The Will of God and Gratuitous Love

Does God have a will? Possibly in the sense that his creation is foreordained as good or beautiful. But in terms of the particulars of my life, I don't think so. I don't think we can do something for God as Marianne Williamson says when she defines miracles as 'asking God what we can do for him.' Of course it doesn't make much sense to think that we can actually do something for God that God hasn't already achieved. We might well be a tool or instrument in some sense in that we are his means presumably,though not merely puppets. But if spiritually we are whole and complete and lack nothing to be spiritually realized, then we are also not tools but ends in ourselves.

It seems the spiritual life is as much a matter of receiving as giving. Marianne seems to shift the emphasis to giving in “Return to Love.” Historically that's undoubtedly a great move either politically or psychologically if not spiritually. But the reciprocity of spirit seems to require giving as well as receiving. But what one receives may not happen as a simple matter of getting what is given from without by, say, an autonomous act of God whether responding to prayer or as reward of some sort.

Giving might be understood in a different way by analogy to the practice of interpretation. Hans Georg Gadamer argues in his ‘philosophical hermeneutics’ that in the creative or productive act of interpretation one does not exhaust the meaning of a text. In the act of interpretation one encounter a surplus of meaning which cannot be exhausted by the very nature of language itself. But Gadamer goes further in that the being that can be understood is not made less in producing its meaning but in fact becomes greater. It is not reduced to its meaning but in fact the meaning of its being grows and expands. One experiences an abundance of being and the possibility of creative interpretation becomes more.

In like manner when one gives of oneself, i.e., finds the will and resources to share and provide if not simply abide with the Other, then in fact one’s own being becomes more and greater. One finds access to one’s own gift as it returns in the abundance of the Love which one has given. One is not depleted or feeling empty in having given but one is renewed in seeing that contrary to the giving being a loss it is seen to come from an inexhaustible source.

The miracle lay in seeing that only when Love gives itself away does it realize that it is created out of nothing or out of everything. One’s loving enables the beloved to know love again and his/her being is again new. Love comes into being when one gives it away, especially when one realizes that no explicit attempt on the part of the other to equitably reciprocate is required.

In fact one can’t give love in the sense of giving it away. It’s expression is its expansion and manifestation as infinite. Love is not given but gifted and it is a gift which one has made, or better, made to happen. But this is not a doing but a letting go of all effort to do good or get love from the Other. Love is the most effortless when one sees that this is at the heart of one’s Life.

Robert Adam's On Consciousness

Robert Adams, disciple of Ramana Maharshi, says that the mind is not what gets or is enlightened. Nothing is liberated as such except Consciousness as Absolute Awareness. But this needs to be understood and experienced as a Living Awareness. That is Adams' "Consciousness" is Life itself always aware of itself, i.e., when it abides in pure transcendence of being. Such consciousness is interpreted as Love or Knowledge. Possibly it is Joy that transcends both of these modalities. To be Free would mean being able to rejoice in the face of our Love and our Hate, our Knowledge and our Ignorance or errors. Of course this would be acceptable in that such joy would permit seeing through the identification with one-sided feelings even if it is Love. Joy is not mere pleasure nor the absence of pain. It is living fully in Life's capacity to transcend all one-sided manifestations of apparent Freedom and rejoice in its victory over Death. That is, if Death is conquered, then one is not "embalmed" in modes of experience that short-circuit our Eternality.

Waking Up

It must be consciousness itself that wakes up. If it weren't that, then somnambulism would not be possible. Consciousness as lucid dreaming must be analogous to "waking consciousness" waking up in the buddhistic sense. In a dream I am aware of the event occurring but it's happening to me. I'm not aware that I am aware of the conscious event. If I were to 'wake up' in my dream, i.e., become "lucid" in the sense of 'lucid dreaming' I can then have the dream rather than it's having or "doing" me. If I 'wake up' in waking consciousness, then is the case that I have a life and life does not have me? If I do not wake up in my waking consciousness, does this mean that my life is just a dream, in a sense no more real than the sleeping dream or, at least, no more in my control than the non-lucid sleeping dream?

Reading "Return to Love": A Reflection

I've been reading Marianne Williamson's Return to Love. Quite good. Simple. Refreshing and much wiser than I expected it to be. For me such a "return" is certainly on the 'to do list.' From now on it will be permanently on the list. In fact it's the only thing on the list.

I'm moving out of the romanticized, idealized egoistic love relationship that was my marriage. Kate and I are changing and growing into a new relationship. We are parents now and that changes everything. It's not the cause of our change, movement or transformation. Just a condition. But, oh dear God, what a wonderfully challenging and blessed condition.

Love remains elusive; yet I know that I love. Yet I never feel fully present. Especially to love. And yet again to my boys I am present fully in love, not that I couldn't express it more or better or more wisely. If I can't love them completely and fully, I'm not human or love doesn't exist.