Less a few extraneous passages, this is just as I wrote it in the 1980s and ’90s.
Pandevotional Invocation
© 2019 Daniel Cooper Clark
Some Rights Reserved
Introit
UWA OAAAAH
Pandevotionalism
Nature Worships God.
1
Nature is the Being who comprises all the material atoms.
2
Nature always worships God.
Humans Are Part of Nature.
3
The human body is part of Nature – and thus is always glorifying God. (However, we don’t usually see the religion of our actions.)
4
We are souls living in human bodies. We are not atoms. We are
not God. We are particles of God. (Souls inhabit all material
life forms.)
5
The technology of the human body allows a soul to be conscious of itself as a soul and to be conscious of God as a Supersoul. (In other species the self-concept and the God-concept are species-centered.)
6
Because we sense the difference between the self and the body, we often try to force our bodies to behave in opposition to Nature’s ways. We try to imitate God’s control of Nature. (The intentions of other species are in harmony with Nature and God.)
7
But our spiritual self-awareness also makes it possible for us to freely choose our natural behavior: loving God. (Other species don’t have this freedom of choice.)
Let Us Worship God As Nature Does.
8
Our first teacher in worship is Mother Nature.
9
Let us join Nature in her worship – let us glorify God her way.
God heals us through Nature. When we join Nature’s worship of God, we are healed.
The farther we get from Nature, the farther we get from our own nature.
Sex must not be repressed from outside, but rather transformed from within. If it is repressed from outside it breaks out of its bonds as war and other forms of self destruction. If it is transformed from within it grows into a flower of love for God.
Like a flow of force that revolves around a magnetic stone in loops of energy, God’s Glory radiates out from matter’s spiritual heart (which is also the transcendental world) and returns back to that source carrying with it, if we desire, our own rapturous voices added to the cosmic chorus of “Glory to God! Glory to God!” – the song of the atom, the planet, and the breathing universal mass.
First you exploit Nature – and she punishes you. Then you reject Nature – and she seduces you. Then you embrace Nature – and she instructs you. Then you respect Nature – and she takes you to God. Then you serve God according to the ways of Nature. Last, Nature and God welcome you back home.
I don’t want to change matter to spirit. Matter is already spirit. It’s already serving God. The universe vibrates with the sound of the celestial choir, giving Glory to God. Why try to change that? What needs to be changed is not matter, but me: consciousness, awareness. Matter, the Mater, is in harmony with God, the Pater. The only disharmony is sin. Matter doesn’t sin. I do. My attention and efforts are correctly directed toward myself. To change the person, not the atom. I now accept Nature as she is. I now merge my body into the flow of Glory that courses through the transparent atoms of the creation. I stop stamping an insignia of my own devising upon the ecstatic configurations of the Earth. I follow the route of Glory mapped upon the innocent face of a rock. My only work is to glorify God. Not to be an alchemist. I only sort, select, and indicate. Perhaps because of what I do others will merge with the Glory too. But that change is up to them. All I do is glorify.
Close to Nature, close to God.
Nature is defined by its praise of God. Humans join Nature when they glorify God. But their worship must be in consonance with Nature’s ways for it to be genuine. Humans, alone among creatures, can defy the ways of Nature, even while they’re supposedly loving God. Minerals, plants, and non-human animals are sinless. They have no choice but to act as part of God’s plan. So it’s good for humans to study them and the way they praise – for inspiration, not imitation. The purpose isn’t to reincarnate as a whale, but to go to the world beyond reincarnation.
Religion is particular, not universal. “Universal religion” is a journey taken only within one’s mind, leading to an idea of God, not God the person. One must submit to a particular path – to its limitations, its absurdities. The apparently ridiculous and arbitrary details of a sect are the vital twists and turns of a path that leads to God. You can’t speed through on a highway. You can’t fly over in an airplane. You must patiently follow the trail a step at a time. The path has a personality – just as God does – and learning to love person-ness makes up the greatest part of the work of spiritual life.
Human apes, in contrast to other apes, have a choice. They can use their “new” brains either to imitate or to meditate. They can imitate other animals and imitate God, or they can meditate to gain awareness of themselves. The imitators mimic the other animals and change from fueling their life with spirit to fueling it with matter. (That is, they start eating.) They impersonate God and strive for world dominance. The meditators stay true to their divine physiology. They remain non-eaters and develop self- knowledge, spiritual philosophy, and religion. The meditators praise the power of God. The imitators want to possess it. One way is peace, the other is war.
The agent of the disease is also the agent of the cure. And that agent, no matter how cleverly disguised, is the self. The true function of doctor and medicine is to awaken the self’s self- curative powers and thus initiate the self into the process of spiritual growth.
God is a person, souls are persons, and atoms are persons. The natural activity of souls and atoms is to glorify God.
Growth comes from attachment, as a tree grows when firmly rooted.
The Earth, of which my body is a part, meditates on God.
The Locality is the sacrament, the matter-that-is-spirit, with which my mind and body can merge so I can be liberated from my false consciousness into the world of reality. When matter harmonizes with matter, the soul returns to God.
Food is poison. Eating, an addiction. The ideal is non-eating. To develop toward the ideal, the standard is motion, not fullness. Eat for process, not stasis. Keep it moving. Don’t clog the system. The best foods are those that flow: fruit juices, and finally, air. Flow, not full. Body as pipe, not pouch.
There is no Void. Existence allows no exceptions to its rule. Existence is everything – and everything is a person. God is a person, souls are persons, and atoms are persons. In the material world, space is a person (a replica of God) and is occupied by persons. Some of those persons are temporal atoms (replicas of the Goddess) who combine together as the substance of material bodies. And some of them are souls who are identifying with material bodies. When the souls regain awareness of their real identities, they are freed to return to the spiritual world.
The person-ness of the soul is identical to that of God in quality, but not in quantity. God is the whole, and the soul is a part.
Nature (the integration of spatial mind and atomic bodies) is in love with God. All natural entities are glorifying God – each according to its own way. By joining this cosmic chorus, humans enter into the world of God. Life becomes itself at last.
The first stage of human society is the Edenic stage of Communion. Humans-in-Communion are busy with the culturing of consciousness, not material advancement. Except for the young they are largely independent materially. But spiritually they’re so interdependent that they act almost as one person, so intense is their concern for each other’s devotional life. These happy humans relate most strongly to those in close proximity and identify their small groups with the Locality they inhabit. However, since their subtle powers are so well developed, they are in communion with other devotees around the universe. They pay little attention to food, shelter, clothing, fire, tools, production, consumption, or possessions.
Before the first social stage of Communion, humans don’t eat at all. Their bodies are vitalized by their thoughts and by natural energies in unchanged states. That is, their skin touches the ground, they bathe in clean water, they breathe deeply fresh outdoor air, sunlight pours onto their unclothed bodies, and in meditation they contact etheric essences. They live ecstatically with a total absence of food, shelter, clothing, fire, tools, production, consumption, and possessions. They each have a Private Religion. There is no social grouping. Solitude is the norm.
A lot of people are talking about “healing the Earth.” That sounds good, but to tell you the truth I think we should allow the Earth to heal us. With us set right, the disease is over. Emerson said, “The happiest man is he who learns from Nature the lesson of worship.” Nature heals us souls by teaching us how to love God. The mind, the body, the locality, the earth, the universe all teach the souls. In learning from them how to revere God we also revere them. We accept Nature’s way of doing things. That way is one of devotion, part of which is devotion to Nature as a teacher, not exploitation of Nature as a slave. “Healing the Earth” might just be more meddling. Hands off! Then both the Earth and the souls are healed.
The most immediate “region” I “inhabit” (using Bioregionalist terms) is the mind. The material environment closest to the soul is the mind. Just as each ecosystem has a character all its own, so does each species’ kind of mind. The uniqueness of the human mind is its potential for being conscious of being conscious. It can be self-realized and ultimately God-realized. This defines the human relationship with the total environment, which is to involve it through consciousness in a religious life.
Study Nature. Not the kind of study you find in science, that analyzes Nature. Or in sex, that enjoys Nature. Or in art, that re-creates Nature. It’s a different kind of study – Pandevotionalism – that seeks to learn how to join Nature in its worship of God. Nature is the Glory of God, streaming out of God and yet rushing towards God. Emanating from God yet embracing God. By studying how Nature worships God I hope to learn the ways of Love and take part in that praise.
I need to feel that my mind and body are temperamentally the same as my immediate natural surroundings. When they are, then I easily join the locality’s worship of God. To me this is a Pandevotional imperative.
When my bare feet walk my local ground, the contact of skin and soil creates an energy flow like an electrical current. The current of my mind travels through dermis to dirt and out to the whole planet. Getting to know the Earth in my locality introduces me to the Earth as a planet. I can’t know the whole all at once abstractly or through a mental simulation. I can only know the whole by way of the part – because my body is a part of the part. This is my understanding of the slogan, “Act locally and think globally.”
One test for the suitability of an area as a place of residence is to ask what would the region be like if “deprived” of the agricultural – industrial – technological superstructure. Would I feel at home in such a place?
The soul must respect the material body and the rest of Nature as a principle higher than the soul, because Nature acts as an intermediary between the soul and the Godhead. The material body is a cooperation of two factors: a spatial form – which comes from God – and temporal atoms – which come from the Goddess. The relation of form to atoms may also be expressed as wave to particles, singular to plural, male to female, space to time, or reason to intuition. The integration of God and Goddess on an imminent level is Nature and on a transcendent level is the Godhead. The material body is an expression of the inherent love within the Godhead. For the soul who wishes to glorify the Godhead eternally, the temporary material body is a source of wisdom. Nature is a pathway to the Beyond.
Hands off Nature! Do not disturb. In Sanskrit this is called ahimsa, which is usually translated as “non-violence,” but which literally means “non-interference.” Don’t interfere – live in harmony with Nature’s ways.
Each kind of animal, plant, and mineral body has a special way to worship God, based on the unique character of that body. The unique character of the human body is the feature of its nervous system that allows the soul to be aware of its awareness – or to be aware of itself as awareness. Physiologically this has been called the “feedback loop” of the brain. No other kind of body has it. Only the human body. It gives us the ability to reflect on reflection itself, to develop self-knowledge, to understand that we are not material bodies but spiritual bodies (souls). A wolf has a self-concept, but a physical one: a wolf thinks of itself as a wolf. A human can think of itself as a soul. A soul in a human body can dis-identify itself away from the material body and find out what it really is.
Pandevotionalism encourages the soul to consider Nature as a bridge of worship over which the soul may cross to reach the ultimate eternal state. The soul is not to think of itself as Nature, or matter. Still, the soul takes part in Nature’s praise of God – as a training program, an introduction to an eternal life in love with God.
Picture yourself standing at the edge of a chasm cutting through a plateau. Spanning the chasm from your side to the other side is a bridge made of five sections proceeding in this order: Mind, Body, Locality, Planet, and Cosmos. This is the Bridge of Pandevotionalism. The atoms and patterns that make up the bridge always worship God. The Soul may use this bridge to go to God.
Pandevotionalism presents matter as a path to spirit. Its relation to Theism is divided. The two are similar in their emphasis on worshiping a transcendent and personal God, but dissimilar in their opinion of Nature. Theism offers a path to God which is made up of souls and their teachings (saints, gurus, scriptures). In Pandevotionalism though, the devotee approaches God by way of atoms, forms, and their teachings (“the music of the spheres”). Theists tend to reject Nature, often condemning it as Satanic. Pandevotionalists revere Nature and want to obey her. Theism is a suitable religious attitude for those who like to build religious institutions. Pandevotionalism is always a Private Religion – individualistic, poetic, and wild.
People who practice religion usually say that of the two, the soul and the body, the soul is greater. But I say that the body is greater than the soul. The body is part of Nature. But, they say, the soul is better than Nature. No, I say, Nature is better than the soul. Why? Because Nature worships God without interruption, whereas the soul’s worship turns on and off. The body loves God more than the soul does. Let us – we souls – learn from our bodies.
How We Live is the essence of ecology for us. How we set our own “house” (mind-body) in order. If the soul allows the mind and the body to go “back to Nature,” then Nature becomes a bridge over which the soul can journey to the divine destination.
On the third day of Spring
my head disappeared
and the Sun took its place.
My body didn’t walk but flew –
I wasn’t on the Earth
but on the surface of the Universe,
and the space around me
was the smiling face of God.
The Ethic of Worship
In their relationship with God, souls always have a choice between reality and illusion. Choosing to worship God allows souls to perceive reality and be good. Choosing to envy God allows souls to perceive illusion and be evil. The two paths are mutually exclusive. Good souls can’t see illusion, and evil souls can’t see reality.
Worship involves admiring God and taking pleasure in God’s control of everything. Envy involves being jealous of God and wanting to take pleasure in one’s own control of everything. “Everything” includes God’s attributes: power, beauty, ownership, knowledge, fame, and transcendence. Worshipers glorify those attributes as signs of God’s greatness. Enviers want those attributes for themselves. Worshipers desire to praise God. Enviers desire to be God.
Whether souls are worshiping or envying, they are always choosing. The path they take is up to them. Freedom, and thus responsibility, is an essential feature of the soul. Freedom of choice is not harmful. Even envy itself, which must reside within the soul in order to be chosen, is not harmful in its potential state.
Choosing one path or the other has its consequences. Worship leads to God (one reality) and envy leads to Not-God (many illusions). Worship and the goal of God form the poles of an axis along which coalesce a number of attributes. They may be analyzed sequentially as: being a part of God, having a strong sense of self, courage, forgiveness, acceptance, understanding, attachment, growth, and love of life. Envy and the goal of Not-God engender a sequence of attitudes contrary to the above: being apart from God, having a weak sense of self, fearfulness, hate, rejection, ignorance, detachment, atrophy, and a yearning for death.
Action based on worship gives rise to life and health. Action based on envy is cause for death and diseases. All physical and mental sickness comes from enviousness, which resides in the soul and is not derived from any external influence. The only medicine to cure any disease can be found within one’s self, in the choice of worship of God. Choosing worship is the essential therapy for all diseases.
Worship, to be genuine, must be chosen at every moment. The soul must be aware of the eternal responsibility that derives from the eternal presence of both good and evil within the soul. Evil is a necessity. There has to be a Not-God for the soul to not-choose in order for its choice of God to be free. Souls are defined by their liberty. In the Sanskrit terminology of the Bhagavata philosophy souls are categorized as tatastha-shakti, which means “the power that is on the dividing line between two greater powers.” We are never liberated from our responsibility to choose liberation. True religion is always ethical.
False religion, which pretends to be worship of God but demands that its followers hand over their power of choice to human authorities, is always unethical and never accomplishes any therapy of soul, mind, or body. False religion seduces souls into believing that they are either all good or all evil. In either circumstance the souls are robbed of responsibility. Determinism, fatalism, and blind obedience take over. The good slaves of Jehovah battle against the evil slaves of Satan, neither army ever winning. When will the slaves learn that the meaningful battle is between slavery and freedom? The officers of both Jehovah and Satan vigorously condemn free choice. Obedience is the military rule. Thus we are tricked into continuing the war, to the advantage of our captors.
The soul in a rare moment of metaphysical suspension can see itself as all potentiality: half potential-brightness, half potential-shadow. Through action the soul makes the potential into the actual. The choice must be made, for the soul must act. In action the soul becomes either all actual-light or all actual-darkness. Or, to be more correct, I should say that with each act the soul is either good or evil, and most of us jump back and forth between the two. So in action, which is our natural life, we do not straddle the fence. We choose sides. But to go over to the sunny side and stay there, we have to be ever-mindful of the potentiality of the murky side. The cleverest of evil’s tricks is the illusion that we have only one side. The conventional “minions of the Devil” consider themselves to be all-bad, and the false worshipers consider themselves to be all-good, which is even worse. As the speaker of the Isha Upanishad put it, “those who worship darkness go to hell, and those who worship light go to a worse hell.” The soul is always on the dividing line, and we must never forget that.
An ethical worship brings the shadow-self to God. Not just the radiant-self. God loves the whole soul, not just half. Our daily worship is ethical only when it embraces our baser urges, for in that embrace those tendencies stop warring against our peaceful, forgiving nature. It is as if evil wants nothing more than to be accepted by goodness. When it is, it turns benign. Of course it takes a powerful goodness to be able to get so close to evil and not be taken in by it. Most goodness that apparently achieves such a strength of purpose is still bent on destroying evil. Only the most courageous soul can stand face to face with its own evil, not be seduced by the Great Deceiver, know how sinister that darkness is, and yet forgive it, accept it, understand it wholly, indeed even become attached to it, and reach in evil’s night the source of the soul’s own growth to an eternal daytime of glorifying God. A seed germinates in darkness before it flowers in the sun’s light. And the roots stay buried as long as life goes on. The dirt remains dirt. It is not transformed, but rather provides the context within which the seed’s transformation takes place. Likewise, the potential-evil within the liberated soul is never anything else but evil. It is not changed when the soul worships God – it provides the context within which the soul can change by choosing to worship.
Worship and envy co-exist in the liberated soul. But most of us haven’t liberated ourselves yet. For us, it is still important to clarify the difference in the psychologies of the two.
The simplest difference is that one way leads to happiness, the other to misery. The sequence of attitudes issuing from envy is an undesirable one. Fear, hatred, rejection, ignorance, and so on make for an unhappy life. They are problems. When I choose envy, I choose problems. I perceive my world from the viewpoint of envy and see all situations as problems. I don’t see any solutions. But if I look at my life from the viewpoint of worship, all I see are solutions: courage, forgiveness, acceptance, understanding. When I choose worship, I choose joy. An envier has no joy. A worshipper has no problems. An envier tries to “solve problems,” which only results in more problems. To see all situations, even painful ones, as joys, is the worshiper’s choice. God is always a positive force and so is the worshiper. Situations help the worshiper grow. Situations are “material,” but matter can be a pathway to spirit.
Finally I want to emphasize that The Ethic of Worship calls its adherents to respect the power of choice in people who have other inclinations. Particularly, in trying to share The Ethic of Worship with others, the worshipers are best advised to see themselves as presenters and not persuaders. I cannot teach someone how to choose properly. We all learn the art of choosing through our own experience. It doesn’t do any good to force The Ethic of Worship down anyone’s throat, especially since the ethic states that it depends on free acceptance for its effectiveness. It must be chosen freely or it has no benefit. The illness doesn’t come from envy but from the choice of envy. Therefore the cure doesn’t come from worship but from the choice of worship. What I can do then is to help make available a form of worship that people can choose when they want to.
Pandevotionalism and Bhagavata
For eleven years, from 1967 through 1977, I studied, taught, and administered a religion from India. It has many names. Here I’ll use the term Bhagavata. My teacher in Bhagavata was His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada.
After the devotional life itself, my next major interest in Bhagavata was its analysis of the material world. My previous awareness of God had largely come to me by way of Nature. The Bhagavata cosmology, it seemed to me, would provide a philosophical basis for my experiences. This hunch proved to be accurate. The confirmation came in this way.
Atomism – the proposition that the cosmos in all its complexity is made of identical irreducible particles variously combined – makes one of its earliest appearances in Bhagavata literature. The Bhagavata Purana ( 3.11.1-4) states that the basic, indivisible material particle is the paramanu (supreme small). This particle is further defined by Bhaktivedanta Prabhupada as “the minute subtle form of eternal time.” Text 3 says that kala is the vibhuh of bhagavan, that is, Time is the all-penetrating Power of God. The atom is the minute form of a universal energy we call “time.”
Before I’d considered that, I’d had no trouble conceiving that as a particle, an atom is a form in space. But when I tried to understand how its substance – what it is a form of – is Time, my comprehension fell short. Is time a “thing?” Is time “stuff?”
Two other scriptural references helped me out of my bewilderment. First, Swami Bhaktivedanta elsewhere in his commentary of the Purana states flatly that in Bhagavata “everything is person.” I took this at face value – whatever we may conventionally think of as a “thing” is on its own terms a person. Bhaktivedanta has given the name Personalism to his philosophical approach.
Equipped with this tool of thought, I was able to combine the two concepts and posit that Time is a person, that an atom is a minute form of the person Time, and that to get to rock-bottom all I’d have to do would be to identify the particular person whose name is Time.
In the Bhagavad-gita Krishna in his Universal Form calls himself Time (“the destroyer of the worlds”). I didn’t reject that personification. But I had to go on and find the specific atomic Time energy related to Krishna.
My search ended in 1973 when I found her. She is Kala (“Time” in Sanskrit), or more completely Kala-Shakti (“Time-Energy”), the consort of Garbhodakashayi Vishnu. This Vishnu – there are many Vishnus – floats on the surface of the cosmic ocean. Clinging to the stem of a lotus that grows from his navel are the galaxies of the universe. Ever beside him is Kala-Shakti. As far as I know, the Purana says nothing about her role in cosmic affairs. But there she is, the vast form of eternal time. One might call her Mother Nature, since Vishnu is the father of the natural world. She replicates herself to become the stuff of the universe. The atom is a minute version of her form – an infinitesmal Kala-Shakti.
Each atom is a feminine person. Each atom is a Goddess.
This concrete personalization of matter helped me to cut through much of the abstract philosophizing the topic of Nature is subjected to – not only in current thought but also in the Bhagavata literature itself.
In the Gita especially the designation of matter as God’s “inferior nature” (contrasted with the soul as “superior”) gets a lot of emphasis. The psychology of the Gita stresses that the superior soul must conquer inferior matter. The higher self, the soul, must conquer the lower self, the body.
But if the atom is an aspect of a person who is the consort of God, a person who loves and serves God – as Kala-Shakti does – then how can matter, the body, Nature, be considered less worthy than the soul? Why should we be enjoined to conquer her? Isn’t she more powerful, and more pure, than we souls are?
Granted, by her play of illusions the fallen soul is kept trapped in its own foolish dreams of dominance. But she is blameless. Bhaktivedanta, in his purports, calls her job a “thankless task.” This points to devotion, not demonism.
Nature serves God and loves God eternally. How much better than we souls who usually manage at best a love-hate affair with the Deity. Rather than attempt to conquer her (a hopeless task) shouldn’t we take steps to respect her? To learn from Nature, the unwavering servant of God, how to praise, glorify, worship the Lord?
The great fear of the proponents of renunciation is that by honoring matter in any way, people will fall deeper into illusion. But as long as we keep in mind the realization that we are souls, not atoms, and not God – as long as we dis-identify the soul away from the body (a kind of “conquering,” perhaps) – there’s no reason to fear. In fact dis-identification becomes an opportunity for a reverence toward Nature as a higher principle than the soul. The principle is constancy of devotion to God. Is that illusion? No. It is the only reality. The soul can enter into it by understanding that the atom is a person.
Bhagavata Personalism, put in this way, forms the basis of my philosophy of Nature. I’ve given my approach the name Pandevotionalism.
Now we may proceed further into the mystery.
Siddhanta Saraswati, the guru of Bhaktivedanta Prabhupada, states in Shri Chaitanya’s Teachings: “The individual human souls are dissociable particles of the predominated moiety … Shri Radhika is the source of all individual souls … The individual souls serve Shri Krishna as constituents of Shri Radhika … The absolute nature of the personality of Shri Radhika is fully on a level with the absolute personality of Shri Krishna. Shri Krishna is the consort of Shri Radhika. The absolute is pair and singular person … Shri Radhika is at once identical with and distinct from Shri Krishna.”
Since Siddhanta Saraswati leaves it ambiguous whether She or He is the source of the other, why do I go ahead and claim She is the One? Because Radha is the embodiment of love and service.
Love, devotion, service, worship is the source of everything. It is why everything exists, the central core of being.
Service requires someone to serve, to honor and celebrate. So Radha manifests Krishna to be the dominant person. She is the servant, but She is the source. Her desire to worship is the engine that powers reality. Yin is the source of Yang. The feminine is the “default” mode of existence. She creates the masculine to get things going. She is the power, the shakti, behind the throne. He is the Lord, the ruler, the controller. She gives up those aspects of herself to him. She surrenders. That is love.
That love is the energy that powers reality.
She wants us to worship Him, too. She’s set it up that way. Bhaktivedanta Prabhupada said that “Hare Krishna” means “Mother Hara, please help me achieve the grace of the supreme father, Hari.” It’s a prayer to the supreme feminine. The supreme masculine is God. It is necessary and natural for us to worship His greatness. But even greater is the supreme mother of worship – the Goddess.
The Goddess is the mother of God and the source of everything.
Pandevotional Voices
Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God.
(Samuel Taylor Coleridge)
Nature is what we know –
Yet have no art to say –
So impotent Our Wisdom is
To her Simplicity.
(Emily Dickinson, #668)
All of creation is a song of praise to God.
(Hildegard of Bingen)
And Hemlocks – bow – to God.
(Emily Dickinson, #475)
The morning wind forever blows, the poem of creation is uninterrupted; but few are the ears that hear it.
(H. D. Thoreau, Walden)
Each atom, each molecule, each organism is a prayer.
(Donald St. John)
Creation is allowed, in intimate love, to speak to the Creator as if to a lover.
(Hildegard of Bingen)
Let the floods clap their hands…
(Psalm 98.8)
Creation not only exists, it also discharges truth.
(Gerhard von Rad)
As the creator loves his creation, so creation loves the creator.
(Hildegard of Bingen)
I invite you to join me in a month’s worship with Nature in the high temples of the great Sierra Crown beyond our holy Yosemite.
(John Muir, letter to R. W. Emerson)
Let the hills sing for joy together before the Lord.
(Psalm 98:8-9)
The hills are alive with the sound of music, with songs they have sung for a thousand years.
(Oscar Hammerstein II)
The simple News that Nature told –
With tender Majesty
Her message is committed
To Hands I cannot see –
(Emily Dickinson, #441)
I am convinced that all beings need to worship.
(Erazim Kohak, The Embers and the Stars)
The blowing wind, the mild, moist air, the exquisite greening of trees and grasses – in their beginning, in their ending, they give God their praise.
(Hildegard of Bingen)
Praise the Lord from the earth, you sea monsters and all deeps, fire and hail, snow and frost, stormy wind fulfilling his command! Mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars! Beasts and all cattle, creeping things and flying birds!
(Psalm 148:7-10)
Creation feels drawn to her creator as she responds to him in service. (Hildegard of Bingen)
But ask the beasts, and they will teach you; the birds of the air, and they will tell you; or the plants of the earth, and they will teach you; and the fish of the sea will declare to you. Who among these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this?
(Job 12:7-9)
When I prayed in my heart, everything about me appeared to be pleasing and lovely. It was as though the trees, the grass, the birds, the earth, the air and the light were saying that everything prayed, and praised God.
(The Candid Narrations of a Pilgrim to His Spiritual Father, 1884)
Let the field exult, and everything in it!
(Psalm 96:12)
Let the sea roar, and all that fills it…
(Psalm 98:7)
Heaven and earth, and all creation, laud and magnify his name.
(Hymn of the Foundling Hospital, 1796)
Every creature is a word of God and is a book about God.
(Meister Eckhart)
The aspect of Nature is devout. Like the figure of Jesus, she stands with bended head, and hands folded upon the breast. The happiest man is he who learns from nature the lesson of worship.
(R. W. Emerson, Nature)
In the name of the Bee –
And of the Butterfly –
And of the Breeze – Amen!
(Emily Dickinson, #18)
There seemed to rise a Tune
From Miniature Creatures
Accompanying the Sun –
Far Psalteries of Summer –
Enamoring the Ear
They never yet did satisfy-
(Emily Dickinson, #606)
No wilderness in the world is so desolate as to be without divine ministers. God’s love covers all the earth as the sky covers it, and also fills it in every pore. And this love has voices heard by all who have ears to hear.
(John Muir, Journal, March 12, 1873)
Then shall all the trees of the wood sing for joy before the Lord.
(Psalm 96:12-13)
O never harm the dreaming world,
the world of green, the world of leaves,
but let its million palms unfold
the adoration of the trees…
(Kathleen Raine)
The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard; yet their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.
(Psalm 19:1-4)
Have you not seen how all in the Heavens and on the Earth utter the praise of God? The very birds as they spread their wings? Every creature know its prayer and its praise! And God knows what they do.
(The Q’uran)
Praise him, sun and moon, praise him, all you shining stars! Praise him, you highest heavens, and you waters above the heavens!
(Psalm 148:3-4)
What a psalm the storm was singing … how sweet the still small voices of the storm!
(John Muir, Stickeen)
Let heaven and earth praise him, the seas and everything that moves therein.
(Psalm 69:34)
What praise songs pour forth from the white chambers of the falls!
(John Muir, Journal, December 16, 1869)
Every tree seemed religious and conscious of the presence of God.
(John Muir, Our National Parks)
All of creation resounds with song,
bless ye the Lord, praise Him forever
Stars in the heavens, waters below,
bless ye the Lord, praise Him forever
O wind and rain, fire and snow,
bless ye the Lord, praise Him forever
Spring and Summer, Winter and Fall,
bless ye the Lord, praise Him forever
All of creation resounds with joy,
praising the Lord, praise Him forever
Praise Him who holds all life in His hands,
praise Him, praise Him forever
Let all the Earth, resound with joy,
bless ye the Lord, praise Him forever
All ye green things, upon the Earth,
bless ye the Lord, praise Him forever
Let all the creatures, raise up their songs
bless ye the Lord, praise Him forever
All ye children of Mother Earth,
bless ye the Lord, praise Him forever
(Susan Osborne and Paul Winter,
adapted from the Book of Common Prayer)
This is my Father’s world
And to my listening ears
All nature sings and round me rings
The music of the spheres
(children’s hymn)
Then the two animals, crouching to the earth, bowed their heads and did worship.
(Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows)
In God’s creation, even among inanimate things, their very shadows turn around right and left, prostrating themselves to God in the humblest manner. And all that is in heaven and on earth, whether moving creatures or angels, gives obeisance to God, for none are arrogant before their lord. They all revere their lord, high above them, and they do all that they are commanded.
(Qur’an 16.48-50)
The seven heavens and the earth, and all beings therein, declare his glory. There is not a thing but celebrates his praise.
(Qur’an 17.44)
Don’t you see that the birds with their outspread wings, and all beings in heaven and on earth, celebrate the praise of God? Each one knows its own mode of prayer and praise. And God knows well that they do.
(Qur’an 24.41)
What I know of the divine sciences and holy scriptures, I learned in the woods and the fields. I have had no other masters than the beeches and the oaks. Listen to a man of experience: you will learn more in the woods than in books. Trees and stones will teach you more than you can acquire from the mouth of a magister.
(St. Bernard of Clairvaux)
The book of scripture is the interpreter of the book of nature.
(Jonathan Edwards)
It may indeed be phantasy, when I
Essay to draw from all created things
Deep, heartfelt, inward joy that closely clings;
And trace in leaves and flowers that round me lie
Lessons of love and earnest piety.
So let it be, and if the wise world rings
In mock of this belief, it brings
Nor fear, nor grief, nor vain perplexity.
So will I build my altar in the fields,
And the blue sky my fretted dome shall be,
And the sweet fragrance that the wild flower yields
Shall be the incense I will yield to Thee,
Thee only God! and thou shalt not despise
Even me, the priest of this poor sacrifice.
(Samuel Taylor Coleridge)
Nature’s intent is neither food, nor drink, nor clothing, nor comfort, nor anything else from which God is left out. Whether you like it or not, whether you know it or not, secretly Nature seeks and hunts and tries to ferret out the track in which God may be found.
(Meister Eckhart)
Spiritual Structures
God and Goddess are simultaneously one and different. The same is true of God and Souls, and of Goddess and Souls. Everything is singular yet plural. The whole is one independent entity but it is made up of parts which are also free entities. And while each part is a discrete unit, it also contains within itself the multiplicities. A part is a miniature whole. The whole is a magnitudinous part. Fusing it all together is the Love shared by God, Goddess, and Souls – Love, which is the core of existence. Both oneness and difference derive their power, meaning, and life from Love. Love is all there is. It would be tempting to say that “Love is One,” but Love is beyond analysis and beyond categories such as One or Many. Love is inscrutable, always mysterious. Love defeats the philosophers. Love finds its own way. Love conquers by secret strategies. Love conquers even God. Nobody knows what Love is but everybody wants it. There is no adequate definition for Love but every language has a word for it. Is Love a hoax? An illusion? Sometimes we feel that way when the world falls apart. But then Love puts it back together again – Love is triumphant – yet invisible – and we start once again our search for Love. Even God worships Love. God, Goddess, and Souls are always in Love.
Mind is form – Body is content. Mind needs something to think about – Body needs something to occupy. Mind is one – Body is many. Mind feels empty without Body – Body feels scattered without Mind. Mind is wave – Body is particles. Mind gives motion – Body gives in. Mind is husband – Body is wife. And the Soul is the priest who marries them.
Consciousness contemplates concepts’ content contacting Locality. Consciousness is the Soul, which contemplates the concepts of the Mind, whose content is the Body, which makes contact with the Locality, which is a mirror – reflecting back to the parts the whole of which they are parts – so that the Body sees itself in Love with the Earth, the Mind sees itself in Love with the Cosmos, and the Soul sees itself in Love with God. Like the quiet surface of a tidal pool, the Locality is a mirror for the soul wherein it contemplates itself and God in Love.
The individual mind is the localized form of the general cosmos. The general cosmos is the extended form of the individual mind. The general cosmos manifests itself severally as the individual minds, so all individuals in the cosmos are of one general mind.
One’s mind is a part of the universe, identical in substance to it. The universe is a replica of God as Form. Form is God, space, wave, mind, structure, cosmos. Occupying Form is Content. Content is Goddess, time, particles, body, atom, planet. The body is made of atoms – the mind is made of form. The mind structures the atoms into a bodily shape. The form of the body is the mind. Conversely, the form of the planets is the cosmos. The cosmos structures the planets into a universal shape. The planets are made of atoms – the cosmos is made of form. One’s body is a part of the planet, identical in substance to it.
The soul is motion, direction, purpose, urge, desire, life. The soul undulates. Undulating motion gives rise to sound. Sound is consciousness. Movement is primary – sound is secondary. As the sun radiates heat, so does the soul radiate sound. The sun is a person: so is the soul. A person is freedom, choice, movement. Moving gesture precedes speech as language. Dance precedes music. Moving bodies make the wave-sounds of breath. Undulation is life and lives at the source of religion. Glory-waves flow out from God and return, pulsing, vibrating, ecstatically praising God. Our worship is primal in organic undulation.
Worship gushes, erupts, radiates. Inside becomes outside continually. Worship is the secret central force that drives all creativity. Worship that is pure is always creative – never mere repetition. Worship rushes out from the unknown to the known and so is always new and freely invented. Rituals grow and change. God is always expanding and worship of God always expands too. God creates worshipers and worshipers create worship of God. It’s not art. Art makes objects. Worship has no object except God.
The least important things are the most important things.
Desire is the support of the world, not money or products or machines.
The mathematical concept of zero is the big illusion that allows us our little illusion of control.
To be humble, be close to the humus.
To be worth anything you must be in a place on the brink of the unknown, on the edge of outer space.
One fruitarian is worth a thousand lobbyists.
My Mantras
1946
There were thousands of them but there was only one!
1949
Whenever Billy Batson, famous boy newscaster, says the word “SHAZAM,” he is miraculously changed into powerful Captain Marvel, the world’s mightiest mortal, who combines in his magnificent physique the powers of six of the mightiest heros of all time!
Solomon…wisdom Hercules…strength Atlas…stamina Zeus…power Achilles…courage Mercury…speed
(copyright 1949 Fawcett Publications, Inc.)
1966
I have no idea.
1966
Hare Krishna Hare Krishna
Krishna Krishna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama
Rama Rama Hare Hare
1978
Sun shine down on me.
Please burn up my misery.
1979
Waves come rolling up along the shore.
Waves go sliding down along the sand.
They don’t stop – they’re coming back
for more – guided by an invisible hand.
1979
Just keep on loving
Just keep on loving
Don’t get off the track
If they don’t love you back
Just keep on loving
1982
vishnu bokh tao jehovah ahuramazda manitou
dios butsu chaitanya allah wakantanka jesu
1983
All is life and light and love,
and love loves loving love.
1984
I am the glory of God,
and God’s glory glorifies God.
1987
We’re walking to God, we’re walking to God,
We’re walking to God today.
We’re walking to God, we’re walking to God,
We’re walking to God to stay.
1988
O glory to God
1990
I worship the Moon
and bow to the Sun.
I worship you too,
and everyone.
1990
Put your hands up,
put your feet down,
put your heart in God.
1991
Mahaprabhu Yugavatar
Gaura Hari Gaurasundar
Nimai Pandit Vishwambara
Sachinandan Radha Krishna
1991
Lost in contemplation on the body of God,
offer your desire to be God to God.
1992
Oh, have nothing of yourself.
Oh, just observe.
And trust and serve.
1992
Glory in the glory of God!
Shoon
Shoon, the old woman who told stories, smiled at the children.
“Night is the time to be close to Osari,” she whispered.
The shadows of the leaves moved away from her face. The children could see her black eyes shining in the moon’s light. It was their first time with her. Their first night away from the familiar trees that had sheltered them since birth.
“Osari, from whom we all come,” she continued.
Even those children, in their fourth year, had heard a lot about Osari. That name was the sound repeated by the midwife as they’d left their mother’s womb. It was the principle word of the songs intoned by the chorus in the wide-branching tree in the center of the communion. Osari, the hero. Osari, the lover. Osari, the god. But also two people: a woman and a man. In that case it was Osa the queen and Ri the king. And again a change: Osari was the source, and nothing that any human being could ever know.
At four years, the contradictions didn’t matter. They gladly accepted that Osari was all those things. But of course, questions would come. And doubts. They knew that. They’d heard some bigger children talking. Saying bad things about Osari.
Shoon understood their need for strong conviction. Every year at this time she became the most important member of the communion. During the days of the year when the sunrise was approaching its earliest hour, she’d been receiving a succession of mothers and fathers at her tree for talks about the four year olds. She and the parents had made an arrangement. Shoon would take care of the children from the next full moon to the one after. Each night there would be a different story.
Tonight was the first story.
“In the time of the Old Ones,” she began, “the communion was usually silent. Nobody talked. They made some sounds. Like singing. But no words. Can you imagine that? Some say each person knew what the others were thinking. So they had no need to talk. Or some say none of them cared about the others. Because they all stayed apart from one another. And would sit alone for years thinking about Osari.
“But we say that they did care about each other. They did tell each other things. Not with words, but by moving themselves around. Mostly their hands. They also moved their legs and eyes and their whole bodies. It was dancing. You’ve seen the chorus dance. Well, that was how the Old Ones talked.
“What did they talk about? Of course, it was long ago. We don’t know much about them. But the dances we have, the dances the chorus does, are all stories. Maybe the Old Ones danced stories and apart from that didn’t pay attention to one another. Maybe. We only know a few things about them.
“One thing we do know is, they didn’t eat. Most of them, anyway. After they nursed from their mothers, they had no interest in food. They drank water, that’s all.
“Eating is what one of the dances is about. Here’s the story.
“Once there were two sets of twins born from the same mother, a year apart. A girl and boy, and another girl and boy.
“The first twins were like all the rest of the people in the trees. Even when they were little infants – like you were, not long ago – they hardly ever cried. They felt the earth praising Osari. Nobody had to tell them it was happening. And with their little arms and legs they moved in the dance of the earth as best they could. To them, the humming sounds of the humans in the trees were the same as the whistles of the birds and the roars of the big, sleek cats and the boom-boom of the footfalls of the dragons. It was all one song for Osari.
“The second twins were different. Oh, they were smart. Very smart. Their eyes darted quickly, noticing everything. They tilted their heads to the side with little jerks, full of questions.
“Animals were most interesting to them. The second twins spent hours watching the big animals and following the little animals. They looked carefully. And what they saw, they imitated. After a while they could hang on a branch like a sloth. Or swing on a vine like a monkey. Or spring up with their legs like a cricket. Animal calls, too, they learned to imitate.
“As they grew older and stopped nursing, the second twins did something odd. When the buffalo grazed, the twins also bit at the blades of grass and chewed them. Tasting the juice, they became curious.
“No matter how many times the people in their communion would take grass and berries and seeds out of their mouths, the twins would do it again. There was no stopping them.
“To the first twins, that was upsetting. They were meditators, not imitators. To them the earth was a dancer to follow, not something to chew and swallow. Yes, other animals ate. That was part of the dance. But what humans did was to praise and worship and glorify it all. That was their part.
“The older twins moved their hands to their sister and brother. If they’d been using words they would have been saying:
“‘We are the children of Osa and Ri. The earth is part of our family. Our pleasure is to feel devotion and awe. We dance with nature. That is our law.’
“The younger twins answered them:
“‘We are all Osas, we are all Ris. The earth is ours to eat as we please. Grasses and seeds we grind up with our jaws. We dance with our food held tight in our paws.’
“The second twins were told they had to leave the communion. They wanted to leave anyway. And they found others like them fairly close by. So, the food eaters started a new kind of group among themselves.
“But without any law, they fought over their food. In their anger, they all went away and wandered back to their old communions.
“Their mothers and fathers took pity on them and let them stay. Nobody liked having them around. But the people accepted it as their fate.
“You children know that now we all eat. The law has changed. Osari lets us eat fruits. But nothing else. I tell you that your descendants will eat other things. Osari will make new laws for them. Osari is merciful.
“Be thankful that our communion is the way it is. Even though we have our troubles, we are happier and more peaceful than people are going to be.
“Go to sleep, children. And dream about Osari.”
Shoon helped them nestle into the leaves. It is good, she thought.
Tomorrow night she would tell them how talking started.
Reality 81
Among the world’s faiths, Bengali Vaishnavism has had the biggest influence on me. I’ve adopted its theological premises as my own. But I’m not a Bengali. I’m an American. Am I a Vaishnava? Yes, but also I’m a Unitarian, which is how I started out in this lifetime.
I base my religion on what I know. What I’m familiar with. What I perceive directly. The here and now. The events of my life. The place where I stand. That is where I am confident, and what I have faith in.
What I know initially is Pandevotionalism. I feel the spirit of the Earth rushing through me to glorify God. I want to join Nature in its praise.
Then, what I know finally is Vaishnavism. Through the grace of my guru, I know that God is Radha-Krishna.
From that knowledge has grown my Reality, briefly expressed in the following 81 entries.
1
The wheel of birth and death revolves around and around. The only answer to its riddle is to gain liberation from the prison of dualities by fixing my consciousness on the one solid spiritual existence beyond the many vaporous illusions of the material world. That is the meaning, purpose, and hope of life.
2
Meditate on God and worship God.
3
Devotion to the Central Person of God is the highest and deepest and broadest form of consciousness.
4
Reality is personal.
5
The most practical way for me to devote myself to God is by sounding names of God.
6
Service is the essence of religion.
7
The self is eternally individual.
8
A soul has the same quality as God, but a smaller quantity of it.
9
God never changes. God’s energies change.
10
Everything exists eternally simultaneously.
11
The absolute embraces contradictions.
12
God takes birth in the material world to stimulate our devotion.
13
The self is a spiritual body, not a body made of atoms.
14
The material world is a place where there are miseries such as birth, disease, old age, and death.
15
The spiritual world is a place where everyone is eternally omniscient and blissful.
16
God wants us to be happy.
17
All matter and all material forms always glorify God.
18
Cultivate forgiveness, humility, tolerance, kindness, generosity, honesty.
19
A soul is a part of the whole. God is the whole.
20
The spiritual world has variety.
21
God’s body is not material. God’s body is God.
22
The spirit is like the good. But it is a goodness that has no opposite because it is a function of God’s activity, not a soul’s activity.
23
God is the most powerful, wealthy, famous, beautiful, intelligent, and renounced person.
24
Demigods (angels) administrate cosmic affairs.
25
Jealousy of God and envy of God are the basic material psychologies.
26
People are what they want to be.
27
The Central Person of God is the source of the light of truth.
28
Devotion is greater than work or knowledge or visions.
29
God’s name is not material. God’s name is God.
30
God is everything, is inside everything, and is outside everything.
31
Human life is meant for self-realization.
32
The soul is indestructible.
33
Offer your actions and their results to God.
34
Pleasure consists in pleasing God’s senses, of which my senses are part.
35
Nudity, not nullity. The soul is naked, not nothing.
36
Offer your food to God.
37
Materialistic souls don’t act. Nature acts for them.
38
Act according to your own physical-psychological makeup. Don’t imitate others.
39
God controls everyone. Yet we all have freedom of choice.
40
Serve a spiritual teacher.
41
Happiness comes from within.
42
Attachment to God is the best detachment from materialism.
43
Live frugally.
44
No drugs, no sex, no gambling, no eating.
45
All beings are equal because God is within all of them.
46
God is the essence of everything: the strength of the strong, the heat of fire.
47
The determination with which we achieve our goals comes from God.
48
Those who see only matter can’t see God.
49
The universe is a form of God.
50
God is the biggest and the smallest.
51
The soul who attains devotion never returns to illusion.
52
The material world comes and goes. The spiritual world is constant.
53
God is active in the world, but is never conditioned by it.
54
Worshiping the Central Person of God is better than worshiping the all-pervading energy, the multifold supersoul, or the cosmic form.
55
All worshiping of anything other than God is indirect worship of God, but direct worship is better.
56
God has special consideration for those who love God directly.
57
Devotion is not dependent on social status or any material qualification.
58
Devotees enjoy conversing about God.
59
God gives the devotees full understanding of how to get to God.
60
Material splendor is only a small fraction of spiritual splendor.
61
Nothing is easier to see than God, but nothing is more difficult to understand.
62
Consciousness is the energy of the soul. It pervades the soul’s material body, and shapes it.
63
Negative thoughts and emotions bind a soul to matter.
64
Give up all ethical, metaphysical, and religious systems. Just surrender to God.
65
Nothing belongs to me. Everything belongs to God.
66
The center of spiritual life is the glorification of the activities and other attributes of the Central Person of God.
67
God’s attributes and energies are simultaneously one with God and different from God.
68
Devotees are friendly with everyone.
69
Be a fruitarian and in all aspects of life follow the cosmic laws for humanity.
70
Early to bed, early to rise.
71
Cosmic history goes from good to bad to good and back again, over and over in regular cycles endlessly.
72
Seek the company of devotees.
73
God has limitless forms, names, and activities.
74
Don’t give up action. Employ your skills in serving God. That which contaminates you can also purify you, when you engage it in serving God. Matter joined to service of God becomes spirit.
75
Even those who are liberated from matter take pleasure in serving God.
76
You can attain devotion to God only by the mercy of God.
77
God’s central personality has a specific form.
78
Spirit is the substance. Matter is a category of the substance.
79
Souls enter into the material world, or the material consciousness, in order to imitate God. But the larger purpose of material existence is the rehabilitation of the deluded souls back to the natural state of loving the central position of God.
80
God is one: the Central Person. But God is also two: She and He. Each of them is singular and many. When She is singular, She is a specific feminine individual. Among her many energies are the souls who worship God and the atoms of the material world. When He is singular, He is a specific masculine individual. Among His many energies are Deities and universal space. When God is one, God is a mystery.
81
Serving the devotees of God is the same as serving God.
Oremus
UWA OAAAAH
Pandevotional Invocation
