How To Know God - some Questions & Answers

Questions and Answers

on

HOW TO KNOW GOD

Amit Goswami

Institute of Noetic Sciences

Sausalito, CA 94965, USA Summer 2000





Q: What is God?



A: Yes, it is most important to start our discussion with this question. Most people, when they think of God, think of a higher power, higher than their own ego. Some people do better; they think of God not only as higher power, but also as a creative power. Unfortunately, they also think of this power as outside of them, separate from them. Then there are of course influences of the so-called monotheistic religions many, who popularly portray God as transcendent and as being separate from the immanent world. So how we conceive God depends a lot on where we are in our spiritual evolution.



A turning about begins when we intuit that God is our own creative power; God may be the answer to the question, "Who am I?" At this point we may become interested in mystical teachings--God is everything, both transcendent and immanent, the one ground of all being. At this point it is matter of exploring and finding it out for ourselves.



Part of the problem is also language: God sounds like a person, it is hard to overcome that tendency of thinking. When we convert the question "What is God?" to "Who am I?", we are allowing the possibility that the question is about the nature of our consciousness. Of course, we can think of consciousness also dualistically either as separate from matter or monistically--all is consciousness. So, to summarize, there are these two ways of looking at God or consciousness, or if you want a less emotionally loaded word, there are two metaphysical or ontological positions. One dualistic, the popular one. The other monistic or nondualistic.



One last comment. Some traditions make a subtle distinction between God, the agency of creation, and the ground of being, which they variously call Godhead, Brahman, etc.



Q: What does science say about these metaphysical positions? Let's be specific. We all know science scoffs at dualistic notions of God as in popular Christianity. Why?



A: If God and the world are separate, made of different substances, then how do the two worlds, the God-world or God-substance and the material world of material substance, interact? Their interaction needs a mediator, but where is it? And then there is the question of the conservation of energy. The energy of the material world alone is conserved, always remains the same. But any interaction with the God world (as when God acts on this world with His creative power) would require exchange of energy involving a violation of energy conservation. It is this kind of arguments, simple but elegant, that keeps scientists at bay from endorsing dualistic religious positions.



Q: So what then is science’s problem with the monistic non-dual metaphysics of God? Why aren’t a majority of scientists embracing that position?



A: This one is subtle. Obviously, science must accept and does, that there is only one "substance" or being in reality. Otherwise we get into the problem of dualism. The question is, is that substance matter, or is it some kind of "God substance" that is the basic being? The success of a materialist metaphysics--the idea that everything is made of matter including mind, consciousness, God--now causes a conceptual conundrum. Is God needed?



In eighteenth century, the physicist Laplace, upon explaining astronomy on the basis of the material metaphysics alone declared, "I do not need that (God) hypothesis." Darwin repeated the same contention in biology with his evolution theory; the biological case was made almost foolproof with the discovery of molecular biology. In psychology, Freud, Watson and Skinner, all sang the glory of a materialist metaphysics in their revolutionary investigations. In contrast, the case for a monistic consciousness, consciousness as the ground of being, has become serious only recently within science. It will take a while before this idea catches on.



Q: Will you give us some details of the winds of change in science’s position from material monism to a monism based on consciousness?



A: The crucial question again is, Is God needed? All scientists subscribe to the philosophy of parsimony (Occam’s razor): if an idea is not needed, theoretically or experimentally or both, why use it? But in recent years, both theoretical and experimental gaps, sometimes big holes, have been found in the matter-based science. First, Carl Jung found, from his case studies in psychotherapy, that therapy works better when one ventures outside of the materialist models of psychology, with concepts such as intuition (which is creative and beyond reason), collective unconscious (which is non-local and beyond the materialist dogma of locality), and synchronicity (which is beyond materialist models of upward causation). Later, Abraham Maslow and others discovered the same thing in their psychological study of people: the answer to "who am I?" must involve a self beyond the behavioral ego, a transpersonal self, for those people who can be said to have "positive mental health."



Second, the materialist ontology from the very inception of quantum physics was found to be inadequate for understanding quantum phenomena. Quantum phenomena clearly show discontinuity (as in the Bohr atom) and non-locality (as demonstrated by the celebrated Aspect’s experiment). And the quantum measurement problem -- how quantum waves of possibility that quantum mathematics calculates for objects to become experienced events--cannot be solved without the assertion of downward causation. The great mathematician John von Neumann first saw this. Von Neumann’s ideas were originally dualistic. I made a contribution showing that the quantum measurement problem can be solved with philosophical rigor only if we assert that consciousness, not matter, is the ground of all being.



Third, Stephen Gould and Niles Eldredge discovered punctuated equilibrium in biological evolution--evolution consists of more than Darwinian gradual variation/selection chance and necessity mechanisms. There are punctuation marks in an otherwise continuous prose of Darwinian evolution. Experimentally, they show up as the "missing links" in the fossil data. Theoretically, they point to a non-Darwinian process in evolution with a faster tempo, maybe even a discontinuity, a quantum leap. Rupert Sheldrake made a breakthrough jump from materialist thinking by proposing non-local morphogenetic fields as essential for understanding biological morphogenesis--the building of form from a one-cell embryo. More recently, I myself have been able to develop a theory in which consciousness creatively intervenes in evolution producing the quantum leaps of speciation--the punctuation marks referred to above. My theory also nicely incorporates Sheldrake’s ideas and produces the much-needed understanding of the roll of development in evolution.



Fourth, in medicine, there has been an accumulation of many cases of mind-body healing, clearly demonstrating "mind over body." But if mind is brain, then how can it cause healing? The physician Deepak Chopra was the first to suggest a model of mind-body healing by proposing that it is quantum healing and works because of the quantum nature of mind and body working on a substratum of consciousness which is the ground of being.



Fifth, there is also much data that are classified under the label "paranormal," telepathy, survival after death and reincarnation, and such. Mainstream science still scoffs at this data. But the sheer volume of it is getting a lot of attention from the public. This data can only be accommodated with a consciousness-based science.



Sixth, I must also mention the philosopher David Chalmers’ work. Chalmers pointed out that the subject-object split awareness that we experience is a "hard question" of consciousness that neurophysiologists are not studying — maybe they cannot study it. If we start with objects or algorithms, we always get to stay at the same level: objects beget objects, and input statements beget output statements, never a subject looking at objects or a subject examining the output statement. This is a very brief summary, of course. Many other scientists have contributed to the monistic consciousness-based paradigm that is now developing. The good news about the new paradigm is that it is inclusive. It includes the old science; does not entirely reject it. And it promises an integration of science and spirituality.



Q: But many mainstream scientists remain skeptical about any integration of science and spirituality. Why?



A: Scientists are distrustful of the consciousness-based ontology because:



1) they do not see a clear epistemology--the answer to how to know reality (God) question; and

2) they think that the mythology used in spiritual traditions involves faith, which they interpret as holding a belief system without verification. This, they think, is fundamentally against the scientific method, where skeptical inquiry is essential. What is happening right now is that the new paradigm scientists are addressing the epistemological question within science. Witness Chopra’s recent book, How To Know God. When I wrote my book The Self-Aware Universe, I too devoted a considerable effort to the epistemological question that is further developed in my new book: The Visionary Window: A Quantum Physicist’s Guide To Enlightenment. And frankly, most scientists just miss the spiritual methodology, that it is entirely the same as the scientific methodology. The truth is, the scientific method is not fully based on rational thinking. It crucially involves creativity, creative insights of intuitive quantum leaps (read my book Quantum Creativity). And scientists, too, must begin with faith, not looked upon as a static belief system, but a conviction in an intuition of the value of the inquiry. Spritual faith, if one looks closely, is no more than that. You inquire into "What is God?" or "Who am I?" because you have a faith that reality is more than it seems at first. Both science and spiritual inquiry are based on our intuition that bulk of reality is "uncommon sense" to use Robert Oppenheimer’s phrase.

 

Q: Even mystical philosophers, Ken Wilber is a notable example, remain skeptical that science and spirituality can be or should be integrated. What is your answer to that?



A: Many mystical philosophers are taking a "wait-and-see" attitude. This is reasonable because we live in an age of faddism where uncooked or half-baked ideas are shouted as loudly as any other idea. Materialists have a habit of co-opting alternative science notions. So many new age thinkers try to co-opt spirituality with the notion of an immanent God that is consistent with materialist metaphysics. Examples are the deep ecology movement, feminist spirituality, the so-called holographic paradigm, and so forth. This is what Wilber objects to, mainly. But as my work has emphasized, all the major advocates of the current paradigm shift, embrace transcendence (nonlocality), that includes immanence. Some philosophers, Wilber included unfortunately, also seem to hold onto the notion that science is a "lower" level activity and cannot possibly capture the "high" level subtle aspect of reality that mystics talk about. But my own work, Deepak Chopra’s work, Abraham Maslow, Rupert Sheldrake, all this should help Wilber reexamine his position.



Q: One more question on the bridging of science and spirituality. Many mystics say, that ultimately God is ineffable, only subject to direct knowing of some sort. In short, this is the mystery aspect of mysticism. Science must give objective answers to questions of reality. Can science live with a fundamental mystery?



A: Why not? In quantum physics, we are living with the notion of discontinuity every day--that there is a discontinuous movement, the collapse of the possibility wave into actual events--for which no algorithm, no mechanism, no logic can be given. It is the same mystery as the mystics are talking about. Because there is this fundamental mystery, is it possible for there to exist freedom of choice, free will, or creativity, as I often emphasize?



Q: Okay, let’s now go into the million dollar epistemological question, How to know God? If reality is indefinable, how can we even start?



A: Let’s start with some very useful East Indian thinking. I could start with mystical thought in other traditions also, for example, with the Jewish Kabala and virtually reach the same conclusions, but the East Indian tradition is the one I am most familiar with. In East Indian thought as expressed in the Vedanta, reality (God or consciousness) has three epistemological aspects, existence (for which the Sanskrit word is sat), awareness (Sanskrit chit), and bliss (Sanskrit ananda). Since ontologically, reality is ultimately indefinable (it being the absolute cannot be expressed via concepts which are secondary), East Indians very cleverly define reality as this epistemological trio existence-awareness-bliss. We can take any one, and it will give us a method.



Q: Will you give us an illustration?



A: Take bliss. At first it seems that it lies outside of us. We eat chocolate and feel bliss; so bliss must be in the chocolate itself. But soon we notice that when we have eaten too much chocolate or when we are sad, chocolate does not seem to be all that blissful. So we begin to intuit that bliss may be an aspect of our inner reality, our consciousness. When we make the same investigation about bliss with another human being, we make an astounding discovery. Bliss level increases when we stop objectifying our partner, when we acknowledge the "otherness" (as a conscious subject) of our partner. Thus begins Bhakti Yoga, the yoga of devotion, a practice that dominates Christianity.



Q: Wait a minute. Isn’t Bhakti yoga dualistic, because you are being devoted to God as the other?



A: Yes, initially. But very soon you find that the bliss level is limited when you approach God only as separate from you. You must go the level where God is both separate and not separate (from you). But as the mystic Sri Chaitanya pointed out, this God being both separate and in-separate is beyond our thinking mind. We have taken a creative leap for that level of understanding. In that creative leap, monism prevails. Using the quantum understanding developed in the book, we can say that it is the creative leap from a simple hierarchical relationship to a tangled hierarchical relationship.



Q: This is interesting. Will you elaborate how one epistemologically uses awareness to investigate God?



A: The investigation of awareness is most interesting because from the beginning we see the subject lurking behind all the objects of experience, and we get mystified. The first tendency is to ignore the subject as an epiphenomenon and concentrate on objects, as materialists do. At the next level when we see that the study of objects will never give us a clue about the mystery of the subject, when we are ready to tackle the hard question, we begin to meditate on awareness. The East Indian sage Patanjali and the famous Gautama Buddha both perfected the "samadhi" path to reality using the investigation of awareness. In this, one stays with meditation itself, which is to directly meditate on awareness, to discover with a quantum leap in awareness itself (from secondary to primary awareness) that ultimately the subject-object split is illusory. As the philosopher/mystic Krishnamurty of more modern times used to put it, one discovers that the observer is the observed. But one needs to purify one’s mind; Patanjali gave us an eightfold practice as did Buddha, although not the identical practices.



Q: You may as well complete all the methods. How does one approach reality via the investigation of being?



A: Once again, when we begin, we get enamored with the material level of being. Later we realize that there is also being inside, our internal experience. Then begins the question, "Who am I?" We then take the jnana (wisdom) path, asking "who am I?" in more and more refined way. For example, Descartes meditated on this question and reached the premature conclusion, "I think, therefore I am," gave up, and thus he lost an opportunity. Later the philosopher David Hume saw the limitation of Descartes’ thinking, but as he himself wrote, instead of further contemplating on the subject, he went to play backgammon. It is very subtle. All the answers the mind comes up with will fall short, and we must reject them, not this, not this. You have to wait for the creative quantum leap for the answer to grow within you.



Q: In the spiritual literature of India, there is also mention of Karma yoga, path of action. This is very important also in the West, being the bread and butter of the Christian tradition of Catholicism. You didn’t mention karma yoga.



A: I should have. Karma yoga is another way to investigate bliss. We all act, and we act primarily to be happy. Initially, we act for our personal happiness that is the only thing that makes sense. But suffering remains as part of our lives and we ask, "Is there a way to end suffering?" We start by giving up on the fruits of the action; we try to act without a desire for a specific outcome as much as possible, because the outcome is not within our power. Next, we practice how to act without identifying with the doer; give up the notion that I am the doer. At this stage karma yoga is very close to Bhakti yoga: God is the real doer. At the third level, we transcend all Amit: What comes after that?



Q: I guess this is an appropriate place to ask you about good and evil. Should we not always perform good actions and stay away from evil?



A: If God, consciousness, is the ground of being, then it must transcend the notions of good and evil. So you heard me right. Ultimately, one must transcend all polarities, even good and evil, to reach unity, the whole. Because ultimately, the notion of good and evil are relative; what appears to be evil from one level, may actually be good from a higher, more subtle perspective. But, in the path, performing what appears to be good actions to us help us purify; evil actions create more separateness. This is why religions emphasize good actions over evil.

 

Q: Why are there good and evil in the first place? Why not only good?



A: This is a subtle question and there are several levels of answers. At one level, this is identical to the question of why manifestation, why the ego-separateness? Well, manifestation is, and the price of experience of the manifest world that we pay is conditioning --- the ego. So we have one evil -- conditioning, as opposed to the good, creativity. You can see very clearly why evil is called darkness and good, light in this approach to good and evil. Conditioning leads to the darkness of ignorance which only creativity, giving rise to the light of wisdom, can remove. But ask yourself: can conditioning be eliminated completely from nature? Without conditioning, we would not have a reference point. Without the ego and the use of reasoning, how can we build a civilization? Civilization requires the ego-scaffolding to seek creative answers to more and more sophisticated questions. Else we stay primitive and discover the wheel over and over again.



At another level, we have to look at good and evil from the biological point of view. Biological survival, maintenance, and reproduction, evolutionary forces that maintain homeostasis through adaptation, require instincts, which are experienced as negative emotions: fear, anger, lust, etc. Then there are also good emotions, the positive emotions, love, compassion, humor etc., which are also part of our emotional being. We cannot eliminate the "evil" emotions because then where would we be? The answer is to transcend, or in this case transform.



Q: What does science have to say about these epistemological investigations?



A: Science is helping a great deal to show the cogency and effectiveness of these practices, both empirically and theoretically. For example, modern empirical studies of meditation have taught us a great deal about consciousness. There are three epistemological assertions of the idealist interpretation of quantum mechanics. They are:



1) the universality of consciousness in primary awareness events

2) the state of unconscious processing

3) pure consciousness as the ground of being



They are all referred to in mystical traditions and many mystics bear witness to these cognitions. I hope you now see that universal methods exist for anyone to verify the metaphysics of monistic idealism through epistemological inquiries following the above-mentioned paths.



Q: Will you give us an example of how modern theoretical science investigations contribute to these spiritual paths?



A: All our theoretical investigations, today and yesterday, are examples of the wisdom (jnana) path. One always ends up with a quantum leap of insight about consciousness. I realized that consciousness is the ground of being through my attempt to solve the quantum measurement problem -- how the quantum possibility wave is collapsed to actual events.



Q: One disturbing question is: How does one discern a true knower of reality from a faker? How does the enlightened being behave?



A: This is very subtle. And we are never going to find a complete answer. Because the truly "enlightened" beings, the ones who have gone all the way in pure consciousness are not going to answer such questions in words. They don’t have the personality to engage with such questions. So we have to answer the question through empirical studies of the behavior of enlightened people.



Unfortunately, the known sample is small. Now today there are many people who claim to be enlightened. Unfortunately, there seems to be a gradation among them, and there seems to be very few who have gone all the way. Even the realization of consciousness without subject-object split (a state that is called nirvikalpa samadhi in Sanskrit) is rare, and even in those who have experienced it, some vestiges of ignorance remain for a while to drop only with maturation. I knew one such person quite well, Franklin Merrell-Wolff. A radiant being, but at age 93, when his wife died, he fell apart for a while.



Only the ultimate being that East Indians call turiya, burn all ignorance, all karma, present and past. One glowing example of this level of being in recent occurrence is Ramana Maharshi. Most people who declare themselves enlightened do this on the basis of what East Indians call swavikalpa samadhi, the experience of oneness of consciousness, the individual consciousness in this experience gives way to the cosmic consciousness (as, for example, studied by the mystic/philosopher Richard Bucke). The subject-object split tends to merge, but there is still awareness, primary awareness.



Having said all that, in my limited experience as a scientist and also a meditator, I would like to emphasize some of the characteristics of enlightened being that Maslow also found from his empirical study of positive mental health: creativity, unconditional love, humor, environmental independence, happiness, etc. To this list I add two. One given by the psychiatrist Uma Krishnamurthy--radiant mental health, meaning mental health that radiates to the environment. In the presence of such being, you will feel peace, feel joy, feel playfulness. The sage Aurobindo gave the other: these people live not by reason, but more or less by intuition, they have what Aurobindo called the intuitive mind.



Q: The final question. Is the human being the end of evolution?



A: Sri Aurobindo whom I mentioned above intuited that humans might be the laboratory for a later supramental being. The Western thinker Teillard de Chardin shared a similar view. I am an enthusiastic supporter of this view.

 

Very interesting, thanks for posting it

 

www.noetic.org

 

Thanks to Brandon for appreciation, and gnrm 23 for the link (which I meant to post with the article).

 

Thanks...good strong arguments, valid points. Good read.

 

This is good, but then again I don't see how thinking of God as different from oneself is limiting our bliss or his power.

I don't know why God needs a translator if material nature is different than God's nature, anyway, I think it doesn't really matter if one follows this path or the other, if he knows Sri Hari at the end, thats all that counts.

 

I think in the end thats what Prof. Goswami is saying. There are different paths. Which one we choose depends on our inner nature.

Ultimately, everything, including the self is just a form of Him.

 

By seeing God as different from oneself, you limit God, saying he does not pervade you and by extension he does not pervade all other jeevas also. In other words you are saying that there is somewhere where God is not present and you are present. If that is not limiting him, what is?

Having said that, to worship that infinite all pervading God in a particular form is perfectly fine. Worship Rama and be his sevak. Dance with Krishna. But do this in the full knowledge that He who you see without, you see within also. In Ramacharitmanas, Tulsidasji says:

Aakar chaari laakh chaurasi, jaati jeeva thal nabh baasi
siyarammaya sab jag jaani, karau pranam jori jug paani.

There are eight million four hundred thousand species of living beings under 4 broad divisions, living on land, water and air. Knowing all this creation to be imbued and pervaded by Sri Ramachandraji, I fold my palms and pray to them.

It is fine to worship the lord separate from oneself, but we must understand that he is the one who is within you also. If you cnanot see the lord within yourself, then your bliss is definitely limited.

 

Superb Bhaskar!


All I would add is that Bhakti, at the higher stages becomes non-dual.

 

Of course...The culmination, the fulness of love is in such complete union.

 

One major mistake in Goswami's essay was this:

This is just wrong. Both the question and answer are wrong. An "enlightened being" doesn't "behave" in a way that can be examined empircally by a set formula or mold of behavior. And to then say that the enlightened being cannot deal with such questions leaves us with the notion that a lesser being can do what the higher being cannot.

An enlightened being is superior to an unenlightened being, by definition. He or She are in fact the only people who can engage in such questions in an authentic sense from the experiential level. For someone claiming to be coming from the Vedanta tradition, the claim that the enlightened soul is less able to relate spiritual knowledge then others, is contrary to the Vedanta tradition.

In the Vedanta tradition it is taught that only the self realized soul can impart full authentic spiritual knowledge to others because He or She is experienced with that knowledge. This is why the Guru is held in such high esteem. The authentic Guru or enlightened soul has the ability to do what no other person can do, that is being able to teach from the point of view of someone who is fully conscious of what enlightenment is. The Guru is therefore not someone who can be empircally studied by the unenlightened without the obstacle of the ignorance of the unenlightened.

For example the relationship between the professor and the student. The student has to be able to sacrifice his time and energy, devote himself to study, give up certain activities and lifestyles. In order for the student to gain his degree he needs to act in a certain way. You can empirically study a student to see if he or she comes up to the expectations of a bona fide student. He has to be seen to be studious and he has to be seen to be able to take the time to go to class.

The professor does not have to live life like the student. The professor can do whatever he wants with his time. His sole duty is to be able to teach. Beyond that there is no other qualification, no other empirical method to deduce whether the professor is a true knower of what he teaches. The student who studies under the professor can judge whether or not the professor is bona fide if the student becomes expert at what the professor teaches. But even then not all students may be qualified students. Really the only other person who can judge the level of the professor is another professor.

The same applies with Gurus. Any authentic Guru can deduce another persons level by hearing that person speak. The authentic Guru ultimately is the only person who can tell if another person is authentic. A disciple can only tell if he or she is elevated to enlightenment by the Guru.

A person is not enlightened if they cannot speak like an enlightened person. Enlightened people are superior in their ability to relate transcendental truth from the non enlightened persons.

The essential message of Vedanta is that the enlightened souls are the only people who can relate fully the knowledge of Vedanta.

From the Bhagavad Gita

 

How then, in your opinion wiould a person recognize an authentic guru?


It seems obvious that one would have to look at the way they acted, the way they were, in order to be able to come to any kind of judgement. I think that's all Prof. Goswami is saying here.

 

My main objection was in Goswami's statement that an enlightened person cannot deal with the question of who or what is an enlightened person.

The second objection is the idea that by empiricism someone can deduce the level of a persons spiritual attainment.

As to your question about how do we decide a person's level of spiritual attainment, the Vedantic method is that a self realized person can show you the truth. If you gain enlightenment from someone, then that is really the only way that you can tell if that person is enlightened. Although if you are enlightened you will be able to tell by hearing that person speak. By the empirical method you rely upon your ignorance.

How common is it for people to accept one teacher as an enlightened soul, only to later on change their opinion? This is because there is no way for an unenlightened soul to know absolutely for certain who is an enlightened soul without first becoming enlightened.

How common is it for a person to be worshipped as an enlightened soul because that soul is very good at giving an outward appearance of holiness? He or She may give an appearance of religiosity or holiness because that person has learned how to do that according to some tradition or another. They can dress the dress, walk the walk, and they can talk the talk. But those things can be learned by anyone. Real enlightenment cannot be faked by external appearances. There is no external empirical test that can be used to deduce a persons true level of spiritual attainment.

A truely enlightened soul is very rare in this world. Yet around every corner someone is being worshipped as if they are a self realized soul. This is because everyone is being led towards their destiny in life. They are led to believe whatever they believe and they are led to follow whomever they follow. No one is free from their destiny. Ultimately Vedanta teaches that God is leading you to where you need to be in your progression through samsara. When you come to the end game then you meet an enlightened master sent to you by God.

From Bhagavad Gita

You may meet an enlightened master before it is your time to gain release from ignorance, at that time you will be unable to gain the necessary jnana to attain to enlightenment. But when it is your time you will meet another master, then you will be able to receive fully the gift of enlightenment through him or her.

Becoming enlightened is not an empirical process. It is destiny guided from beyond our vision.

 

Both yes and no. Ramakrishna never considered the nirguna (Brahman or existance without qualities of differentiation) to be be independent, more advanced than the sahguna (Brahman or existance with qualities).

But let me know when you get there to the higher stages if there is one that is more than the other as first hand knowledge is the way to go.

 

Back to personalist vs. impersonalist again?

 

That is self comtradictory, as hearing is an empirical process.

Also, if a person was enlightened, why would they be looking for a guru to give them enlightenment?