devas, literally 'shining ones,' or 'beings of light,' that personify the laws of nature.

These beings do not represent the laws of nature; rather, they are expressive of the laws of nature, from the elements of fire, Agni, or air, Vayu, up through the Mahadevas, or Great Beings, such as Ganesha, the Remover of Obstacles, and one of the primary powers that make up the evolutionary force of the universe.

Westerners who first encountered the Vedic culture, and the cultures which sprang from it, lumped all of the pantheon of devas and gods under the umbrella of Hinduism; and those who paid homage to any of these devas were seen as pantheists, nature worshippers too unsophisticated to embrace the concept of the One God so prevalent in the west.

In fact, there is a sophistication to the Vedic understanding of these expressions of the divine that far surpasses what is commonly understood in the west about the Vedic culture. In the Vedic culture this begins with the knowledge that God Is. Totality Is. There is a oneness from which everything arises. At first formless, this oneness moves in the direction of form, embodying in that first personification, that first expression from the formless, Supreme Being; then moving into ever more complex and restricted ideations of divinity, through the Mahadevas, to the devas and then to we humans and beyond into the animal kingdom, each progressive step becoming more embodied and less ethereal. The brilliance of this system easily can be appreciated if we take a moment to remember what the idea God actually represents. 

Every major religion speaks of God as being omnipresent. Everywhere, every time. All of this infinite universe. If this is the case, any idea I may have of God is by definition going to be reductive, in that my finite brain cannot possibly encompass infinity. So any idea of God I have merely will be an avenue by which I may approach the unapproachable, touch the ineffable. How beautiful to have the embodied ideas and images of these beings available to me, that I may appreciate them as a working part of my life, that I may be reminded of the existence of these forces I cannot always see, do not always remember.

Secondly, and the point that really was missed by the first westerners to encounter the Vedic world view is that these forces, these embodiments of the laws of nature, are not seen as existing outside oneself, either in the world like wood sprites or water nymphs, or in some far off heaven unreachable by we humans. In the Vedic world view there only is one thing. If there is one thing, and I exist, I must be that one thing. Therefor these are forces of nature that exist within me, that work through me. I am the embodiment of infinity and all the many personifications of it that have been discerned through the ages and passed on via the arts and through the continuity of worship. When we see a murthi (a statue) of MahaDevi, the Great Mother energy of the universe, in the form of MahaLakshmi, the goddess of beauty and wealth, or MahaSaraswati, the goddess of music and learning, we are reminded of the existence of that force in nature and within ourselves and of the support that is available for us to call upon from within ourselves, much as we in the west might be reminded of this same force and put at ease by seeing an icon of the Virgin Mary.

In the end, we wish fully to know that all that is, indeed is embodied within each of us. That all that can be done is available to be done through us. That all that can be created is meant to be created by us. How we move to that end, how we choose to envision the various chapters of our story and legs of our journey is what makes it interesting, is what makes us individual, is what makes each of us unique. 

There is only one thing. Consciousness is. Life is. This means that the one thing is consciousness, is life. The one thing is alive and waiting for us to notice. Anything that moves us in the direction of knowing absolutely the truth of this and able to experience the validity of this is worth embracing, worth knowing more about. 

To open ourselves to seeing God the way others might see God cannot be a bad thing. 

Today I will look for God in the faces of the people I meet.