Imagine God
What happens?
The New Mindscape #A3–5
When you see the image of thousands of baby chicks, innocently chirping faint cries of distress, calling for their mother as they are shunted on the machine to their death, your heart jumps for them. Your heart can’t stop gasping in a cry of pain and compassion.
You don’t feel Sartre’s nausea at the intrinsic meaninglessness of the chicks. You want to cry because it seems like humans have made the chicks’ lives meaningless!
Humans have a unique capacity: we can empathize with others, we can feel for others — not only for other humans but even for baby chicks!
We can put ourselves in their shoes, imagine ourselves being them, and feel for them.
The pain and suffering of others becomes your own pain, and the joy of others becomes your own joy. Even though they are physically separate from you, they enter your imagination. They enter your mindscape — in a sense, they become part of you. So you can feel their feelings. A relationship arises between you and them. You imagine them as you and you as them. You imagine yourself on the conveyor belt, and you see the world from their perspective, and you cry for them.
When you do that, your spirit begins to break out of the boundaries of your own body and ego.
Let’s imagine you have a friend, Amanda. When you think of your friend Amanda, Amanda comes into your mindscape. When you see her suffering or when you think of her suffering, you feel some suffering too.
When Amanda stands in your mindscape, when she speaks to you, at that moment you take her position and look at yourself from where she stands. You see yourself from Amanda’s perspective. You may do things to please her, or to avoid angering her. The Amanda you are pleasing may be the Amanda in your mindscape, not the Amanda in her material body, who may be far away, and maybe doesn’t know what you’re thinking or doing, and maybe doesn’t care.
The more you got to know Amanda, the more she stood in your mindscape, the more you could see the world from her perspective, and to see yourself from her perspective.
Your spirit can break out of the bounds of your own self, and look at you from beyond yourself, from the perspective of another person.
We can even imagine beings and dimensions without a material existence and try to see the world from those perspectives, and live as if those beings and dimensions exist. And we can imagine ourselves projected in the future, in an ideal state, and strive to become that ideal projection. Humans are capable, in their mindscape, of projecting themselves into the perspective of other persons and beings, be they real or imaginary. It is partly out of this capacity that human spiritual life grows. We do not always use this capacity, and we are perfectly capable of living only from the perspective of our own bodily comfort, security and material reproduction. But an unexpected experience, an insight, the sight of the cry of suffering or injustice, or of moving self-sacrifice, may jolt us into spiritual questions and reflections.
Think of a person you’ve never met, who is not alive. If you plunge into the writings and stories of Confucius, Confucius will come into your mind, and his scenes and words will fill your mindscape. You’ll start seeing the world from the perspective of Confucius — and you’ll start seeing yourself from his perspective, as if he were talking to you. Or the same if you read and reread Plato’s stories about Socrates, and the words of Socrates, and the scenes of his dialogues fill your mind.
Socrates and Confucius had greater wisdom, knowledge and understanding than you. The more you relate to them in your mindscape, the more you look at yourself and the world from their perspective, the more you will acquire their wisdom, knowledge and understanding.
Socrates and Confucius saw the world from a higher perspective than almost anyone else. They saw beyond their own petty needs and desires. They saw beyond the needs and perspective of Athens or of the kingdom of Qi. They saw the world from the vantage point of all of humanity, and from the high development of the human body, mind and spirit.
When you let Confucius and Socrates talk to you through their words, stories and writings, you also see the world from the perspective of all of humanity, and from the perspective of highly developed human capacities.
Thus, through relationships with the objects of consciousness in our mindscape, your spirit can expand to ever greater horizons and capacities.
Is there any limit to this potential expansion of the spirit?
Consider the concept of an Omnipotent and Omniscient God.
A God who is all-powerful and all-knowing.
A God who is infinitely loving, merciful and compassionate.
Can you imagine such a God?
No. It’s impossible.
But still, try to imagine such a God:
“All-powerful” means more powerful than the most powerful thing that exists in the world.
“All-knowing” means more knowledgeable than the most knowledgeable mind that exists in the world.
“Infinitely loving” means more loving than the most loving person who exists in the world.
Now, stop getting into a mental debate about whether or not such a God “exists”.
Imagine such a God in your mindscape.
Imagine having a relationship with such a God.
You see the world from the perspective of such a God.
And you see yourself from that perspective.
And you act to be in a loving relationship with such a God.
At one level that’s impossible. You can never imagine such a God, you can never imagine such power, knowledge and love. You can never truly imagine such a relationship. It is beyond human imagination or comprehension.
Such a God can only be invoked in prayer.
As written in one prayer,
In the name of God, the Most High! Lauded and glorified art Thou, Lord, God Omnipotent!
Thou before Whose wisdom the wise fall short and fail,
before Whose might the learned confesses his ignorance,
before Whose might the strong waxes weak,
before Whose wealth the rich testifies to his poverty,
before Whose light the enlightened is lost in darkness,
toward the shrine of Whose knowledge turns the essence of all understanding
and around the sanctuary of Whose presence circle the souls of all mankind…
All kings are but Thy servants and all beings, visible and invisible, as naught before Thee.
There is none other God but Thee, the Gracious, the Powerful, the Most High.
The prayer, by bringing such a God into your mindscape, draws your imagination farther than anything it has ever previously imagined.
You strive to go beyond anything that you have ever imagined before. You empower an object of consciousness that embodies all perfections.
And in doing so, you expand your horizon farther than you have ever been before. You see the world, and yourself, from the highest vantage point that you could possibly imagine. And each time your spirit goes to that vantage point, it realizes that higher up, there are always infinitely more stars, galaxies and universes.
And by doing that, you see and empower your whole life in a different way.
Let me say a bit more about prayer. I pray as a Baha’i, so I will talk about the type of prayer that I know the best, Baha’i prayer. People from different religions might agree that some aspects of these prayers are the same in their religions, and other aspects are different.
There are many different ways of praying. Some people pray using their own words while other people go to churches or temples to pray. Burning incense is also a kind of prayer. There are many ways of praying, but from the Baha’i perspective, what matters is in your heart.
Nevertheless, the Baha’i Faith has many different prayers that are written for us to read or recite. Here I will share with you one prayer that can help us to understand the idea of the mindscape and visualization. This prayer says,
“O God! We are as plants, and Thy bounty is as the rain; refresh and cause these plants to grow through Thy bestowal. We are Thy servants; free us from the fetters of material existence. We are ignorant; make us wise. We are dead; make us alive. We are material; endow us with spirit. We are deprived; make us the intimates of Thy mysteries. We are needy; enrich and bless us from Thy boundless treasury. O God! Resuscitate us; give us sight; give us hearing; familiarize us with the mysteries of life, so that the secrets of Thy kingdom may become revealed to us in this world of existence and we may confess Thy oneness. Every bestowal emanates from Thee; every benediction is Thine.”
When I say this prayer, many images come into my mind. For example, “We are as plants, and Thy bounty is as the rain; refresh and cause these plants to grow through Thy bestowal.” When I say that prayer, I visualize us as growing plants. The prayer places in my mind the idea that I am a growing plant thirsty for something greater than me. It puts me into the desire to accept something great, which is the rain coming onto me. It already feels good just to be in that state in the mindscape — the rain is coming down on to me, and I am being refreshed and starting to grow. So, the prayer is actually a visualization — an active imagination. If you get into the words, the words affect, modify, or create a beautiful mindscape.
“We are ignorant; make us wise.” This sentence of the prayer reminds me of something else. I am a professor, so according to society, I know a lot more than most people. I have a PhD, I have published articles and books, and so on. But this prayer reminds me that I am ignorant, meaning that all the knowledge I have is still almost nothing — there is still so much more that I could learn. I could have become a professor in the best university in the world, but still I am ignorant and have so much to learn. Thus, the prayer gives me humility.
Now the question is, is this merely an imagination? Or is it something coming from outside of me? I said that I feel good when I when I imagine the rain coming down on me, but the prayer did not come from me. If I were to make up my own imaginations, maybe I could not imagine such beautiful things — it is the prayer that gives me these beautiful imaginations. The prayer did not come from me but from outside of me, from Baha’u’llah who revealed these prayers. The prayer helped shape a mindscape that I could not imagine at all by myself. The prayer guides me in constructing my mindscape.
Here is another prayer:
Say: O my God! O Thou Who art the Maker of the heavens and of the earth, O Lord of the Kingdom! Thou well knowest the secrets of my heart, while Thy Being is inscrutable to all save Thyself. Thou seest whatsoever is of me, while no one else can do this save Thee. Vouchsafe unto me, through Thy grace, what will enable me to dispense with all except Thee, and destine for me that which will make me independent of everyone else besides Thee. Grant that I may reap the benefit of my life in this world and in the next. Open to my face the portals of Thy grace, and graciously confer upon me Thy tender mercy and bestowals.
This is a prayer that leads my mind to face God, who knows “the secrets of my heart,” for whom “Thy Being is inscrutable to all save Thyself.” This means that God knows everything in my heart, and nobody else can know anything about God. So, this prayer puts into my mindscape a situation where I am standing transparent, with nothing to hide: even all the bad things, all the things that I want to hide from the world, everything that I do not want you to know. I can just open my heart wide to God.
At first, that might feel scary because there are a lot of things inside me that I don’t want anybody, even God, to know. But no, He still knows. So, given that He knows, I consciously open up. Now I can see all the bad things inside me, then I hand them up to God. He knows it, and I do not try to hide. This is a great way for me to face myself honestly.
Then the prayer says, “God is inscrutable,” meaning that I cannot know what is going on in God’s mind. It is telling me that all of this, this whole mindscape, is an imagination. God is beyond my understanding, and I can only imagine myself facing God.
This prayer came from a prayer book by Baha’u’llah, and I did not invent this imagination: it came from outside of me. It puts my mind in the situation of facing God, who is beyond my understanding. This has had a great effect on me. One thing that I found is that it allowed me to open myself, to face myself, and to accept myself, to become a better person.
The prayer says, “destine for me that which will make me independent of everyone else besides Thee”. I understand this to mean that I will no longer be spiritually or emotionally dependent on others, to be dependent on transient and unstable things in the world. The prayer orients my desire and motivation, to avoid being dependent on these things; to depend only on the divine power of God. The result, after habitually praying and reflecting on this, is a sense of great power and confidence. I can face problems and challenges in life with greater peace of mind and equanimity. I can do good for others, not because I crave their praise, but because it’s the right thing to do.
The prayer states, “open to my face the portals of Thy grace”. This orients my motivation to receive my gifts from God. Everything I have is a gift God has given me, and I accept it with humility and gratitude. I am happy and grateful for everything that I have. God has given me all these capacities and abilities, so to receive this gift I have to use these capacities and develop them to the fullest. That is the best way for me to receive this gift.
Then should I just become passive and do nothing, by relying on God? No, because I received this gift and the best way to receive the gift is to use it. I have to develop these capacities. So, I should not be passive in life.
On the contrary. I should watch out for my ego. By striving hard to develop my capacities, I become successful, win awards, and enjoy the sorts of success that could help inflate my ego. It might lead me to think I am so great. I see the ego coming up in my mindscape when somebody praises me, saying “you are so great!” At that moment, I see that pride rising in my mindscape.
But no, it is not me who deserves this praise: I just got it all from God, and I am grateful. As the prayer says, I am ignorant, I do not know anything. How to receive the gift is to develop my capacities. Now that I have received the gift from God, how can I return the gift? Actually, God does not need my gift: what He wants is for us to serve humanity. How can I use my capacity to serve humanity? Starting close to me with my family, my friends, people I work with, and my community. This is how I can use the capacities God has given me, to give back to other people and to humanity.
What I have said here is merely some of my understanding of prayer. There are many different ways of praying, interpreting prayer, and acting as a result of prayer. Other people might have different things to say. In relation to the topic of these essays, prayer is a way of cultivating one’s mindscape. It is a way of nurturing your relationship with yourself, through nurturing your relationship with God.
What does it mean to have a committed relationship with God? See the essay How faith transforms negative into positive. And is commitment necessary?
Gods and spirits are a special kind of object of consciousness. Read the essay Non-human and para-human persons: We’ll call them metapersons.
Are these “metapersons” real, or only products of our imagination? See the essay Are metapersons real? Or are they a useful fiction?
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This essay and the New Mindscape Medium series are brought to you by the University of Hong Kong’s Common Core Curriculum Course CCHU9014 Spirituality, Religion and Social Change, with the support of the Asian Religious Connections research cluster of the Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences.
