Friday, April 30, 2010

"How does the Creator know everything?"

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The Creator has no “outside”.
All Creation resides within Him,
United within His Beingness.
Just by knowing Himself,
He also knows everything else.

 
(Adapted from Tanya I 48)

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This past Sunday my students had asked me, "How does the Creator know everything?"
 
I explained, "He knows everything just by knowing Himself."
 
The class shot me a puzzled look.
 
"Look" I continued, "The whole universe is inside of Him. There's no such a thing as being outside the Creator."
 
"Really?", Came back the incredulous response of several students.
 
"But ... the universe is so amazingly large. How does it all fit into the Creator", They protested.
 
"Ah", I lifted my eyes, "You think the universe is so amazingly large? According to Kabbalah this whole vast expanse that we see all around us it's merely a teeny tiny universe within a even vastly larger spiritual universe."
 
I waited to them to absorb what I just said. Once their faces and body language apeared settled, I continued, "And that vastly larger spiritual universe is merely a teeny tiny universe within an even larger spiritual universe. And that within an even larger one ... the process continues until universe is layered within universe like the layers of an onion with our physical universe right in the deep center. All these universes are inside of the Creator. He's around all of them."
 
However, we ran out of time. So I did not yet have the opportunity to finish explaining to the class how the universes are truly one within Him. My concern is that from everything I explained, a student can mistakenly walk away with the notion that the Creator is positioned around a "bubble". Within this "cosmic bubble" there's a layering of universes. However, this is not truly the picture I was trying to convey.
 
The picture I was trying to convey is closer to a dreamer having a dream. The dream, dreamscape and dream characters are not merely "inside the dreamer" - they are literally one with the dreamer. The very fabric of the dream is the dreamer himself. On the level of the dreamer's psychological fabric there's no distinction between dreamer and dream. They are seamlessly one and the same. So dreamer knows everything going on in his dream simply by knowing himself - for they are the same.
 
Similarly, in a metaphorical sense the Creator is dreaming creation into being. This is why He knows everything  that is going on simply by knowing Himself.

Hopefully, with the Creator's help I'll soon have the opportunity to convey this notion to my class.

8 comments:

  1. There's probably more to it than we know right now. What about the ages before creation? Personally I realize there is One God over all ages. Then the ages are based on a hierarchy.

    As Genesis 1: 26 talks about "Let us make man in our image," I realize the Shekinah is the female aspect of God. Likewise we will also one day have a spiritual-flesh body and also a spirit-only body.

    God divorced His wife, Israel, but He will claim her again after she overcomes. So I tend to believe this is the God over this earth age. I don't think this part is written in symbols. She'll become a spiritual fleshly wife with the Shechinah as her spirit-only body.

    Adam & Eve did not originate on this earth--in this dimension, so I cannot believe our Creator, from the beginning, knew everything. I think our Creator had to become our Creator.

    Only God knows the part He created us to be. I believe we were all created and also that we always have been. I believe we are a part of God.

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  2. So if you're talking about the God over all the earth ages, you could be correct. Simply God hasn't shown me yet, but you've given me food for thought.

    What I just posted on Israel/the Shechinah referred to the God (on the hierarchy)of this earth age--not the One God overall--in whom we're all a part of.

    And I believe our Creator of this earth age is yet another entity in the hierarchy.

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  3. Hi Angela,

    Thank you for sharing. I'm not familiar with some of the concepts you mention. However, I believe that factors like the age of the universe, divine control, Israel's relationship with the Creator,divine heiracrchies, ect. don't effect what I have written. The status of these details do not effect the notion that everything is within the Creator like a dream is in the dreamer and therefore, He knows everything.

    Best wishes,
    Choni

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  4. Do you feel He's always known everything? That He's always just "been"? Or that He had to experience it before He knew everything? What I'm still questioning is whether, as the dream is in the dreamer, if God has always known everything? We are created beings with dreams being within us. We also always were, even though we were created at different times, from the Body of God.

    So I assume you believe God has always known. That I haven't completely come to terms with. Israel walks in the name of her God, although it's very proper for other nations, to walk in the name of their god at a given time. We're all dreamers.

    The only thing I can't see, and it might not be revealed to me for a while--until God's ready-- is the One God you refer to from trillion upon trillions of years ago. I'm positively sure God can become spiritual flesh--as we all will--as well as have a spirit body, as His, that hovered over the face of the waters. God can also appear to Moses as a burning bush. One of these days, we can join this God-force after eons upon eons of time. We will have returned to the Oneness of God.

    I think it's something we all have to think about.

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  5. Hi Angela,

    It seems to me that your statement is based on two underying assumptions which I have a very different take on.

    A) That the Creator is subject to time.

    B) That the Creator is a Spiritual Being.

    My understanding is based on the areas of Judiasm that deal with cosmic matters. From this perspective time and spirituality are merely "creations", created during the process of creating the universe. Just like trees, mountains and birds are creations, so too is time and the realms inhabited by souls and angels.

    Since time is a creation, it's Creator is not "caught" in it. Therefore, there's no such a thing as a time when the Creator knew or didn't know. He's timeless.

    Since the spiritual realms are creations, G-d is not spiritual any more than He's physical. He's not "caught" in either reality. Therefore, I don't believe that the Creator has "spirit flesh", etc.

    I used the idea of a person dreaming only as a metaphor. The metaphor was not designed to imply that the universe is the Creator having a dream.

    Thank you for sharing.

    Best Wishes,
    Choni

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  6. Oh, now I see. You're talking about the One God outside time, the all knowing--that always has been and always will be. The One who contains the whole universe within Himself. When we truly want to find God, above all, this becomes our desire, we can become like Him (I've read many of the Bergs' books)!

    You're talking about the God of us all--thru endless earth ages.

    Now I comprehend. Thanks.

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  7. Hi Angela,

    Judaism teaches that what you are referring to as "the One God outside time" is the Only one.

    I agree that there's a lot of "yummy spirituality" going on within (some version) time. However, this type of spirituality are merely the way humans experience of our Creator. Some of these experiences are recorded for posterity in Bible or other sacred texts. A famous example of one would be Ezekiel Chapter 1.

    These experiences are "revelations" (or in contemporary idiom "projections"). They are not the Creator Himself.

    There's a difference between His revelations and His Essence.

    Confusing revelation with Essence, can lead to mistaken thinking. For example, based on what s/he saw in visions or read in sacred texts, a person can really end up thinking that the Creator has a form or is more than One.

    This might be the equivalent to a person assuming that an image on a computer screen looks the same way on the computer's storage disk.

    Let's take the image of a tree as an example. Let's say a person sees a tree revealed on a computer screen. It would be a mistake to think that the computer's storage disk also carries an image of the tree. What the disk carries to project a tree does not look like a tree at all. It's a data encoding of some sort.

    While the viewer is experiencing the data encoding as a tree, s/he is clueless about the data encoding itself. It could be said that the viewer had experienced the revelation of something without having experienced its essence at all.

    Best Wishes,
    Choni

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  8. I understand what you're saying in the first and last paragraph of Ezekiel 1, (about revelations/Essence, but the symbolism for the face of a man (Reuben), the face of a lion (Judah), the face of an ox (Ephraim)and the face of an eagle (Dan, eagle wings), is another discussion!

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