On Truth gleaning and Window Cleaning

David Kranz, Feb 2016

I flinched a bit when I read through this week’s Lenten Discipline. I’m a nit-picker. As I read, I mentally tick stuff that resonates as true. It looks like this.

‘Humus is the dark organic matter that forms in the soil when plant and animal matter decays✓. It contains many useful nutrients for healthy soil–giving life and renewal✓. Find a patch of dark, rich soil  (yep! Got some up the back!) ✓and consider that humanity comes from the earth✗  (Genesis 3:19). What does it mean for you to be an earthy one?’

I baulked at ✗ , read on quickly, and deemed myself to be, ‘questing’ ‘grounded’, ‘lusty’, ‘fertile’, ‘pragmatic’, and oft-times ‘bawdy’.

Then I recalled the familiar philosophical principle: If any premise in an argument is false the conclusion must therefore be false.

So, what’s wrong with the Genesis premise?

Well, not too much—it’s a fair enough assumption for its time. But we know better now.

Quantum Physicist, Amit Goswami[1], argues, with convincing clarity, that ‘consciousness’ —not ‘matter’ (including ‘earth’) —‘is the ‘ground of all being’.

Of his research, he declares: ‘I knew that we were rediscovering God in science’.

His punch line is: ‘Call it God if you like, but quantum conscious will do’.

So, I ask my nit-picking self, ‘how do I link the ✗  at ‘earth’ and quantum consciousness’.

It goes like this for me.

I see the ‘entity’ that our ancestors first nominated God, as a ‘flawless pane’ through which they actually saw the created manifestations of consciousness, and sensed a connectedness to its wisdom.

And now, I sense that, from then ‘til now, patchy perceptions, diverse interpretations, and the institutionalizing of the ‘mystery’ called God have progressively distorted the ‘vision’. Some have stopped ‘driving’ because their ‘windscreen’ is too smudgy and life’s journey has become a bit too ‘hairy’.

That saddens me.

For me, true questing is linked to the kind of ‘window cleaning’ that best reconciles the differences between ‘faith-based’ beliefs and ‘evidence-based’ beliefs.

The job is done when every window, by whatever name, reveals without distortion that all is one— a oneness cemented by love—a love without condition—a love that therefore cannot judge—a love that warrants no appeasement— a love that beckons us towards itself—a love that illuminates the way—a love that buoys us when we stumble.

I have yet to fully answer, ‘what does it mean to me to grow more conscious of my consciousness?

I hope it means that I’m seeing through a glass ‘less darkly’?

[1] Goswami, Amit, 2012, God is not dead, Hampton Road Publishing, Charlottsville, VA, USA