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- Title
From Temporal to Trans-Temporal Consciousness: A Study in Pancychism with reference to Beckett's Waiting for Godot, The Book of Job and Param Guru Huzur Maharaj's Nij Updesh as a Response to Darrel W. Ray's The God Virus: How Religion Infects Our Lives and Culture
- Authors
Jandial, Gur Pyari
- Abstract
Panpsychism declares that all matter in the entire universe from the largest planet to the smallest particle or wave is to some degree sentient or conscious. In other words, the substance of the universe is composed entirely of Mind or Consciousness. In the post-WW II world in which Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot emerged, questions concerning the meaning of human existence were frequently asked. The play focuses on the individual's basic circumstances rather than the ideological make-up of his social identity. It explores the fundamental experience of what it is like to be conscious of our existence. The arbitrary nature of divine justice and human suffering also lies at the core of one of the seminal works of ancient literature, The Book of Job. The book raises many questions but apparently gives no answers. According to ancient Indian philosophy, the law of Karma, like time and gravity operates as a self-sustaining mechanism or a natural universal law, without any need of an external entity to manage it. The world is governed by the forces of nature which have their own rules. These are fixed and unbendable. Deeply infiluenced by Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion, and Daniel Dennet's Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon, Darrel W. Ray in his book, The God Virus: How Religion Infects Our Lives and Culture, (2009) attributes the troubles of the world - fundamentalism and other forms of intolerance, violence and suffering--to the God virus. The Chandogya Upanishad expresses one of the most profound doctrines of Vedanta--'Tat Tvam Asi' or 'Thou Art That'. This means that every individual Self in its original, primordial state is wholly or partially identifiable with the essence which gives consciousness to all phenomena. Param Guru Huzur Maharaj was pleased to compose a number of Holy books on the Radhasoami Faith. His discourses and prose writings are collected in Prem Patra, published in six parts and in smaller books of which Nij Updesh is one. The Nij Updesh clearly describes the true nature of spiritual consciousness and how it is distinct from the mind. If we look for evidence of a transcendent figure residing in another world watching indifferently over the sufferings of this universe then perhaps god is a delusion. But god is to be identified with an Infinite source of Prime energy. The uncertainty in Waiting for Godot and the arbitrariness of man's fate in the Book of Job then resolve into a better understanding of a world governed by natural law and a prime spiritual Energy that manifests itself in every object.
- Subjects
PANPSYCHISM; CONSCIOUSNESS; DAWKINS, Richard, 1941-; RELIGIOUS fundamentalism; LIBERTY of conscience
- Publication
Consciousness, Literature & the Arts, 2018, Vol 19, Issue 1, p1
- ISSN
1470-5648
- Publication type
Article