In this brief Essay (presented here in its entirety), Avatar Adi Da Samraj examines the fundamental faults underlying all attempts to prove" the existence of God:

When existing religious myths fall into doubt, efforts to "prove" the existence of "God" (by reason, rather than by belief) tend to follow. However, none of the traditional academic exercises of "proof" relative to the existence of "God" have ever really and finally relieved mankind of religious doubts, or of doubt itself. This is because the source of religious doubts is the failure of religious myths to continue to seem patently true after centuries of institutionalized belief have passed, and the source of doubt itself is the very same mind that seeks to "prove" (as a certain truth) what it cannot believe.

When religious myths fail, no intellectual "proofs" of the existence of "God" can heal the fault. Rather, when religious myths fail, Real God (or Truth, or Reality) must be Realized again. Therefore, when religious myths fail, the Great (and, necessarily, ego-transcending) Process of Real-God-Realization must again be discovered and embraced. (Indeed, it should never have been abandoned in favor of religious myths.) And if mankind as a whole would embrace that Great Process, the mythology of conventional religiosity would no longer be necessary, since Real God, or Truth, or Reality would Grow mankind beyond its childish and adolescent stages of development.

Heart-Communion with Real God, or Truth, or Reality is not (and cannot ever be) a matter of conditional certainty (or of complete "knowledge about"), but it is always (or inherently) a matter of Realizing, or (by transcending the ego-"I", and all "answers", and all "questions") directly entering into, the Mystery (or Inherent, and Ultimate, and Self-Evidently Divine "Ignorance") that is one's Native (or Inherent,and Ultimate, and Self-Evidently Divine) Condition.

The Necessary Characteristic of the existence of Real God is the same as the Necessary Characteristic of your own existence (or the existence of any one or any "thing"). That Necessary Characteristic Is Existence Itself.

Every one, or every "thing", that exists is not ever in a position separate from its own existence. Therefore, it cannot inspect, or objectively "know", its own existence (itself), or the existence (itself) of any one or any "thing" else. Likewise, no one or "thing" is in a position to inspect, or to objectively "know", the existence of Real God. Real God Is Existence Itself, and Existence Itself cannot (As Existence Itself) be inspected, or objectively "known"—not even by Real God! Existence Itself (or the existence of Real God, or even the existence of any one or any "thing") Is (As Such) Unknowable—an Irreducible (and Indivisible) Mystery. Relative to "questions" of existence, every one, and every "thing", is (inherently, and irreducibly) in a permanent state of Divine Ignorance (As, also, Is Real God). Therefore, Real God Is (and cannot, otherwise, be) "Known" only in (or to) Native (or Inherent, and, therefore, truly Divine) Ignorance.

Even as a boy (yet to Most Perfectly Re-Awaken ¹ to My own Divine Self-Condition and Avataric Divine Work), I contemplated Existence Itself by enquiring of My apparent conditional self (or My presumed knowledge) in such a manner that I was directly restored to My fundamental (Native, or Inherent) Divine Ignorance (and, thus, to Existence Itself, or the Real-God-Condition, or Truth, or Reality), Free of the barrier that is conditional knowledge and separate self. And, in all the years of My Avatarically Self-Manifested Divine Teaching-Work (after My eventual Divine Re-Awakening), I continued to enquire of My listening ² devotees: "'Consider' ³ any one or any 'thing' at all. How could any one or any 'thing' exist? Could no one and no 'thing' exist? What Is this, or that? Do you 'know' What any one, or any 'thing', or any condition Is?"

Conventional religion likes to think about the physical universe from the point of view of the physical self. Therefore, conventional religion wonders about "What could have caused all of this and me". And, from such conventional wondering, the myth of the "Creator-God" is developed. But the idea of a "Creator-God" only justifies beliefs that confine one to separate self and conditional world, whereas true religious wonder ultimately goes beyond wondering (itself), and the transcending of even wonder (itself) is a glance that directly transcends separate self and conditional world.

The wonder (or the Mystery beyond wonder) is not how things and apparent beings came to exist (by a chain of causes and effects), but the wonder (or the Mystery beyond wonder) is the fact that any thing (or some thing) exists. In other words, the wonder (or the Mystery) is in the existence of what arises, and not in the how. Therefore, if wonder beyond wonder (or enquiry into the Mystery That Transcends the world, the mind, and the total conditional self is truly engaged in relation to any thing (or any condition) at all, Existence Itself, or the Feeling of Being (Itself), is directly intuited. And the intuition (thereby) of Existence Itself, or the Feeling of Being (Itself), is the true beginning of Ultimate Religion (or religion that, by progressive transcendence, allows Growth through and beyond all the developmental, or first six, stages of life, even to the degree of Realizing the only-by-Me Revealed and Given seventh stage of life ⁴ in the Way of Adidam, Which is the only-by-Me Revealed and Given Way of the Heart). Therefore, Existence Itself, or the Feeling of Being (Itself), or Consciousness Itself (Self-Existing, Self-Radiant, and Inherently Love-Blissful) Is Real God, or Truth, or Reality. And the Real God, or Truth, or Reality That Is Stands As Is in the existence-place of every thing, being, or condition that seems to be.

This "One" cannot be "proven" to exist, since This "One" merely Is, prior to conditional knowledge.

This "One" cannot be Ultimately approached or Realized via religious myths, since This "One" merely Is, prior to belief.

Therefore, This "One" cannot be "proved" or believed, "known" or perceived. Indeed, This "One" cannot even be doubted, since even doubt is the contemplation of What Is (or of Existence Itself), via the Mystery (or contemplation) of the existence of things, and beings, and conditions, and thoughts, and doubt itself.

Therefore, when religious myths fail, the Way is not to try to "prove" What cannot be believed. Rather, the Way is to ask the right questions. (Do you know What any thing, or being, or condition Is?) And the right questions lead to contemplation (and, potentially, to Real-God-Realization, or Realization of Truth and Reality), whereas the wrong questions (as well as all conventional answers) lead only to the doubter and back to the doubt.

NOTES

1. Avatar Adi Da's Divine Re-Awakening occurred on September 10, 1970, in the Vedanta Society Temple in Hollywood, California. For a full description of this Event and its import: The Vedanta Temple Awakening.

2. "Listening" is Avatar Adi Da's technical term for the orientation, disposition, and beginning practice of the Way of Adidam. A listening devotee "listens" to Avatar Adi Da Samraj by "considering" His Teaching-Argument and His Leelas, and by practicing feeling-Contemplation of Him (primanly of His bodily human Divine Form). In the total (or full and complete) practice of the Way of Adidam, effective listening is the necessary prerequisite for true hearing and true seeing.

3. The technical term '"consider", or "consideration", in Avatar Adi Da's Wisdom-Teaching means a process of one-pointed but ultimately thoughtless concentration and exhaustive contemplation of something until its ultimate obviousness is clear. As engaged in the Way of Adidam, "consideration" is not merely an intellectual investigation, it is the participatory investment of one's whole being.

4. The entire Spiritual Process culminating in Divine Enlightenment has been exactly "mapped" by Avatar Adi Da, Who Describes It in terms of seven stages of life. In the total (or full and complete) practice of the Way of Adidam, the seven stages of life are, from first to last, a Process in Consciousness, Revealing (ultimately) that you are Consciousness, and not merely the body-mind.

The first three (or foundation) stages of life constitute the ordinary course of human adaptation—bodily, emotional, and mental growth. The fourth and fifth (or advanced) stages of life are characterized by the Awakening to Spirit, or the Spiritualizing of the body-mind.

In the sixth and seventh (or ultimate) stages of life, Consciousness Itself is directly Realized, beyond identification with the body-mind. In the sixth stage of life, the Realizer Identifies with Consciousness (in profound states of meditation) by excluding all awareness of phenomena. Avatar Adi Da has Revealed that this was the highest form of Realization known in the religious and Spiritual traditions previous to His Appearance. But this Realization is incomplete. Even the necessity to turn away from the world in order to fully Enjoy Consciousness represents a contraction, a refusal of Reality in its totality. The seventh stage of life, or the Realization of "Open Eyes", transcends this last limit. No exclusion is necessary, because the world is Realized to be a mere modification of Consciousness, not separate (or "different") from Consciousness at all.
 

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