GODS AND GURUS

Gods have come in all shapes and sizes, and in every age there have been folk among us ready to take the initiative by spinning their tales of what God is, and what he expects of us - in this way swaying our minds and movements to their advantage. In each generation our gurus have been so persuasive, we have allowed them to push us along any path, into any perversion to take their fancy. Cajoled by those who assume to know, we have kowtowed, we have copulated and we have killed, we have sacrificed ourselves and massacred our brothers to satiate the blood-lust of the gods they give us. Even the history of ‘Christendom' is drenched in blood, and today we are still plagued by wars engendered by discordant religious convictions.

Gods are superstitions, ideas and ideals, philosophies and political persuasions, and wherever some of our peers see a way to manipulate us to their advantage, they will find the appropriate words to make us do their bidding. But the will of every god we are offered has been the extension of the will of our leaders; ‘God says this - God wants that', they say whenever they require us to comply with their desires.

Throughout mankind's unfortunate history, in awe of life we have clung resolutely to one superstition and another. Almost any wondrous or fearsome phenomena has at some time been our god: the volcano, the sea, the moon, the sun, the planets, and where there has been no convenient natural manifestation in-which to wrap our concepts, we have fashioned images to represent them. Nowadays we don't necessarily need those images - the faces of our gods are our religious and political leaders, and for them, as long as it is cleverly presented, any cause is worth worshipping.

Gods and gurus, sages and saviours, are bringers of philosophies, so when we say, "I have chosen Jesus, (or Buddha, or whomsoever) as my saviour," it does not mean we light candles, count beads, kowtow before or utter mantras to any image, but that we are actually declaring our acceptance of his philosophy as a basis for our own lives, to adopt and carry through in whatever we say and do - thus actively promoting it. It is the only way we can show respect for such men and their wisdom.

A god is a concept - usually influenced by the precepts of former generations, ie: historical bias. But the god of Guatama the Buddha and Jesus the Christ is ever new, not inhibited by the preconceptions of our forefathers and not dependent upon pattern nor genealogy for its authenticity; not conditioned by history, not restricted in the pages of a book nor chiseled indelibly in stone, but having life quite independent of these imperfect reflections of it. Their god is Love, inviting recognition and striving for fulfilment in this eternal ever-opportune moment.

Some see God as the Master Puppeteer, predetermining and controlling all that ever takes place, thus giving us free will only to like or dislike ‘his' decisions. However, the Nazarene's ‘Father' is not a supernatural entity, but an infinite purpose behind and within all Creation - every form, race and face being a vital facet of its impartially manifesting Spirit. Ever and equally present in all its manifestations, even the ‘hairs on our head are numbered, and a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without its knowledge'. Therefore ‘he' favours all Creation equally, with no bias to any race, colour or creed.

The god of bias is not the god of Jesus of Nazareth or Buddha. If a god shows favouritism for the few in preference to the many, he cannot be the god of love, for being impartial, Love has no favourites; it is only we deluded humans who would drag him down to our own biased mediocrity, by claiming to be his ‘favoured few'. But truth is no respecter of person, and God is not exclusive to any religion.

Philosophies are patterns for living - some good, some bad. When our philosophy tells us to help our fellows through times of need and difficulty, it is a concept to the common good. When it tells us to maim and kill our fellows, it is a concept born of evil. In this way it can be said that our actions are promoted by good (God) or evil (D’evil). It comes down to a matter of choice: whether we approach life with view to giving to it, or to grabbing as much as we can of it for ourselves. That is the measure of our chosen god or guru, or our understanding of him. When anyone says that God told them or led them to do something, what they are actually saying is that they have decided, or have an earnest desire, to do it. In this way they legitimise or excuse their decision by shelving responsibility onto a concept they carry round in their heads: like saying "I am not responsible for my actions - my ideas made me do it."

Buddha said, "Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love; this is the eternal rule."
Jesus said, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself."
In Jo 4:16 we read - "And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him."

The concepts offered by Buddha and Jesus of Nazareth are those which promote peace, love and understanding, with view to harmonious living. Since their god is Love, only those actions which support and promote this are acceptable. Therefore in order to follow their examples, we must refrain from any act of aggression toward our fellows, withdrawing our support from any organisation, policy or action which creates division and enmity, including ‘holy' or ‘just' wars. According to them, all who advocate violence to achieve an end, act in error, from an evil philosophy, in ignorance of the true purpose in life: namely to love, and let Love live in us.

The gods of our misdirected society are like demons: illusions we long labour under. But since the realness of anything is its potency in our lives, these illusions can be very palpable to us. Whatever we look up to or lust after, whatever we admire or envy, whatever fad or fancy claims our attention and our purses, whatever philosophy we follow or image in place of that philosophy we hang upon our wall, and whatever fetish we kowtow to - is a god of sorts! An idea, an ideal, a cause which grips our minds and guides our hands; a constitutional declaration we recite, a flag we salute and an anthem we sing - property, gold, power, fame; sex, alcohol, drugs, fashion - these are some of the minor gods which hold sway over our thoughts and actions, and there are many such in our lives. But, according to the Nazarene, by whatever name it is known, under whatever stamp of approval, whether it wears a turban, a topper, fez, or a crown of thorns, if its currency is not Love, it is a false god. Love is not found in either phallic symbol or fetish, neither exclusivity nor celebrity; no religious display may express it, and no politic may frame it.

Let us not forget that the most important thing about the Nazarene is his philosophy, which he promoted in the face of much opposition from traditional religious institution. The ‘God of Love' he projected was not the accepted view of the Creator, and Jesus was therefore not counted as one of them. Thus it is necessary to divorce the historical concept of God from that of him. Jesus was not a man prone to ‘religious' display. He did not hold with the pomp and ceremony of his peers, but refuted the accepted concepts of his day, making it very plain that the restrictive, exoteric view of God was not for him. The only true god is Love, he tells us, and all the rest are vain contrivance, illusions manufactured to match our fads and fancies with view to our personal satisfaction and aggrandisement. ‘Only Love, he tells us, is not an illusion: it is the only way forward in our back-sliding society; the one safe way through an ever widening minefield of our own making, and the one way to avoid that big black hole in space.

Like Buddha before him, Jesus tells us there is a purpose manifesting through everything, which works in a cyclic way - its motion manifesting in a natural, unvarying, invisible law. He tells us that this purpose is Love, though not the kind which we in our limited understanding would normally appreciate in our daily pursuance, as everything we may conceive is but a pale reflection of it. It is an infinite, everlasting purpose, revealing itself in an eternal, ever more perfect succession of finite forms, ever searching for finer fruition and more perfect expression; each more intelligent form a more perfect manifestation of it. To use a crude analogy, it is like the distilling of finer and finer brandy.

While this purpose is a positive surge for good, it can also be warped by us in a negative way to suit our propensity for evil. It lends us the ingenuity to create tools for the benefit of all, or weapons for the detriment of all - depending upon the approach we choose. One approach leads to peace and understanding, goodwill among men and proper respect for our fellow creatures, and the other to self-gain, to hatred, death and devastation. In this way it is we who determine the future of our world and possibly the universe. On Earth, Love's finest expression is Mankind, but far back in our early beginnings we lost sight of this fact and ever since have behaved like unruly children. In our unruliness we have seen fit to invent our own purposes for living, blinding ourselves to the reality of and defying the power of Karmic Law. These preferred purposes, fantasies born of ignorance, have become our gods - usurping the ‘one true God' of the Nazarene and Buddha and enticing us away from a happy, goodly life, into uncertainty and chaos.

The problem we in ‘Christendom' face, is that we have for so long been conditioned by our society to give no credence to such things, we now lack the intuition, imagination and indeed ‘faith' to accept it. But the Nazarene says we need only open our minds to accept this love, to feel its immediate benefit. Love is a frame of mind in which all good things are possible. It is the opposite of all our negative thoughts and deeds, it is ‘can' as opposed to ‘cannot', life in the face of death, a light shining in the blackest night. It is hope in a well of despair, and ‘good' as opposed to ‘evil'. We can recognise it in these ways. Love makes no demands. It does not posture and flaunt itself, but waits demurely at a distance, ready to offer all the minute it is invited. It neither commands our obeisance, nor seeks reward for its favours except only that we show the same to others we meet along the way.

Love (God) can become our hobby or our full-time job, a flirtation or a magnificent obsession. Once we have found it, it will not let us fall, but in order to find it, we must first apply it in our lives: give, and it will be given us. While we all need to earn money to survive in this system we have created, if we tempered all our decisions and dealings with Love, in no time at all the world would be a happier and fairer place in which to live.