GOD: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY - THE PODCAST
JLM - Narrator (Jerry L. Martin) - voiced by Scott Langdon
Jerry - Jerry Martin - voiced by Scott Langdon
GOD - The Voice of God - voiced by Jerry L. Martin, who heard the voice
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EPISODE EIGHT: Where I learn about encounters with God
"At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance."
--T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets
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JLM
I found myself responding to T.S. Eliot's deep meditation on the nature of time, particularly those lines. I developed an interest in philosophical questions regarding time and years later published a phenomenological analysis of the experienced *now* that provided a way of understanding Plato's insight that "time is the moving image of eternity."
Many experiences people gloss over and relegate to their mental attics are actually divine shafts of light breaking through the clouds.
GOD
Think about epiphanic experiences. When did you feel close to me or most spiritually open?
JERRY
I can only remember the two experiences. The first was the I-Thou with a drop of water.
GOD
Yes; that is very significant. What did you understand from that experience?
JERRY
I understood the subjectivity of all things...but I'm not sure that is quite right. I did not imagine the drop of water looking out at me or having feelings or the like. I just encountered the "suchness" of it, its full independent integrity, my respect for it, that we were in some kind of relationship.
GOD
That was an encounter with me. I was in the drop of water. Why not? Where else would I be? I am in everything. You suddenly became open to my presence in that drop of water. You did not think of it that way, and you were right. It is not that I, as a great mystical being, somehow inhabited this tiny object, but you rightly experienced the drop for what it was, and that is precisely how I am *in* things. As you can tell, I am in each thing *fully.*
JERRY
If you were in the drop of water, then are you in each of us also? Are we all a part of you?
GOD
You are both other and same as me. I need you to be other so that I may encounter another self. I am a person and, like other persons, define myself by responding to other persons, and being responded to by them.
But I also need union, not distance--just as other persons do. You and Abigail are both other and same. You need to be different people--love is a bridge between differences. You also merge spirits at certain moments, though not totally. That is also a kind of completion or fulfillment. Life, including my life, is the dialectic, as you might call it, of same and other, confrontation and union.
JERRY
Are those moments of union with God the goal, or are they just nice accompaniments?
GOD
Neither. You shouldn't strive for moments of union per se, for peak experiences. That is self-indulgence and a mistake of some who seek mystical experiences. It is like orgasms--you should not seek them for their own sake. That is an abuse, a kind of idolatry. They happen naturally as the outcome and expression of love. But the experience of union is not just the accidental accompaniment of loving God. It is the essential expression.
JLM
Then, late at night, I felt the boundary between me and the world becoming thinner and less distinct. Slowly, subject and object were blending, becoming intimately bound, not standing apart from one another. I was noting this intellectually, but it was not an intellectual experience. It was an ontological experience, an experience of my whole being. Finally, for a few moments, it approached total oneness, the complete loss of awareness of self. I pulled back.
JERRY
Lord, what is the meaning of this kind of experience?
GOD
There are many levels and kinds of experiences with me--including music. Do not make too much of it. It is good; just let it happen. It does not mean that you are about to become a mystic or anything unworldly. It is not unlike--it is on a continuum with--a wide range of spiritual experiences, in and out of religious practice and sensibility, that people have all the time. But it is definitely good. It will give you energy and peace and insight, so let it in.
JERRY
I feel you want me to do more of the mystical stuff, "entering" you and so forth.
GOD
Yes, and you can lose the scare quotes. There is nothing strange about it. That is how the universe is. The parts can communicate with the whole. It is no more mystical or mysterious than your ability to move your arm.
JLM
Actually, since Descartes introduced a sharp mind-body distinction, how the mind moves the body has been a philosophical mystery. But, in actual life, it is not. The parts can communicate with the whole and vice versa. I had never thought of the universe that way.
(The End)