Form, Formlessness, Nothingness
Love God as God is a not-God, a not-mind, a not-person, a not-image.
- Meister Eckhart
There was something formless and perfect
before the universe was born.
It is serene. Empty.
Solitary. Unchanging.
Infinite. Eternally present.
It is the mother of the universe.
For lack of a better name,
I call it the Tao.
It flows through all things,
inside and outside, and returns
to the origin of all things.
When you have names and forms,
know that they are provisional.
When you have institutions,
know where their functions should end.
Knowing when to stop,
you can avoid any danger.
Look, and it can't be seen.
Listen, and it can't be heard.
Reach, and it can't be grasped. . . .
Seamless, unnamable,
it returns to the realm of nothing.
Form that includes all forms,
image without an image,
subtle, beyond all conception.
- Tao Te Ching
A scholar comments: God is one, his glory multiplying in many forms. The Vedas teach that there are two forms of Brahman: the embodied and the bodiless, the mortal and the immortal, the stable and the moving, the tangible and the intangible. A tension is acknowledged between the God of forms and the God beyond forms. The problem of the relationship between the unconditioned Brahman and the phenomenal universe can never be completely solved.
- Matthew Fox
[Divinity] is nameless, for no one can know or articulate anything about God. . . . God is a being beyond being, a nothingness beyond being who consists of a changeless existence and a nameless nothingness.
God is nothing. It is not, however, as if he were without being. He is rather neither this nor that thing that we might express, He is a being above all being. He is a beingless being. . . . God is nothingness, and yet God is something.
The mystery of the darkness of the eternal Godhead is unknown and never was known and never will be known. God dwells therein, unknown to himself/herself.
The naked God is without a name
and is the denial of all names
and has never been given a name
and so remains a truly hidden God.
Be silent and quit flapping your gums about God. . . . the most beautiful thing which a person can say about God would be for that person to remain silent from the wisdom of an inner wealth.
- Meister Eckhart
Through creatures God is both hidden from us and made manifest to us.
Every name imposed by us onto God falls short of God. . . God is inaccessible light, surpassing every light that can be seen by us either through sense or through intellect.
Concerning God all things can be affirmed and denied. Yet the Divine One is above all affirmations and denial, for God is beyond our entire intellect, which composes affirmations and denials.
The cause at which we wonder is hidden from us.
We are united to God as to one Unknown. . . . God alone knows the depths and riches of the Godhead, and divine wisdom alone can declare its secrets. The mind's greatest achievement is to realize that God is fat beyond anything we think. This is the ultimate in human knowledge: to know that we do not know God. . . . By its immensity the divine essence transcends every form attained by human intellect.
Divinity is incomprehensible. It can be neither embraced nor designated by a name.
God is said to be non-being (non-existens) not because God is lacking in being but because God is beyond all beings.
- St. Thomas Aquinas
We have to rid ourselves of all notions of God in order for God to be there. The Holy Spirit, the energy of God in us, is the true door. We know that Holy Spirit as an energy and not as notions and words.
It is impossible to use our concepts and words to describe God. . . . It's very wise not to say anything about God. To me the best theologian is the one who never speaks about God.
In the phenomenal worlds, we see that there is birth and death. There is coming and going, being and non-being. But in nirvana, which is the ground of being equivalent to God, there is no birth, no death, no coming, no going, no being, no non-being. All these concepts are transcended.
- Thich Nhat Hanh
The difference between theism and nontheism is not whether one does or does not believe in God. It is an issue that applies to everyone, including both Buddhists and non-Buddhists. Theism is a deep-seated conviction that there's some hand to hold: if we just do the right thing, someone will appreciate us and take care of us. It means thinking there's always going to be a baby-sitter available when we need one.
We all are inclined to abdicate responsibilities and delegate our authority to something outside ourselves. Nontheism is relaxing with the ambiguity and uncertainty of the present moment without reaching for anything to protect ourselves.
- Pema Chodron, North American Buddhist nun
I stress to people I teach that any image, any title, any conception we have about God is necessarily limited. God is infinite, Divine - we are mortal, human. God is perfection; we are imperfect. Any conception we have of God will be partial, incomplete - we will only be able to grasp the full wonder and beauty of God when we stand in awe of the Name at the moment we surpass death.
If we could take every image and notion about God and put them together, still we would not have a complete image of God.
That knowledge, I hope, will lead us to humility about our conception of God, and a respect for those who see God differently than we do.
Blessings & Peace,
Hugo
