Wednesday, May 17, 2017

To Seek God Requires Distance

Alan Watts

“There is a highly problematic character to spiritual exercises and techniques as they are generally practiced. To try to make God an object of knowledge, to try to seek him, or to set out upon some course of spiritual development whose object is a future enjoyment of God, is, from one point of view, only to set God at a distance. Indeed, the remoteness, the absolute otherness of God is the presupposition of the ego-conscious point of view. 

“Therefore all these attempts merely confirm the ego in its feeling of the remoteness of God, because they are precisely manifestations of that feeling. To look for God as an object implies his distance from the knowing subject. To seek for him implies his absence. To set him in the future is to imply that he is not eternal and present."

The Supreme Identity, page 167

1 comment:

  1. Today's quote from Watts was great - only praying to God (or whatever the practice) does not make God an "object" to consciousness anymore than thinking about yourself makes you an "object" to yourself. We must not mistake "object-of- consciousness for a object-of-the-senses!

    Actually, self and God are alike objects-of-consciousness. If this was not true, people down the centuries (Eastern religions) could never have concluded that (at bottom) they really are God - "God is your true Self"! No question this IS the ego-self!
    wATTS should have made this clear.

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