I've been thinking about thought constructs and how it seems to be human nature to see people as we think they are and not as they actually exist. I would go so far as to say we struggle to really "see" another person, because there is so much projection, reflection, assumptions, and expectations. That line of thought leads me to the many varied concept of gods, deities, or "God" in the almighty sense. Please bare with me on this as I don't throw any of those terms around with intention to offend anyone or their beliefs, but more as an example of the line of thinking I want to share. Why do we seem to personify our gods?
I suppose there are many reasons why we might do this. Perhaps we personify our gods to draw comparisons with ourselves. There's also the idea that religion has pushed the personification of gods into society throughout history for whatever purposes. I find it interesting that if we look at different religions and scriptures we can see many conflicting ideas of exactly what any god is or what it looks like and how it operates. Personally I don't relate to any personification of god or "God" and perhaps that's one of the reasons I spent most of my life identifying as atheist or agnostic in varying degrees.
Saying that, let me also make it clear that I spent plenty of time studying religions throughout my youth. I've written about that in previous posts and I wont go through all of it again here, but I always felt there was wisdom spread throughout different religions. The spiritual truths seem to shine through past any political or societal influence to me. For example, in the Christian bible we can find it written that God is love. Following that line of thought that God is not a person or a tangible "thing" so to speak, let's consider what that may mean.
If God or any other gods are not some grand person or personification, then where do we go from there? I like to consider that fundamental Buddhism isn't about worshiping the Buddha, but about becoming the Buddha. That line of thought can be directly compared to the teaching that we are all created in God's image from Christianity. Taking those concepts at face value, it leads me to the conclusion that we are all God in the Christian sense or that we are all the Buddha. Different religions have different ways of describing what any god is, but somewhere along the way many of us start to worship these personifications and viewing existence as somehow a competition, which leads to spiritual one upping. I just can't see it working like that.
My line of thinking leads me to the concept that we are all one. If we are all created in God's image then we should be able to find God in everyone we meet and everything else. If we can all become the Buddha, then we all already are somewhere inside of us capable of zen. If we can get to a place in our own spirituality to recognize and accept our own beliefs and respect the beliefs of others, is it because we see that same connective force , energy, or God in each other? Perhaps that's where the personification comes from.
If God is love and we can feel that for others, perhaps that also leads to the personification. We project out love and we can feel it reflected back at us, so we can all see the God in each other if we're willing to see it. Perhaps my views and beliefs about what God is and spirituality are very different than yours, but I think the personification of God is a limitation of our own view of reality and understanding. In the grand scheme of things it would make sense to me that God is as much everything as it is nothing. Some things can't really be separated as they exist in correlation to everything else. Just like you don't have a person floating in nothing, I don't think you could have a god without everything else. It's all connected and we are all one. I prefer to think of us as infinite reflections of one source consciousness or endless energetic existence. What do you think? Namaste.