CircleoftheWay
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Often I have raised the question of the difference in experience between theists and non-theists. Really, I have got nowhere as far as any thread is concerned, possibly because I cannot quite articulate exactly what I am asking.
But, whatever, reading through the Collected Letters of Alan Watts is a bit of a revelation. He has been identified with zen and all things "east" yet his period spent as an Anglican Priest in the USA seems obviously very formative in his ultimate views. I'm reading his "Beyond Theology: The Art of Godmanship" for a fourth time, and passages from his Letters provide great illumination to the actual intent and meaning of so much in that book.
There is one letter especially, and I will quote here various passages, attempting to retain the flow of the text.
Pantheism, which is what this is, is very attractive — if it is not pushed too far and made to reduce all being to a valueless, colorless, undifferentiated wodge of uniform oneness. For a long time I myself was perfectly content with this way of doctrinalizing a certain spiritual experience. But I soon discovered that, so far from expressing that experience, it was repressing it; it was preventing the content of that experience from becoming creative to its fullest extent. Because I wanted to adore, to worship, and to thank the something that had undoubtedly caused this experience and continued to maintain it, something that was certainly not my own ego.
Mr Watts then objects to being "somehow necessarily one with God".
The union was a necessary fact discovered — not a gift. But then the urge to adore and to thank didn’t fit with this, not, at least, until I found out that it really was a gift, until certain supremely convincing intellectual arguments showed me that truth of theism. Then I saw that this gift is offered to all, but that it is a gift, and act of supreme love, and not at all a necessary and inevitable thing which may be taken for granted
Arguing again against a point of view being expressed in a book called "The Perfect Way", he continues:-
For the “perfect way,” the union, even the identity, of God and man is necessary. God needs to manifest himself as the creation because otherwise his love would be potential, he would be imperfect, his nature would be unfulfilled. To my mind, that idea destroys the very glory of our union with God — the one thing that makes this union worthwhile, splendid, and meaningful. The glory of this given union with God that is offered to all, which is our raison d’être, is that while it need not be, it is. In other words, it is a gift of love, a free gift, for a necessary gift is not the result of love. Love must be free.
I can be united with God through his love only if I have no right to such a union, if God can do perfectly well without me, if it is an utterly free gift. It is this love which puts a heart in reality, a meaning in it, a value in it. For if God is subject to any necessity, necessity and not God is the ultimate reality, the first cause. And necessity is the nature of the machine. The root of all being is then made mechanical and lifeless and meaningless — in fact, dead.
Anyway, the letter is far longer, with greater detail. But for me, more and more, I feel cheated by so much of Western eastern stuff! Way back I read D T Suzuki speaking of the Dharmakaya in tones that virtually turned it (Him/Her?) into a personal deity. Moving on, I felt compelled to see Suzuki as some sort of maverick. Now? Well, and Dogen, who so often speaks of trust/faith that I wonder about so much found in western books on zen. It seems such books reflect more a recoil from perceptions of Christianity that are seen to be unacceptable (and they are!)
That's all for now. I must go. Grandchildren to feed and water!
But, whatever, reading through the Collected Letters of Alan Watts is a bit of a revelation. He has been identified with zen and all things "east" yet his period spent as an Anglican Priest in the USA seems obviously very formative in his ultimate views. I'm reading his "Beyond Theology: The Art of Godmanship" for a fourth time, and passages from his Letters provide great illumination to the actual intent and meaning of so much in that book.
There is one letter especially, and I will quote here various passages, attempting to retain the flow of the text.
Pantheism, which is what this is, is very attractive — if it is not pushed too far and made to reduce all being to a valueless, colorless, undifferentiated wodge of uniform oneness. For a long time I myself was perfectly content with this way of doctrinalizing a certain spiritual experience. But I soon discovered that, so far from expressing that experience, it was repressing it; it was preventing the content of that experience from becoming creative to its fullest extent. Because I wanted to adore, to worship, and to thank the something that had undoubtedly caused this experience and continued to maintain it, something that was certainly not my own ego.
Mr Watts then objects to being "somehow necessarily one with God".
The union was a necessary fact discovered — not a gift. But then the urge to adore and to thank didn’t fit with this, not, at least, until I found out that it really was a gift, until certain supremely convincing intellectual arguments showed me that truth of theism. Then I saw that this gift is offered to all, but that it is a gift, and act of supreme love, and not at all a necessary and inevitable thing which may be taken for granted
Arguing again against a point of view being expressed in a book called "The Perfect Way", he continues:-
For the “perfect way,” the union, even the identity, of God and man is necessary. God needs to manifest himself as the creation because otherwise his love would be potential, he would be imperfect, his nature would be unfulfilled. To my mind, that idea destroys the very glory of our union with God — the one thing that makes this union worthwhile, splendid, and meaningful. The glory of this given union with God that is offered to all, which is our raison d’être, is that while it need not be, it is. In other words, it is a gift of love, a free gift, for a necessary gift is not the result of love. Love must be free.
I can be united with God through his love only if I have no right to such a union, if God can do perfectly well without me, if it is an utterly free gift. It is this love which puts a heart in reality, a meaning in it, a value in it. For if God is subject to any necessity, necessity and not God is the ultimate reality, the first cause. And necessity is the nature of the machine. The root of all being is then made mechanical and lifeless and meaningless — in fact, dead.
Anyway, the letter is far longer, with greater detail. But for me, more and more, I feel cheated by so much of Western eastern stuff! Way back I read D T Suzuki speaking of the Dharmakaya in tones that virtually turned it (Him/Her?) into a personal deity. Moving on, I felt compelled to see Suzuki as some sort of maverick. Now? Well, and Dogen, who so often speaks of trust/faith that I wonder about so much found in western books on zen. It seems such books reflect more a recoil from perceptions of Christianity that are seen to be unacceptable (and they are!)
That's all for now. I must go. Grandchildren to feed and water!
