The Supersoul
Tue, 01/29/2008 - 20:33 — admin
The third channel of receiving information about God from God is via the Paramatma, the Supersoul. The Supreme Person Himself speaks to the living beings from within their hearts as the Supersoul or the Lord in the heart. You might question how God could possibly be capable of simultaneously speaking or giving instructions to each and every one of us. But if we consider God in terms of Anselm’s definition of “that being than whom no greater being can be conceived”,11 we can understand that the ability to make Himself known, or to communicate, to all lesser beings is certainly possessed by God.
MICHAEL: If God is giving instruction to each one of us within our hearts, why is it that we seem to be unable to hear Him?
TEACHER: It’s because we are not listening! But it’s not that all of us are not listening-some are listening, and to the degree that they listen, they’re able to hear. The Lord in the heart does not force us to listen. Rather, if we are inclined to listen, He is ever ready to give us instruction.12
MICHAEL: Many people say that God is speaking to them from within, but it often appears to me that they are simply fanatics.
TEACHER: Yes, many so-called inspired persons are simply listening to the dictates of their own minds and thinking that God is talking to them. This is a very big problem, but the Supreme Person Himself has made specific arrangements so that those who do not want to be misled will not be misled. Descending knowledge is received by the living beings, not only from within through the heart, but also from without, as I’ve just mentioned, through the scriptures and through the lips of the spiritual master. In this way there is a checking system. If I feel that God is speaking to me, then I can check what I feel He has said with the shastras and with a bona fide spiritual master. If there is complete agreement, then I can know that it is God, and not my mind, speaking to me. You see, Michael, whether God speaks to us from within or from without, the message is the same.
MICHAEL: The channels through which you say knowledge descends from the Supreme Person don’t seem unfeasible to me, but it seems there is a host of criticism which can be directed at them. Isn’t the reception of knowledge in this manner largely an act of faith?
Rajneesh, infamous for his advocation of “free sex” among his thousands of Western disciples, writes:The Supersoul
The word “brahmacharya” means that you have come to attain, you have come to know that you are the Brahman, the ultimate, the divine, that you are God Himself.1
Satya Sai Baba, India’s most famous contemporary mystic and “holy” man, says:
You have not heard Me fully; I say I am God; I say also that you are God. The difference is that I know it and you do not know it.2
The idea of the “I am God”ists is that each of us is actually the Supreme Spirit, but that somehow we forgot our true identity as God and came under the spell of ignorance. So you are supposedly God, the Supreme Being, but you are now caught under the laws of material nature. You are supposedly the Supreme Lord, but you are now bound on the wheel of birth and death. It is an absurd proposition.
~Jagad Guru Siddhaswarupananda Paramahamsa (Chris Butler)
Science of Identity Foundation
1 Rajneesh, Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega, vol. 3, p. 36.
2 Andrew Shaw, Words of Truth: A Second Compilation of Sayings by Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba (New Delhi: Sterling Publishers Private Ltd., 1998), p. 7.
The third channel of receiving information about God from God is via the Paramatma, the Supersoul. The Supreme Person Himself speaks to the living beings from within their hearts as the Supersoul or the Lord in the heart. You might question how God could possibly be capable of simultaneously speaking or giving instructions to each and every one of us. But if we consider God in terms of Anselm’s definition of “that being than whom no greater being can be conceived”,11 we can understand that the ability to make Himself known, or to communicate, to all lesser beings is certainly possessed by God.
MICHAEL: If God is giving instruction to each one of us within our hearts, why is it that we seem to be unable to hear Him?
TEACHER: It’s because we are not listening! But it’s not that all of us are not listening-some are listening, and to the degree that they listen, they’re able to hear. The Lord in the heart does not force us to listen. Rather, if we are inclined to listen, He is ever ready to give us instruction.12
MICHAEL: Many people say that God is speaking to them from within, but it often appears to me that they are simply fanatics.
TEACHER: Yes, many so-called inspired persons are simply listening to the dictates of their own minds and thinking that God is talking to them. This is a very big problem, but the Supreme Person Himself has made specific arrangements so that those who do not want to be misled will not be misled. Descending knowledge is received by the living beings, not only from within through the heart, but also from without, as I’ve just mentioned, through the scriptures and through the lips of the spiritual master. In this way there is a checking system. If I feel that God is speaking to me, then I can check what I feel He has said with the shastras and with a bona fide spiritual master. If there is complete agreement, then I can know that it is God, and not my mind, speaking to me. You see, Michael, whether God speaks to us from within or from without, the message is the same.
MICHAEL: The channels through which you say knowledge descends from the Supreme Person don’t seem unfeasible to me, but it seems there is a host of criticism which can be directed at them. Isn’t the reception of knowledge in this manner largely an act of faith?