About GOD (IV)
By yoga teacher Gregorian Bivolaru
Read the third part of this article
In His mysterious nature, GOD the Father is pure spirit. GOD is the Absolute Spirit, which brought light into the darkness, which caused order to appear in chaos.
Jesus Christ tells us: “GOD The Father is spirit, and he who worships Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.”
There are frequent references to the nature of GOD, as a pure spirit and as a divine spirit. In this respect, we must distinguish between GOD and his spiritual creatures. When we say that GOD is pure spirit, we emphasize that He is not in part spirit and in part body as man is. When we state that GOD is an infinite spirit, we go beyond the sphere of our experience.
Omnipresent in and beyond creation
We are limited in time and space, in knowledge and in power. GOD is essentially unlimited, and every element of His nature is unlimited. His infinity in time we call His eternity. His Infinity in space we call His omnipresence. His infinity in knowledge we call His omniscience. And His infinity in power we call His omnipotence. The infinity of GOD means that He is transcendent to the entire Macrocosm. His Infinity emphasizes His detachment from all of His creatures, since He is the spirit that exists through Himself.
He is not enclosed in what we call nature, but is transcendent, or otherwise said, He is elevated far above it.
The transcendence and omnipotence of GOD, as an external being to the entire Macrocosm, is obvious. At the same time the infinity of GOD implies His immanence – His presence and endless power that penetrate everything in the Macrocosm in His creation. GOD does not remain separate from the world, the three worlds or the Macrocosm. He does not remain as a mere spectator of his work, the Macrocosm. He penetrates everything, both all that is animated and all that is inanimate; from the center of each atom and from the innermost springs of thought, life and feelings, there is a continuous succession of causes and effects.
GOD conceived and then manifested the entire Macrocosm and all that exists within Himself. At the same time, GOD is not far from each of us, because in Him, each one of us has life, movement, and being. As far as His quality of Supreme Divine Wisdom, GOD is the source of all intelligence and wisdom in the entire Macrocosm.
Since GOD’s creatures endowed with consciousness have an independent character, GOD the Father is characterised, in turn, by a nature that is divine, both in transcendence and in His immanence. It can not be said that there are certain mental and moral qualities of God as we say about the human character. GOD is always infinitely higher than the sum of all His attributes.
GOD’s names often represent to us the designation of His attributes and it is significant that some of GOD’s names are given in close connection with the needs of his people.
We should treat each of GOD’s attributes as a manifestation of Him in the human situation that made it visible. Compassion in the presence of misfortune, consequent patience in the presence of evil, mercy in the presence of guilt, love and help in the presence of the loving return towards Him.
All these suggest that the attributes of GOD also designate a complex, mysterious relationship that He starts with the human beings who feel they need Him. All this undoubtedly expresses the truth that GOD, in the total plenitude of His nature, is present in each of His attributes, so that a certain divine attribute is not greater than another. He is no more love than righteousness or more compassion than innocence.
If there is any attribute of GOD that can be recognized as all-encompassing and all-pervading, that attribute is His holiness, which must be affirmed with regard to his divine attributes: divine love, compassion, and wisdom.
GOD is ceaselessly sovereign, that is, at a certain moment He draws His plans, manifests His intentions, and He accomplishes them at His appointed time and in the manner determined by Him. This is an expression of His supreme wisdom and power. It also means that the will of God the Father is not arbitrary, but acts in complete harmony with His wisdom. It is the manifestation of His power, love and goodness, and that is why He is the ultimate goal of any existence.
He calls you to His holiness and wisdom
The great sages consider that there is a certain distinction between the God’s will that indicates what we should do and His will that determines what we will do next. We could say there is a distinction between the determined divine will, by which He decrees what is to be done and His guiding will by which He indicates to the creatures, their duties. His determining will shall always be fulfilled, while the guiding will is often disregarded by human beings.
When we think of the sovereign rule of the divine will as the ultimate basis for everything that happens, either through active generation or by passive permission, we recognize in this way the distinction that exists between the active will of God and His willingness .
Entering mistakes or sins in the physical world must be attributed to the permissive will of God, since error or sin is a contradiction of His holiness, purity and goodness. Therefore, there is an area in which the will of God to act is dominant, and there is an area in which, due to the freedom granted to man, he is also given the permission to act as he wants.
This is what one of Prophets reveals to us about GOD: „GOD does what He wants with the army of the heavens and the inhabitants of the Earth, and no one can stand against His will or tell Him what to do.”
There is an impressive example of divine will in the Bible that opposes stubbornness and human disbelief, when Jesus uttered his excruciating calling upon Jerusalem: „How many times did I want to gather up your children, just as the hen gathers her chickens under its wing, and you did not want to.”
However, the sovereignty of GOD guarantees that any action will be brought to dominion in order to serve His eternal purpose and so, His demand: „Thy will be done, as in Heaven and on Earth” will eventually receive an answer.
Should we make a synthesis, we could say that GOD is unique. He is alive because in eternity He is the source of all life. While in the cycle of time everything starts and everything ends, only He is eternal in His immutable perfection. He exists not only in the highest places and only in His temple but is present everywhere. He does not just act as a diffuse entity. GOD is and manifests Himself as a mysterious personal being, an aspect that is testified in His dialogues, the commands He gives, the alliances in which He engages, the love He asks for, and the prayers He listens to. His power is limitless on everything that exists, which actually exists only through Him.
Invisible, because He is immaterial and yet often manifested through signs that are accessible to the senses or through ineffable visions, living in the midst of men in time, as well as out of time, He is also the holy GOD, untouched by any impurity and through His infinite perfection He invites all people to partake in His own holiness and wisdom.
yogaesoteric
July 20, 2017
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