GOD: An Autobiography, As Told to a Philosopher - The Podcast

185. The Life Wisdom Project | Polytheism and Living Honestly | Special Guest: Dr. Abigail L. Rosenthal

• Jerry L. Martin, Scott Langdon, Abigail L. Rosenthal

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Can noticing the divine in everyday life transform reality?

This journey enriches the understanding of the divine in everyday life. Dr. Abigail L. Rosenthal, author of the upcoming book "Confessions of a Young Philosopher," returns to discuss the philosophical and theological implications and polytheism with Jerry from "God: An Autobiography, As Told To A Philosopher."

The coexistence of monotheism and polytheism today, the divine in Andrew Wyeth's art, and the metaphor of fire embodying both creation and destruction are explored. Through nature, art, or music, these experiences resonate deeply, enriching daily lives outside rigid theological structures.

Abigail and Jerry discuss the God of Israel and how God accepts all flaws, just as biblical figures like David were flawed yet significant. The human condition, marked by imperfections, makes life's journey meaningful and challenging.

Embrace contradictions, live in concert with God, and attend to life's rhythms and the spirit within with honesty and sincerity.

Dr. Abigail L. Rosenthal is the author of A Good Look at Evil, and Dear Abbie: The Non-Advice Column.

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Hashtags: #lifewisdomproject #godanautobiography #experiencegod #polytheism #yogaandmeditation

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Scott Langdon 00:17: This is God: An Autobiography, The Podcast. A dramatic adaptation and continuing discussion of the book God: An Autobiography, As Told To A Philosopher by Jerry L. Martin. He was a lifelong agnostic, but one day he had an occasion to pray. To his vast surprise, God answered- in words. Being a philosopher, he had a lot of questions, and God had a lot to tell him. Episode 185. 

Scott Langdon 01:01: Welcome to God: An Autobiography, The Podcast. I'm Scott Langdon and this week, for our 18th edition of our Life Wisdom Project series, Abigail Rosenthal joins Jerry for another intriguing discussion as the two break down episode 18 of our podcast called God Explains Polytheism in a Way I Understand. That's no easy task, as God presents Jerry in episode 18 with the seemingly simple yet very complex truth that we are each particular manifestations of God, while also appearing as, and interacting as, separate from one another. How can both of these things be true, and what are the implications for our lives? Here now are Jerry and Abigail unpacking their thoughts on that question, among others. I hope you enjoy the episode.

Dr. Jerry L. Martin 02:00: Well, I'm very pleased to have my wonderful wife, Abigail Rosenthal as her published name, author of the forthcoming book Confessions of a Young Philosopher, among other things, but to discuss this very interesting episode. God tells me in this episode early people saw My presence everywhere, saw the spiritual indwelling of things, their powers and potencies and the divine element in all that. But there was always an awareness, however dim, that there was a single spiritual reality behind them all. And then He tells me there are many gods but only one God with a capital G, and I am He. So I take it, part of the message here for daily living is well, notice the divine and the things around you. You know, if God's showing through things, well, it's good to pause and notice that and take in the divine dimension as far as you detect it there and take that into your soul, you might say, into how you're approaching life. But of course that isn't the end of the story here. There are many gods but one God, and I am He.

Dr. Abigail Rosenthal 03:26: Yeah, in Hebrew scripture there's a conflict between the two and I suppose the pagans felt that way about Judeo-Christian monotheism. We can't have both coexisting, but in our late day, apparently it's okay. What was formerly subversive on the one side and on the other side now can, without too much discomfort, take their places side by side. I'm thinking of what you responded to in Andrew Wyeth's paintings, and you certainly wouldn't call that man a pagan, but very present to things without a sort of theological overlay which we rightly or wrongly associate with monotheism that they're a bunch of words that you have to siphon everything up toward.

Dr. Jerry L. Martin 04:41: And, as it were, without any overlay. I can remember. I think I've said I thought he let the divine show through, in just his grainy portrayal of the surface of things. He let the divine, just show through.

Dr. Abigail Rosenthal 04:58: Yeah, and of course that's what an artist permits. That's the painterly view of things. You don't force them into a story. They tell you what they want you to see, almost, and they have a drama which is nonverbal- a funny, nonverbal drama.

Dr. Jerry L. Martin 05:27: Yeah, and God is often- I'm not very aesthetic, as you know, I say I don't respond to flat things normally- but God is often using analogies to art and the whole of God: An Autobiography. And I guess in our daily life, you know, you take in the divine in art, you take it in in nature, you take it in in music, and so it's to be sort of vibrantly alive to those things. You let them sink into you. You know, don't put skeptical barriers or theoretical barriers or theological barriers in between you and what is presented in the experience.

Dr. Abigail Rosenthal 06:09: Yeah, it seems God is not how to say puritanic about our in a way worshiping nature or seeing it as divine per se, without subsuming it under theological categories. I was struck by what God says about fire. Fire is a thing in nature, but it's a physical metaphor, as if things, you don't need metaphors, things themselves can carry in themselves some kind of message or, you might say, theoretical value wordlessly, they simply are what you talk about.

Dr. Jerry L. Martin 07:15: Kind of complex, not a kind of simple divine showing through. It's not kind of simple, you know, encountering the Tho in nature or something. But the fire is very complex, physical metaphor with contradictory aspects, and that's part of what's fascinating about it. It warms you and it also can burn you and so forth. So it's attractive and frightening at the same time. I guess people more poetic than I am can take those things in more readily. But here God told me, so I wrote it down, you know.

Dr. Abigail Rosenthal 07:53:  Yeah, the fascination of fire has all these characteristics- created out of nothing, disappears into nothing, grows and dies. Gives life and warmth, as well as pain and destruction looks both hypnotically attractive and frightening. That sort of tolerance for things that don't fit neatly into one category or another seems part of what's coming through in this passage as if God is encouraging a tolerance.

Dr. Jerry L. Martin 08:37: Yeah, later I am told in some context in this episode, as I'm often told elsewhere, in God: An Autobiography, think more both/and less either/or. We think monotheism or polytheism, either/or. Wait, wait, wait. God, you might say, is spilling out in all directions and there are the gods, you think of fire as a kind of God, and then there's God. You know, which is the spiritual unity or presence behind it all. I don't know you know where exactly to go with that, but you also need to well, and in terms of practical life, since there is a God, you need to, I think the language used here is you need to, be in concert with God. You know you need to be, I sometimes think musically, you need to be in rhythm and step, or something like that, with God.

Dr. Abigail Rosenthal 09:37: Yeah, and rhythm and step are different from putting things together, mapping the world conceptually, because these two aspects, these two puzzle pieces, don't slide together. You can't make a single puzzle out of them and if you want to, it's disconcerting and frustrating. So it seems as if at some times a certain rhythm predominates. At other times, a quite different rhythm calls for you to get in step with it, and what's asked of us is, non-dogmatically, to be alert to these changes in the rhythm of things. My art teacher at the Art Students’ League long ago quoted a Chinese definition of art, “the spirit of life through the rhythm of things.” So it seems as if that's one inference to draw here. Be attentive to the rhythm of things and the spirit of life speaking through the rhythm of things.

Dr. Jerry L. Martin 11:06: Yes, and that does suggest paying attention to one's own rhythms. We have rhythms biological, emotional, you know, and one needs to not just deflect or override those, that one should pay attention to them and take in whatever they have to tell you. You know they're often prompting things, you know actions, reactions, further emotions, further thoughts.

Dr. Abigail Rosenthal 11:40: Yeah, it's a sort of… What comes to my mind is a message of something like reverence, which warns one against saying this is not important. For example, I'm not important. How my body feels right now is unimportant compared to things truly important. And perhaps who are we to assign these rankings to experience? I didn't create my body, you know. Maybe my body is trying to talk to me and I don't have to say you're the dumb one, you sit in the back row of the class. I want to hear from the bright kids, you know, the ones who talk in words, but no, that might not be quite fair.

Dr. Jerry L. Martin 12:38: Yeah, and the body may want something from you. After all, right, and I'm just not talking about you know the body's hungry or tired or something like that, but it might be deeper than that. You know we're whole organic beings, after all. Spiritually embodied beings, and our bodies may be full of wisdom for all we know. You have to pay a lot of attention to find out.

Dr. Abigail Rosenthal 13:15: If God is, as this passage tells us, can be in trees and forests and lakes and mountains. God can also be in our bodies, which have many organs and which work together in very complicated ways to make possible a human story, but the different components that work together perhaps have their own needs which could be perhaps emotional, not just chemical.

Dr. Jerry L. Martin 13:54: So pay attention to those things. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin 14:31: But I also want to call your attention to God, shortly thereafter, after God telling me about there are many gods but only one God. I ask what is your relation to the God of Israel? And of course this hearkens to my tradition you might say Judeo-Christian tradition, but the God of Israel, and you know, in that first prayer I ever had, when a voice spoke and I said who is this? It wasn't me talking, and I am God. And then I say the God of Israel? I am the God of all.

Dr. Jerry L. Martin 15:08: And you don't know how to parse that because, well, the God of Israel can be the God of all. And I think by the time, and I didn't know what that meant because this was the first encounter, by the end of the book you do seem to find out, well, something like what He's telling me here. The God says, in answer to that question, the God of Israel is one face of Me, it is really Me. Sometimes that one face language used by people makes it sound as if it's all metaphors or something like that. But no, God says it is really Me and I did undergo the development recorded pretty accurately in the Hebrew Bible.

Dr. Abigail Rosenthal 15:53: Yeah, quite astonishing really.

Dr. Jerry L. Martin 15:56: Yes.

Dr. Abigail Rosenthal 15:57: Modern people read that as if this was a primitive phase of human development, when they didn't have a very high-minded notion of God. God getting into battle and God getting angry. God deviating from His supposed above-the-battle character like a Hallmark card- what's He doing down here in the dirt with the rest of us? And, here God says no, I was down here in the dirt with the rest of us. As you know, I have an inherited actually quite actual relation to the God of Israel and it's never, well, I wouldn't say never, but it hasn't been a fun ride from ancient times to the present.I always felt about the God of Israel that, or I have come to feel, that the God, that God, knows us as fully, multifaceted complex, real persons, without idealizing us, without selecting out some favored part of us, but taking our human reality as something God requires of us, as if we're not supposed to lie about who we are and we're supposed to engage in the necessities of human life in tandem with a God who recognizes us and whom we recognize. There’s a kind of mutual recognition between us as people and God that allows us to take people very seriously. You know not to think this is a lower level of existence. No, the human level is, in a way, ultimate and of the greatest seriousness, and when we express our relationship in prayer, which is to say in conversation with God, we're being very sincere, or at least we're called upon to be very sincere. So this is the drama of personal life seems to me vindicated in the God of Israel.

Dr. Jerry L. Martin 19:09: It doesn't, I mean, people often don't like it. They read the Hebrew Testament and well, the God doesn't seem quite so perfect and of course, in fact I was just told the story of God's development is part of what the Hebrew Testament is about, but the people aren't perfect. The great heroes, one after another, have these flaws and missteps and so forth, and these are the patriarchs. These are the heroes you know. Look at David later, beyond Genesis. Here David is just doing terrible things. He had an affair with this woman and made sure her husband got killed in battle. Well, that's pretty bad. And who is it? The prophet, Nathan or somebody, comes after and tells him a parable about some bad bad guy, and then he says and David, you're the bad bad guy, something like that. But that doesn't stop any one of us. Our imperfections do not stop us from being the partners God needs in this situation now, and we need to step up even with our imperfections.

Dr. Abigail Rosenthal 20:23: Yeah, that side of God which is kind of hard, says don't rise above it, don't rise above the human condition. It's an important challenge to be in the human condition and if there's some reason you want to scramble out of it, take another look at that, because you might be dishonestly getting above it or scrambling out of it.

Dr. Jerry L. Martin 20:59: So one of the things you were suggesting, Abigail, was you got to be honest with yourself up front. Don't go around pretending to be perfect. If something matters to you, don't say it doesn't matter. Don't shuffle it under. If you feel called upon to do something, either you might say that you feel it has a divine stamp on it or it's just your situation. You know, something calls you to help somebody, to take care of somebody, to do your duty, to repay your debts. Whatever it might be that you've called upon to do, don't deflect that.

Dr. Jerry L. Martin 21:44: Take it in honestly and we can live with our imperfections, we act them out, but you still, even the imperfect person, even as imperfect as we are, we're trying to do our best, and your best is all you can do, after all. So you're trying to do your best, and your best might not be the best. It might not even be the best you're always capable of, but maybe at some future time you'll be able to do something that at this moment you can't quite rise to. But your point, I take it, is don't rise above it, don't try to step outside of your situation, don't try to even step outside of your character, because you are who you are, and that's, I often think when I'm thinking of my own imperfections, you know, and here I've got this big mission that God gave me. Well, I'm the instrument, and if God had wanted a perfect instrument, He would have found one. But the instrument he found was Jerry Martin, and okay, with my little mixed bag of goods and bads, and talents and untalents, and okay, that's what you got to do. You're not born perfect, you're not given the perfect upbringing, the perfect situation, the perfect anything. But that doesn't stop the drama, that defines the drama.

Dr. Abigail Rosenthal 23:10: Yeah, it's kind of hard. I could make a long list of the traits I lack, you know, yeah, don't have this one, lack this one, not sufficient, too much, and the hey, settle down with what you're bringing to the situation. That's going to have to suffice. The only requirement I would add I don't see it in this passage, but it might be implicit is don't wait around till you get to be good enough to do this, or till you clear the decks, or till you can settle your mind. Just get on it. If there's something like a call, and if you're wrong, that wasn't a call, well, that's not normally a big tragedy, you can be wrong, but don't wait around, don't stall. Take this drama as an actor would take his part on the stage- his or her part. You're on, this is your scene. Never mind if your socks need pulling up, you're on.

Dr. Jerry L. Martin 24:40: Yeah, and you can't even do it three minutes later because you're in dialogue with another character, so you can't pause and you know, get your arms more comfortable or feet more comfortable or something. No, you've got to be right at your moment, like the way on stage or at your mark physically, you know in spatial terms. You've got your temporal mark as well. You've got to be on. That’s pretty hard.

Dr. Abigail Rosenthal 25:07: Yeah. It's like a race. You know, when the gun goes off or something, the racers have to go. They might be ready or not. So there is that sense that you can't stall around with the divine human connection. To take it literally is to take it that, inadequate as you might feel yourself to be you're on- you're move.

Dr. Jerry L. Martin 25:43: Or maybe you feel you just can't face it right now or it seems so hard, or you've got some other personal priority getting in the way. You know Ray Silverman, who's done one of these Life Wisdom episodes and teaches students the Ten Commandments. He really teaches life wisdom through the Ten Commandments. And what he does is have students write, I don't know his papers or keep journals, and he's like what is your idolatry, you know? What do you put in the place of God? And the answer he says that he gets way more than any other is procrastination, and I wouldn't have thought of that as a kind of idolatry. But it's blocking, you know, their partnership with God and with everything else in their lives by just putting off, putting off.

Dr. Abigail Rosenthal 26:39: The first words that inaugurate the relation that will be the one between Israel and God are lech-lecha, get up and get out. And it isn't recorded that Abraham said out there, I have to put my library card in, or my father's idols still need another dusting, or you know, whatever the rabbinic midrash is, that Abraham's father was running an idol shop. He got the call. Be that as it may, the point was not next week, now. That's part of the adventure and the drama of the human divine interaction. There's a rhythm to that too.

Dr. Jerry L. Martin 28:03: Then another interesting thing in this very episode is a rejection. You know it's strange, because you know God is sort of in everything. It seems to be the polytheism message, this kind of nature, God's presence and nature and art and all around us. And I said, well, if God is kind of sort of in everything or is everything, then does that mean God is me or in me? And God says yes, and I said but I talk to You, you know. And God says again this is maybe where He says don't think either/or think both/and because you can have a differentiation. And God says, well, you're a specific manifestation of Me and I'm in fact a specific manifestation of Myself. So okay, so there's both sameness and difference.

Dr. Jerry L. Martin 28:55: And I was told from the beginning, and it's very puzzling if you have a philosophical mind and you want the pieces to all fit together, but it turns out that that makes love the key. We're different enough that we need to be in a loving relation and there's no love without difference. And in fact love exists at all levels of reality, some sense of love down to what gravity does. And mystic merging is not quite right God tells me- you need to live out your lives in relation to, in concert with Me, but it would serve no purpose, karmic or otherwise, for you to get lost in Me like a drop of water in the sea. Which in some traditions is the goal, and I know you were in Siddha Yoga for a time and wouldn't that be one way to state what that Hindu tradition is about?

Dr. Abigail Rosenthal 29:59: I'm just thinking of that time right now and one of the deficiencies of it, one of the things that struck me as less than full-fledged, real in that experience was that I was trying always to see other people as the same as me, that sameness being a divine substance. So it wasn't Abigail and it wasn't whoever, it was the third thing, the divine substance that was the real part of the conversation, but that drained the actual space and time. You know, whatever precipitates conversation. The actual conversation was drained of point, of pith, of heft, of consequence. The actual conversation became inconsequential and I spent some time trying to awkwardly I'm sure some people are much more successful than I was in this effort to merge with the divine. But I would try to go through some of the steps that are recommended in yoga and in this particular system that was in Siddha Yoga, the Vedantic system, and what finally precipitated me out of it was a realization that was not in the rule books, that something, as I perceived it, rather corrupt had happened in that particular branch, in that particular organization. And the mantras that say all is one were inadequate to detect, describe, understand or know what to do about what I was perceiving.

Dr. Abigail Rosenthal 32:34: I was not perceiving it because all is one. I perceived that something has gone awry and it was particular and it was a drama, and I did not think that the all is one mantra would work there- was relevant was applicable. I thought and I'm not so powerful that I can pretend to be godlike and stay in this situation. I better scramble and get out of it. So much for my efforts to literally suppose that all is one to take it as far as I could take it.

Dr. Jerry L. Martin 33:23: Yeah, but you still meditate, right? You meditate each morning.

Dr. Abigail Rosenthal 33:28: Yeah.

Dr. Jerry L. Martin 33:29: So that's fine.

Dr. Abigail Rosenthal 33:30: Mm-hmm yeah.

Dr. Jerry L. Martin 33:32 Okay.

Dr. Abigail Rosenthal 33:34: Yes, I do, and I do Hatha Yoga. You know, it's not that there aren't many, that there aren't substantial gifts to be grateful for from that tradition, but I did not think it covered all bases.

Dr. Jerry L. Martin 33:49: Well it sounds as if, when we’ve talked about this other times that for something like human rights, basic respect for one another, in situations you need some sense of personhood. You know, not just all in one and one in all and we're in a big- put us in a blender and push the button and there we go and it leaves the individual kind of defenseless. You know you've got a guru and there's some question. I know from my Hindu friends there's often the doctrine a guru can't do wrong. But wait a minute, gurus are also people and you do hear reports, even in the sacred literature, and so it's not quite that they can't do any wrong, that they can somehow, you know, wave their hands afterwards.

Dr. Abigail Rosenthal 34:53: There's something missing there. We would chant a chant. I don't know if it's a hymn with music, but we didn't know the music, called the Song of the Guru, the Guru Gita, and one of the verses says that you stand by the guru even if the guru falls. So in that particular hymn it's acknowledged that the guru can fall, and, well, that's not good advice. You know, if the guru can fall, you can fall with him or her.

Dr. Abigail Rosenthal 35:33: The people I know who have attached themselves to a guru have told me in at least two cases and my own would be a third that the guru was involved in some hanky-panky of a sexual nature. And when the guru was male, the devotees included girls whose virginity or whatever it was was not restored magically, or, to put it more accurately, whose innocence and naivete was not restored magically, because naivete isn't like that, it isn't magically restored. If something happens that disillusions one, one has to think about that. What kind of sense can you make of that? In life that happens. So I did come back to, though not without having benefited from this experience, what historians call the religion of Israel, a sense that we can't escape our historical situations and that trying can involve a fair amount of bad faith. Trying is tricky.

Dr. Jerry L. Martin 37:11: Yeah, and so it sounds as if, going through life, whatever the attractions and even the element of truth in a given spiritual orientation or might be political ideology or some other philosophy, whatever its attractions, whatever its degree of truth, you got to keep your wits about you. And it's almost like you got, another Eastern practice is martial arts, and so you need some bit of making sure you've got your feet on the ground, your balance, you know, aren't throwing yourself forward into something where you haven't really seen what that can lead to.

Dr. Abigail Rosenthal 37:55: Yeah, and there are dangers, there are powers in the meditative practice. I recall a colleague of mine whom I greatly respected. He had a yoga teacher and he said about that yoga teacher, the so-and-so I'm not quoting literally has reached the lower stages of samadhi, which is bliss if you get to the higher stages. And sometime, not too long after that, I met the so-and-so and I could feel that there was a power radiating from him. He certainly had reached the lower stages of something, but I didn't want to be around him. 

Dr. Abigail Rosenthal 38:45: That's not a good guy and he won't make a good use of these powers. Just watch it, Abigail, in fact, sorry got to go now. Have a good time in Samadhi.

Dr. Jerry L. Martin 39:00: Yeah, and there again, you've got to pay attention. You know your body is part of what's telling you this, but you've got to pay attention to yourself and what your total self is telling you, and I know you have told me that some kind of instruction about how women should cope with situations.

Dr. Abigail Rosenthal 39:17: My martial arts teacher at the 92nd Street Y told me that and said when somebody is prepared to be aggressive, they're giving off a certain odor and you're picking it up subliminally and pay attention to that If you don't want to get on, you might be smelling something that you're not aware of. So, and you know, life is like that. I don't know if one's intuitions are more infallible than one's understandings on a more verbal level, but they're part of the mix and they should be respected. You know, even if my intuition is wrong, there's a question: Well, why am I having that intuition? Is it something about me or is it something that I'm perceiving? So? But life- there doesn't seem to be a formula for getting through life. It seems to be a subtle, complex, many-layered project.

Dr. Jerry L. Martin 40:30: Well, that's a wonderful conclusion right there, sweetheart, and thank you for being on this Life Wisdom episode with me. It's a very rich episode and I think we had a great discussion. 

Dr. Abigail Rosenthal: Okay, Jerry, I agree. Bye for now. 

Scott Langdon 40:58: Thank you for listening to God: An Autobiography, The Podcast. Subscribe for free today wherever you listen to your podcasts and hear a new episode every week. You can hear the complete dramatic adaptation of God: An Autobiography, As Told To A Philosopher by Jerry L. Martin by beginning with episode one of our podcast and listening through its conclusion with Episode 44. You can read the original true story in the book from which this podcast is adapted, God: An Autobiography, As Told to a Philosopher, available now at amazon.com, and always at godanautobiography.com. Pick up your own copy today. If you have any questions about this or any other episode, please email us at questions@godanautobiography.com, and experience the world from God's perspective as it was told to a philosopher. This is Scott Langdon. I'll see you next time.