| Article: Raging Against God and other Ego Games |
|
|
|
|
by Jose Stevens At first glance the title to this article might sound a little odd. “Raging against God? But I’m not furious with God. Well, sometimes maybe, but no, I don’t need healing from this strange malady.” And this is exactly the point. Most of us are entirely unaware of the deep mistrust, the deep feelings of betrayal, the intense anger we harbor against God, the almighty Creator, the Great Provider, the Great Spirit, Atman, despite our protests to the contrary. In fact this is so even though many people deny the existence of Spirit. Why? How can this be? And if it is so, how did it ever come about? Most human beings sort of believe in a Supreme Being, a Creator that they feel is their source. Perhaps they were taught in church or through their family structure or culture that they should worship this God and petition this Almighty source for all manner of favors including relief from suffering, gifts of health well being, power, wealth, love, and alleviation from loss. However when pressed most people will tell you they have never actually met the Supreme Being nor have they ever have seen this wonderful source except perhaps in icons, religious pictures, or statues. When asked where the Great Spirit lives they vaguely point to the sky and mumble something about up there in heaven or if they are more enlightened they will point to their heart and say, “In here somewhere.” Thus for most people the Supreme Being is either remote or an invisible distant force that is somewhere else, over there, in here, but hard to get to. When people of great faith say they know God personally, even they say they sometimes can’t connect or they feel abandoned by their Almighty. Even the late great Mother Teresa commented on this in her private letters. If you push people on this uncomfortable topic they will usually admit they feel somewhat victimized by this state of affairs. Here is an imaginary interview: Question: “Does God always listen and answer your prayers?” Reply: “No, not always.” Question: “Do bad things happen sometimes, even if your God exists? Reply: Well, yes, they do but it’s not God’s fault that we behave badly.” Question: “Do you deserve to be punished when you are bad and break what you believe to be God’s rules?” Reply: “Yes, it is necessary! Through punishment I am forgiven.” Question: “Well, how do feel about people who punish you? How do you feel toward them when they are in the act of punishing you?” Reply: “Well, I don’t like it. I feel resentful.” Question: “What if God does it? Punishes you? Reply: “I don’t know. Maybe God doesn’t punish us directly. We punish ourselves for breaking the rules.” Question: “So God sits around and expects you to punish yourself when you break the rules?” Reply: “Uh, well no, uh er yes. I’m not sure? You’re confusing me.” Comment: “Damn straight it’s confusing. I’m just asking the questions, you are the one who is confused.” Reply: “Hey, get lost. Screw you. Don’t ask any more stupid questions.” Comment: “Oops. Looks like I got to a sore spot. Lot’s of anger there.” Now this exchange may seem innocent enough but if you press anyone hard enough who feels guilt and shame they will expose a deep resentment, a rage about feeling that way. That rage is often pointed inwardly and may result in self-deprecation or self-destructiveness but more often than not it is pointed at others under the keen direction of the false personality. It encourages you to say toward others, “Yes, I may be bad, but so are you. You are bad. In fact you are worse than I am and you should be ashamed. You should feel guilty. Shame on you. You should be controlled, diminished, and punished. I am secretly the judge.” In this camouflage physical universe there does not appear to be direct evidence of a Supreme Being. You can’t go anywhere and shake his or her hand at the Big Enchilada temple in Holyville. You can only meet with God’s so called representatives and grovel for favors or forgiveness. You have to imagine that God is there, behind the scenes, and believe it or not this actually enrages people at the deepest of levels. This is exactly what the false personality, the ego, director of this movie, wants. The false personality, imaginary commander in chief of the human experience, expects absolute loyalty and wants everyone to worship it. So it says, “God’s not here. God went away. God is angry with you for being bad and imperfect so God has abandoned you. Here, I am the boss so you need to listen to me in all things. I will provide for you. I will fulfill all your wishes, I promise. First of all, however, I will make sure that you are effectively punished so that God, who isn’t here, will forgive you. The only problem is that you have been so bad that you can never ever be punished enough for what you are or what you have done. So you are effectively mine forever. And all those things I promised you will be forever just out of your reach. You may get them from time to time but you won’t ever enjoy them for more than a couple of minutes. So sorry. You are doomed to suffer here in my universe. Actually, there is no God but me but if there were a God, if I were you I would hate Him or Her for abandoning me.” Now this is downright weird. What strange logic flows here. The false personality wants it both ways. It wants you to believe there is no God but itself and at the same time it gives tacit permission, even encouragement to believe in a Supreme Being, enough to hate Him or Her. This is exactly the kind of manipulative criminal mind the false personality has. It says, “Look to me to furnish all your needs. I give you the goals of wealth, power, beautiful objects of lust, the glee of vanquishing foes, and the glory of feeling right and superior over others inferiority.” This actually might be OK if the ego actually delivered. But it does not, won’t, cannot. It holds everything just out of reach, a bagful of empty promises. Instead it wants you to be angry and resentful and through your suffering it can maintain a kind of control over you because it relies on division to survive. In defense of false personalities’ promises you might find yourself saying, “Yes, but some people seem to have everything. They are rich and beautiful, stars to be envied. That’s what I want.” Yet, consider, what if everyone were rich and beautiful? Having it would quickly lose its meaning because the false personality exhorts us to be special and that goal is unattainable to everyone according to the rules of the Earth Game. Everyone cannot be special or it too would lose its meaning. Therefore what the false personality is actually promising is scarcity, not abundance, and this then promotes craving, competitiveness, conflict, and ultimately unhappiness. It promotes the ultimate in distraction. The exceptions prove the rule. Few actually attain what they crave. When someone actually achieves their dreams they are only satisfied for a little while. Typically deep disappointment sets in because there is truly no end to wants. Despite popular teachings that say rockets of desire are good, the truth is that nothing impermanent can satisfy and everything in the physical universe is impermanent by definition. So what is one to do? You have seen how false personality uses twisted logic to ensnare the mind. It makes endless false promises that cannot be kept and than exhorts you to cast blame on a God that has abandoned you. The false personality encourages the resulting despair, self-loathing, and lack of forgiveness. It arranges for you to project all this onto others who seem to be responsible for your unhappiness. You then blame them for being stupid, fat, skinny, ugly, irritating, rude, indecisive, greedy, arrogant, stubborn, impatient, unworthy and all manner of imperfections. You then naturally conclude that they should be judged, criticized, blamed, attacked, punished, and even eradicated for their misdeeds. Following this pattern you end up confronted with a truly miserable world. In all honesty, most people’s days are filled with just such thoughts. Almost all Hollywood films have this twisted logic as their themes: self-loathing, conflict, blame, revenge, attack, justification, and rationalization. End of movie. Everyone gets to go home with a little sugar coating and then feel uneasy and vaguely bad. This line of logic is what runs the criminal justice system, fills the jails, encourages lawsuits, fuels politics, international conflict, and finally results in wars. The truth is that people don’t want the rehabilitation of criminals. Despite their protests many people do not want peace either. They want punishment only, because their belief that they should be punished is projected outward constantly. The desire for war is no different and is what fuels and supports even unpopular wars that outwardly people excoriate. There is no rationality here, no reasonable logic. There are only feelings of badness and raging against God. It must be God’s fault only we don’t feel safe to blame such a powerful force so we project that out too. The truth is that most people hate God and are too cowardly and too frightened to admit that to themselves. So they go to temple, church, mosque, or synagogue and pretend to worship and then walk out and kill people indirectly with thoughts and actions. The process is no different in meditation practice and prayer. Yuck. That is the ugliness we need to confront in ourselves. So what is one to do in the face of such a conundrum. Here is one solution to the seeming unsolvable problem of hating God. 1. Admit that you have at times been deep disappointed, resentful, and angry at Spirit. Admit that you have blamed Spirit for what you yourself wanted, a universe where you could pretend to be an all powerful individual god who controls your life, with no big God to dissolve and vanish into, no big brother or sister. 2. Recognize that so long as you suffer you are in league with the false personality and loyal to it, loyal because you listen to it and believe what it says. This accounts for much of your thinking even if you pride yourself in being a “Good Person” or even an “Older Soul.” If you doubt this then imagine the person you consider to be the worst human being on the planet and try to understand that they are a projection of yourself only. Behind that fake persona lies pure Spirit that you share with them. 3. Declare your intent to stop listening to false personality and transfer your loyalty to the Great Spirit, the Great Provider, the Supreme Being, even thought you have been bitterly angry for your disappointments. You can only do this when you have stopped subconsciously blaming Spirit for everything. 4. Admit that you have harbored hatred for the Great Spirit for not sparing you from disappointment, misery, and all manner of suffering. Admit that somewhere inside you, you have been angry about feeling fear, guilt, and shame, and enduring seemingly endless suffering. 5. See that you have projected much of this guilt and shame onto other people in the form of judging them, enjoying slander and scandal and feeling gleeful when they get their comeuppance. The bigger the villain, the nastier the punishment, the greater the satisfaction. Realize that the satisfaction of the bad guys getting their just deserts comes from the projection of your own sense of guilt and shame. “Yeah, their getting it.” is easier to stomach than “Yeah, I deserve it, just go ahead and kill me! I have been awful.” 6. Observe your own sense of guilt. The Great Spirit did not abandon you as the false personality suggests. Why? Because Spirit is incapable of abandoning itself and each human being is Spirit, no exceptions. By agreeing to listen to and worshiping false personality, humans themselves tried to abandon Spirit. This caused us to feel fear, guilt, and shame. These three things run our dreams. We mini-creators are the architects of the false personality and it is our job to dismantle it, this massive edifice, piece-by-piece, fear-by-fear. The way we do that is by simple observation of how it works and denying it any power whatsoever by withdrawing all belief in it. False personality seems real but cannot exist in an indivisible universe. It’s just a bad dream. 7. Make a practice of seeing that Spirit is everywhere, even throughout this camouflage universe. See each human being, plant, animal, and element as embodied and infused with the same internal light of Spirit. Treat everything with massive respect. Refuse to believe in enemies. Refuse to prepare for or participate in war. Refuse to give conflict any power. Get with the program that the one Spirit of Being is who you are and therefore is your power base. Admit that you and Spirit are the same and give up the struggle to be a separate, special, individual identity. The illusion of separation never ever worked and will never work in getting you what you want. Reconnecting to All That Is provides everything needed and more. Now, the only way to really get this is to really get it. Read this over several times in different states of mind. You will see and feel different things. Then it will begin to have an impact on you. You have my total support on this journey because until you get it, I won’t get it entirely either. We are all completely dependent on one another. Happy New Year. Happy new life. Jose |
