Submitted by Nous on
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Granting that we see nature, and also admitting its original cause, upon what grounds do we consider the cause to be a personal God, meriting worship? The answer is that nature itself consists of different personalities, and each of them has its peculiar attributes. The sum total of all these personalities is One, the only real personality. In relation to that One all other personalities are merely an illusion. Just as, in a limited form, a nation or a community is the sum of many personalities, just as nature manifested in numerous names and forms is still called nature, singular not plural, just as the individual combines within himself the different parts of his body, arms, limbs, eyes, ears, and is possessed of different qualities yet is one person, so the sum total of all personalities is called God.
He is the possessor of all the visible and invisible attributes of the Absolute, and has different names in different languages for the understanding of man. It may be said that the personality of a man is quite comprehensible, since his actions exhibit him as a single individual, whereas God's personality has no clear identification of its own. The answer is, that variety covers unity.
"Hidden things are manifested by their opposites, but as God has no opposite He remains hidden. God's light has no opposite in the range of creation whereby it may be manifested to view" (Jelal-ud-Din Rumi).
The wise man by studying nature enters into the unity through its variety, and realizes the personality of God by sacrificing his own.
"He who knows himself knows Allah" (Sayings of Mohammed).
"The Kingdom of God is within you" (Bible).
"Self-knowledge is the real wisdom" (Vedanta).
God's relation to nature may be understood by analyzing the idea expressed in the words, "I myself." This affirmation means the one individual; at the same time it identifies the dual aspect of the One. In this phrase "I" is the possessor, and "myself" is the possessed. So also God, the unmanifested, is the possessor; and nature, the manifestation, is the possessed, which has its source hidden within itself.
The possessed could not have been created from anything other than the possessor's own self, as there existed none but the possessor. Although the possessor and the possessed are considered to be two separate identities, in reality they are one. The possessor realizes the possessed through the medium of his own consciousness, which forms three aspects, the Trinity, of the one Being.
The German philosopher Hegel says,
"If you say God is one, it is true; if you say He is two, that is also true; and if you say He is three, that is true too, because it is the nature of the world."
God is regarded from three points of view: personality, morality, and reality.
- According to the first view, God is the most high; man is dependent upon Him and is His most obedient servant.
- According to the second view, God is the all-merciful and all-good Master of the Day of Judgment, while all evil is from Satan.
- The third is the philosophic view that God is the beginning and end of all, having Himself no beginning nor end.
As a Sufi mystic has said, "The universe is the manifestation of Allah, where from His own unity He created, by involution, variety -- the state of various names and forms -- thereby distinguished as Allah, worthy of all praise and worship."
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