Kæru félagar.

Mig langar til að deila með ykkur samræðum sem ég átti við hollenskan vin minn sem er guðspekingur. Þess vegna er greinin á ensku og vona ég að það komi ekki að sök þar sem ég þýði öll erfið orð.

Til glöggvunar skal ég segja nokkur orð um samræðurnar. Vinur minn sem heitir Pétur er að furða sig á því að ég skuli trúa á persónulegan Guð. Hann telur það vera óraunhæft að Guð geti birst okkur sem persónulegur á okkar þróunarstigi. Auk þess sé það óskynsamlegt að trúa á persónulegan Guð þar sem það standi í veginum fyrir þroska og skilningi á guðspeki. Það sé heldur ekki raunhæft að trúa því að Guð hagi sér eftir okkar höfði með bænaáköllum þar sem um hrein “eðlisfræðileg lögmál” sé að ræða sem svari bænum okkar. Trú á persónulegan Guð setji mann niður á forskólastigið þar sem manni er sagt hvernig maður eigi að standa og sitja í staðinn fyrir að læra að hugsa fyrir sjálfan sig. Það geti maður ekki svo lengi sem maður eignar persónulegum Guði yfirráðin yfir sjálfum sér.

Ég svara honum á þá lund að við gefum okkur að Guð hafi vissa persónulega eiginleika sem hjálpi okkur til þess að þroska samsvarandi eiginleika hjá okkur sjálfum. Þar á meðal séu æðstu eiginleikar sem við eignum Guði, þ.e. óskilyrtur (ópersónulegur) kærleikur, sbr. orðatiltækið; “Kærleikur er allt sem er”, eða með orðum Bítlanna í söngnum: “All you need is love”. Með því að tilbiðja Guð og ákalla öðlist maður slíka kærleiksnáðargáfu sem sé í raun forsenda fyrir góðri dómgreind og skynsamri hugsun og trú. Maður sem hefur óskilyrtan kærleika hefur enga þörf til að upphefja sjálfan sig eða snúast til varnar og sé því í raun hæfari til þess að koma með óvilhallar skoðanir og rök fyrir sínu máli en sá sem hefur þroskað rökvit sitt en skortir kærleikann.

Þar sem kærleikur Guðs sé óskilyrtur, megi alveg eins kalla Guð ópersónulegan, eins og vinur minn gerir, því samkvæmt minni skilgreiningu þýðir að Guð sé ópersónulegur að Guð dæmir ekki út frá “persónulegum” ástæðum (þ.e. eigin hagsmunasemi), þ.e. Guð sé réttlátur (ópersónulegur) um leið og hann sé miskunnsamur (persónulegur – hefur væntumþykju, ber hag einstaklingsins fyrir brjósti).

Lesendur mega gjarnan koma með sínar hugleiðingar um réttmæti þeirra andstæðu sjónarmiða sem ég og hollenski vinur minn setjum fram í bréfaskiptum okkar. Sumir myndu etv. vilja ganga enn þá lengra en Pétur að afneita ekki eingöngu því að Guð sé persónulegur heldur neita því að Guð sé yfirleitt til. Fróðlegt væri að fá þeirra rök fyrir máli sínu.


Pétur: I sense from your comments [athugasemdum] that you still (maybe partly?) believe [trúir á] in a Personal God. Nothing wrong with that, of course. Personal choices are to be respected [virt]. My question is "Do you want to continue to believe in a Personal God? Or do you want help to overcome this psychological barrier [sálræn hindrun] to understanding Theosophy [guðspeki]? " Please understand that I do not pass a judgement about ‘bad thinking’ [þ.e. hann dæmir ekki að ég sé vitlaus], I only state [fullyrði] that the belief in a Personal God is so different from Theosophy, that nothing of Theosophy can be understood, even if only remnants [smá leifar] of a belief in a Personal God are residing [til staðar] in the one who wants to understand Theosophy.

To us here below, the God of our system does not manifest [birtist] itself as a Personal God, but as a strict [stanglega tekið] Unpersonal God. There are all kinds of reasons for this fact. Maybe the most scientific stated one is as follows: God on his own level is, of course, a Person to other Gods on his same level. However, because it is not on OUR level that he dwells, there is no Personal Communication [samskipti] possible. And if it would be possible, it would be without any meaning at all, it would be useless, superfluous [óþarfi] and nothing would be won by it…

A God of our system, being on a much higher level than we, would be all knowing, all powerful , omnipresent [alls staðar nálægur] etc. [o.s.frv.] on our level. But what would be the outcome of the use of the manifesting of these faculties [hæfileika] in a personal way? What would be the result for our freedom of choice… [valfrelsi] How could we learn any thing?

All answers on all questions that arise on our human level are known by the Gods for already millions of years. But the only thing that matters is that we find the answer on our questions ourselves (of course with help from those on the same level and a little, very little, of those on the next level above us, somewhere between us and the God of our system [hann á við (upprisna) andlega meistara]).

The idea of conversation [samræðum] with the God of our system in a personal way is an invention [tilbúningur] of the Jews, copied by Christian Orthodoxy [rétttrúnaði]… is nonsense. He has nothing to say to us, we have nothing to say to him. He understands us, but we cannot understand one word of him.

How can a little child understand the discourses [fyrirlestur] of a professor in mathematics [stærðfræði]? Is it useful that a professor in mathematics works in Kindergarten [barnaheimili] to instruct [kenna] the children how to draw a drawing [teikna] with a pencil? Don't you think this professor has other things to do, much more important to him and others?

The most crazy idea, which I tried to explain to you, is that we, on our level, think we know better than our God how to run the universe [alheiminum], and tell him how to do this: "Dear God, will you please change my karma ["örlögum"]and that of my brother, because we do not understand it." Of course the only correct decree [bæn] would be; “Help me to understand my own karma”, and this will be answered by someone, somewhere, somehow, because indeed ‘the call compells the answer’ [þ.e. að svar hlýtur að berast við hverja spurningu/bæn, sbr. lögmál Newtons: hverri hreyfingu fylgir gagnhreyfing] but of course not in the idea… that we can command [skipa fyrir] God in his running of the universe. The idea is crazy, but even my own past, of ten years of decreeing and more, illustrates [sýnir] that people can be completetely happy with crazy ideas.

Yours, Pieter


Hbraga: I do belief in a pantheistic [algyðis trú, þ.e. að Guð sé í öllu] personal God in a relative sense [afstæðum skilningi ] but I am not so sure in absolute sense. What we call God has all the qualities [eiginleika ] we attribute [eignum] to him and much more than that because all her qualities are beyond [handan við] all conceptions [hugtökum] and perceptions [skilning] that we can have of that being. More to say God is constantly transcending [fer sífellt handan við] himself so there is no beginning nor end to its qualities, it just Is what it Is. That is the only sensible description [skynsamlegasta lýsing] that one can give of it.

The personal part of God is only an infinitively small projection [örlítið brot] of his vastness [óendanleika] that humanity and higher being can respond [komist í samband við] to, but seemingly through his intermediaries [meðalgangara, sbr. Jesús og Búddha] or transmitters [leiðara, þ.e. englana og náttúruandana].

I think that it is more or less a matter how one perceives [skynjar] God, how it manifests herself as 'the call compels the answer´. Hence God is as much a human creation [sköpun okkar] as we are a part of his creation.

One can give four definitions [skilgreiningar] of Gods im/personality [ó/persónuleika] if you like, i.e. She is personal personal, he is impersonal personal, she is personal impersonal and it is impersonal impersonal. I think I would classify [skilgreina] myself somewhere in the middle. Here is another description [lýsing]: God is one in all and all in one, one in one and all in all.

My friends in Hare Krishna [indversk trúarhreyfing] acknowledge [trúa] that God has both impersonal and personal attributes [eiginleika], and the latter [síðar nefndu] are superior [æðri] to the former [fyrr nefndu], i.e. the Supreme Personality of Godhead [Hinn æðsti persónulegi Guð], which is Krishna who is one of the manifestations of Vishnu. Hence, bhakti yoga, or devotional worshiping [kærleiksrík tilbeiðsla] of personal God, is the highest aspect of service to God, and more to say the only viable [mögulega] way back to Godhead in Kali yuga, our age of quarrel and hypocricy [á tímum meinsemda og hallæra]. Then there are the Mayavadis or impersonalists, Shivaits (worshippers of Shiva), which strive towards merging [renna saman við] with the void [tómið, óendanleikann].

I was a member of an Indian yoga movement which seemed to stick to both ways [hélt með báðum], that is, it practices all aspects [greinar] of yoga, but acknowledges that bhakti yoga as the highest aspect which goal [markmið] is to merge with the impersonal Brahman [hinn ópersónulega Guð] through the intermediary of the Supreme Personality of God (i.e. our Holy Christ Self [sbr. fyrir meðalgöngu hins heilaga kristsjálf okkar sem samsvarar því þroskastigi sem Jesú Kristur hafði náð).

I can sympathize [hef samúð með] with a belief and worship of a personal God for pragmatical ["hentisömum ástæðum"] reasons as it is seemingly the best way to engender [vekja upp] higher emotions and sentiments [kenndir] such as love, compassion [finna til með öðrum], empathy [hluttekning], altruism [örlæti] etc. [o.s.frv.], which are closely related to the highest ascribed [tileinkuðum] qualities of God, i.e. ‘Love is all there is’. or The Beatle's song: “Love is all you need”. If one has unconditional [óskilyrt] love, then it is easy to derive [greina frá] other qualities from that exalted [upphöfnu] state of mind [hugarástandi], like rational thinking [skynsemi], so you are not subjugating [undirlægja] your human free will and free thinking to any outside agent [ytra yfirvaldi] except your own Higher Self, which is yourself in a true sense. One just projects [yfirfærir] those sentiments towards an outside agent, i.e. God, in order to find these same divine [guðdómlegum] qualities within your own kingdom of God [sbr. og orð Jesú að guðsríki sé hið innra].