The Hypothesis of God

[RonSouther]

Patanjali remains the only person yet, and perhaps may remain the only person, who has created a whole science alone, and has remained for five thousand years without any challenge from any corner. He calls it the turiya, the fourth. He is so scientific a man that one simply feels amazed.

Five thousand years ago, he had the courage, the insight, the awareness, to say that God is only a hypothesis. It can help you to become awakened but it is not a reality, it is only a device. There is no God to be achieved; it is only a hypothesis.

A few people can be helped by hypotheses -- they can use it -- but remember, it is not a reality. And once you have become awakened, it disappears, the same way as when you wake up your dreams disappear. They were so real that sometimes it happens that even after you have awakened there is some effect left of the reality of the dream: your heart is beating faster, you are perspiring, trembling, still afraid. Now you know perfectly it was a dream, but you are still crying, your tears are there. The dream was non-existential, but it has affected you because for that period you had taken it to be real.

So it is possible. You can see the devotees crying before their god, emotionally very much affected, dancing, singing, worshipping, and feeling the truth of it, but it is just a hypothesis. There is nothing, no God, but these people are taking the hypothesis as a reality. One day when they will be awake, they will laugh at themselves, that it was only a hypothesis.

But there are other masters who have given different names according to their own philosophical background. A few have called it enlightenment: becoming full of light -- all darkness disappears, all unconsciousness disappears -- becoming fully conscious.

There are others who have called it liberation, freedom -- freedom from yourself, remember. All other freedoms are political, social. They are freedom from somebody, from some government, from some country, from some political party; but it is always freedom FROM...

Religious freedom is freedom not from somebody else, but from yourself (me....which means freedom from human will)

You are no more. (Human will is gone...now u r just ur natural loving and creative self with a body to take care of. And we can find loving and creative ways to take care of our bodies)

Because you are no more, a few masters in the East have called it anatta -- no-selfness. Buddha called it nirvana -- which is very close to anatta, no-selfness, or selflessness -- just a zero, a profound nothingness surrounding you. But it is not emptiness, it is fullness: fullness of being, of ultimate joy, fullness of being blessed, fullness of gracefulness. All that you have known before is no more there; hence is it empty of all that. But something new, absolutely new you had not even dreamt about, is discovered.

Some have called it universal existence, but what name you give does not matter. I think the fourth still remains the best, because it does not lead you into mind trips; otherwise you are going to think about it, "What is emptiness? What is nothingness?" And nothingness can create a fear, emptiness can create a fear, anatta, no-selfness, can create a fear. The fourth is absolutely right.

Three stages you know; the fourth is just a little deeper. It is not far away. The idea of being lives away from it is a dream. In reality it is just by the side... wake up and you are it.

From "Beyond Psychology" by Osho

[seeds]

Originally Posted by RonSouther

Patanjali remains the only person yet, and perhaps may remain the only person, who has created a whole science alone, and has remained for five thousand years without any challenge from any corner. He calls it the turiya, the fourth. He is so scientific a man that one simply feels amazed.

Five thousand years ago, he had the courage, the insight, the awareness, to say that God is only a hypothesis. It can help you to become awakened but it is not a reality, it is only a device. There is no God to be achieved; it is only a hypothesis.

A few people can be helped by hypotheses -- they can use it -- but remember, it is not a reality.

Hi Ron,

I have appreciated your incisive and intelligent posts, and have shared in your frustration in dealing with certain members of the forum.

However, Patanjali (and Osho) stating that God...

Originally Posted by RonSouther

"...is not a reality..."

...is, itself, pure hypothesis.

Originally Posted by RonSouther

And once you have become awakened, it...

(a belief in God)

Originally Posted by RonSouther

...disappears, the same way as when you wake up your dreams disappear.

(IMO) what disappears is the "nonsensical images" of God that humans have conjured-up.

It doesn't mean that "God" or a "Creative Intelligence" presiding over the universe, does not exist.

Indeed, one does seem to "wake up" from those beliefs as if from a "dream."

However, it does not mean that the "awakened one" has awakened "fully."

You merely become a little more "lucid" within the dream compared to other "somnambulants."

I believe that a "full-awakening" from the "dream of the universe" will only occur when we exit our bodies through "physical" death.


seeds

[inri]

seeds

as usual...so very well said.

Indeed, so long as we remain within the dream (physically alive) we cannot know with certainty that what we deem to be an 'awakening' is anything other than moving into another level of experience and perception within the dream itself.

[RonSouther]

Originally Posted by seeds

Hi Ron,

I have appreciated your incisive and intelligent posts, and have shared in your frustration in dealing with certain members of the forum.

However, Patanjali (and Osho) stating that God...

...is, itself, pure hypothesis.

(a belief in God)

(IMO) what disappears is the "nonsensical images" of God that humans have conjured-up.
It doesn't mean that "God" or a "Creative Intelligence" presiding over the universe, does not exist.

Indeed, one does seem to "wake up" from those beliefs as if from a "dream."

However, it does not mean that the "awakened one" has awakened "fully."

You merely become a little more "lucid" within the dream compared to other "somnambulants."

I believe that a "full-awakening" from the "dream of the universe" will only occur when we exit our bodies through "physical" death.

seeds

I agree with what you're pointing out. The hypothesis is man's projection of God, not whether a presence of "godliness" exists or not. The hypothesis essentially is a useful concept of God until a deeper understanding can be realized.

That's as opposed to religions that create a dogma around a hypothesis, expanding it into an illusion that must be "fixed" in place otherwise the religion will disappear when the hypothesis disappears. The vested interests in the religions can't allow that so the dogmas are rigid, doubt is forbidden, and the only people in large quantities that will believe these dogmas from the start are the children.

These dogmas had more power with a less intelligent society but what adult would believe this stuff now if he hadn't been conditioned to believe it from childhood?

That's one of the dreams I woke up from. I was never deeply religious but the idea of heaven and hell and God kept me in some bondage until I woke up from it. It took Osho's perspective to seal the deal.

This comparison of a hypothetical belief vs a dogmatic belief is really rich. The hypothetical belief comes from your own quest in life , seeking truth. The dogmatic belief is one given to you from someone else, its borrowed. Those are worthless and poisonous to our intelligence.

[Maguru]

Originally Posted by inri

as usual...so very well said.

Indeed, so long as we remain within the dream (physically alive) we cannot know with certainty that what we deem to be an 'awakening' is anything other than moving into another level of experience and perception within the dream itself.

Hi Inri, hope you are well. I wondered why you use 'dream' instead of life?

[chadcharlie]

Originally Posted by RonSouther

I agree with what you're pointing out. The hypothesis is man's projection of God, not whether a presence of "godliness" exists or not. The hypothesis essentially is a useful concept of God until a deeper understanding can be realized.

That's as opposed to religions that create a dogma around a hypothesis, expanding it into an illusion that must be "fixed" in place otherwise the religion will disappear when the hypothesis disappears. The vested interests in the religions can't allow that so the dogmas are rigid, doubt is forbidden, and the only people in large quantities that will believe these dogmas from the start are the children.

These dogmas had more power with a less intelligent society but what adult would believe this stuff now if he hadn't been conditioned to believe it from childhood?

That's one of the dreams I woke up from. I was never deeply religious but the idea of heaven and hell and God kept me in some bondage until I woke up from it. It took Osho's perspective to seal the deal.

This comparison of a hypothetical belief vs a dogmatic belief is really rich. The hypothetical belief comes from your own quest in life , seeking truth. The dogmatic belief is one given to you from someone else, its borrowed. Those are worthless and poisonous to our intelligence.

Yes, I agree with your distinction here. It's not to say that God or "no God" is less than a hypothesis, but more to downgrade it from Dogma. I also grow more toward the understanding that "God" in the layman sense of the word, is a device, or a label for an intrinsic understanding that we all share.

[inri]

Originally Posted by Maguru

Hi Inri, hope you are well. I wondered why you use 'dream' instead of life?

Hi Paula!.. I used it in this case in response to Seed's post where he used the word. What I'm getting at here is that IF this physical life is akin to a dream, (where we can awaken to see the 'true' reality) then what seems like 'waking up' is still occurring within it, and therefore, just might be another level of 'the dream.'

[Luciddd]

What I think Patanjali means is that the image man has made for God disappears but it doesnt mean that GOD/Source/Creator an intelligent Creative Force doesnt exist.

I mean look at all the things Patanjali said you can achieve, supposedly by making some cognizions with Samyama you achieve omnipotence and omniscience and even those states are lower than Kaivalya which is the ultimate liberation.

So while I may be wrong (correct me if I am wrong) it doesnt seems Patanjali didnt believed in GOD but in the conception man has of it.

[Maguru]

Originally Posted by inri

Hi Paula!.. I used it in this case in response to Seed's post where he used the word. What I'm getting at here is that IF this physical life is akin to a dream, (where we can awaken to see the 'true' reality) then what seems like 'waking up' is still occurring within it, and therefore, just might be another level of 'the dream.'

Yes, I can see that now and I agree with your perspective. It isn't such a mystery, just moving into another level of experience and perception within life itself.