When we can experience peace through oneness with nature why do we need to depict God as a person?

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
so if we talk about experiencing oneness with nature through synchronicity through homeostasis then why do we need any personal conception or depiction of God there is definitely a higher level of harmony of peace that can be experienced when we just rise beyond pushing for our immediate impulses trying to fulfill them and we try to look at deeper aspects of nature just like saying if I am in a crowded city with so many commercials so many advertisements I move towards a serene natural setting I feel peaceful I feel more at harmony with myself more with nature now in this sense it’s definitely a more elevated level of understanding if we look at not so much a personal depiction sometimes we get into depiction then why this depiction why not this depiction that can lead to sectarianism so without going to depiction let’s first look at definition let’s first look at definition and then depiction after that so in terms of definition if I consider that nature as a matter of experience for me it may give me a sense of oneness it may give me a sense of calmness but when I look at nature where did nature come from what is the ultimate source of everything so if there is whether that source is something personal or something impersonal that’s something which we will have to to some extent infer at this stage so what we do see is that in the present existence that we have there is there are impersonal forces that are acting and there are personal agents that are acting and there are personal agents that are acting in the world that we experience right now there are impersonal forces that are acting and there are personal agents that are acting impersonal forces means you could say that a fruit falls okay it just fell down that’s an impersonal force we could assume for this frame of reference but then you know there might be somebody on top of that tree that person throws a fruit down on my head that’s a personal agent so we see in our experience in the world there are impersonal forces and there are personal agents as being smited as being? smited you know how they say smite me am I smited okay not smited see before we go into you know motivation of that agent that’s a different subject let’s focus on the point that there are impersonal forces there are personal agents which we see in the world right now so if we were to trace back to the origin then we would have to see that in the origin whatever it is it has to have the potential for both potential for both it has to have the potential for impersonal forces and it has to have the potential for personal agents personal agency, impersonal force and personal agency so a conception of the absolute which is only impersonal would be incomplete or would be inadequate in terms of explaining the personal agency that is there in this world so like a more intimate relationship you mean relationship is again a later thing, all that I am saying is that if I see that there is gold over here and there is salt over here on the ground then you know if it’s happened in the kitchen then I want to see where did this gold come from where did this salt come from maybe there is a treasury from which the gold has fallen out and maybe there is some salt container from which the salt has fallen out so if there are two distinct two things gold and salt in the room there was something from which both have two distinct places so in this world we see conscious we see personal agents we see impersonal forces so from wherever they have come that source must contain both these things so the absolute truth of the source of everything it must have both these aspects the personal agency and the impersonal forces so a conception of God which is only impersonal is incomplete and if a conception of God is only personal then that does not include an adequate understanding of the expansiveness of divinity that’s why the bhakti literature the Bhagavad Gita offers a conception of God that is both personal and impersonal so there is a personal agent and there is an impersonal force and in our spiritual journey first most of us what we experience is that sense of oneness and that is illuminating actually it is very uplifting now if we had lived in dark for a very long time and suddenly there is light, that light is illuminating but that light also is blinding because when the light suddenly comes I can’t see anything but then gradually as I get used to seeing then my eyes get used to that, oh there is one person here there is another person, there is a sofa over here I can start seeing so many things so same way now we are currently largely in darkness about spiritual reality and so initially when we start perceiving spiritual reality what we perceive is that brightness so that brightness is illuminating in terms of at least the darkness is gone but with that brightness there is much more that can be seen so in the spiritual evolution quite often the first conception is of the impersonal oneness, the impersonal force but as we get accustomed more and more to spiritual reality then the blinding effect of that light decreases and then we can see spiritual reality also as variety and in that conception we see that there is a light but there are also other things existing which I can see with the light, so therefore there is the impersonal force or impersonal oneness we could say but there is also the personal agency, both exist in parallel