Universe is God’s secular name
God is divisive reality for most people. I have no intention of imposing my view of God on readers. Feel free to view that word as you understand it. At the same time, I encourage you to go beyond your understanding, because you cannot understand something that is really beyond your understanding. You can describe God, but you cannot define God. I see God as the Nameless One — the Source, the Force, the Universe, Being, Self, Life, Spirit, Soul, Intelligence, Brahman, Creator, Yahweh, Father, and more. For me God is a Presence rather than a Person — but a personal presence. This nameless Reality is the Magnificent and Loving Mystery at the heart of the Cosmos. Mystic poet Chelan Harkin again:
The worst thing we ever did
was put God in the sky
out of reach pulling the divinity
from the leaf,
sifting out the holy from our bones…
stripping the sacred from everywhere
to put in a cloud man elsewhere,
prying closeness from your heart.
According to Harkin who has given me permission to share her poems in this book, GOD should be spelled G-AWE-D.
Chelan Harkin is a young poet whom I recently discovered through my good friend Piero Falci. Many of her poems resonate with the strings of my heart. She can express in four lines what I need four paragraphs for. So, you will see her quoted often, of course with her permission, to share the light she brings to the Universe. All quotes are from her recent book, Let us Dance: The Stumble and Whirl with the Beloved, a magnificent collection of mystical poems with touch-heart power.
For those still insisting on a name for God, I consider the Universe as God’s secular name and God as the Universe’s sacred name. We depend on God for everything, including our life itself. We also depend on Earth and its systems for our very survival. In that sense, Universe equals God!
According to Thomas Berry, “The universe is the supreme manifestation of the sacred.”
Hindu scholar Vinoba Bhave writes:
“God is everywhere in the Universe. As holy rivers, high mountains, serene oceans, tender-hearted cows, noble horses, majestic lions, sweet-voiced cuckoos, beautiful peacocks, clean as solitude loving snakes, crows flapping their winds, the upward rising flames, the still stars — He is pervading the whole creation in different forms. We should train our eyes to see Him everywhere.”
Dutch philosopher Spinoza confirms this idea when he says: “God and Nature are two words for the same substance.”
(from Cosmic Kindergarten: Earthly Lessons for a Heavenly Life)
