By Any Other Name?

What's in a name? that which we call a rose by any other name will smell as sweet.
Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet; Act II, Scene II

Before I begin explaining what resonates with me in Andersen's book, more specifically in terms of how to understand the lives we are living...I want to clear up something that may easily be misconstrued.

I do realize that even the mention of this book and its philosphies is going to make many of us who were raised under the doctrine of traditional western religion...very uneasy.  I,still under the influence of some strong coditioning, squirm a bit as I attempt to explain Andersen's teachings.  For that reason, I am even more determined to understand why the teachings are uneasy and instead of turning my back to them out of "fear" I want to look even deeper. 

God is the Greatest.

Yesterday , or the day previously, I wrote that the USC was subordinate to the conscious mind.  I, by no means, meant to say that God wasn't the greatest , most almighty force in the universe.  I believe God to be so.  Andersen, I think, believed that as well.  If the USC is the Mind of God...it is the most powerful thing there is and ever will be.

I can just hear the "Oh My, how can you say that??? We are talking abour "God"!! How can you reduce "Him"  to a part of the human mind?  How can you say God is inside us ? Blaspehemy!  Blaspehmy! Blaspehmy!!!"

Using Different Words is Not Blaspehmous

I asked you in the last entry not to get too hung up on concepts, labels or words.

Sometimes, I fear that we revere the name of something more so than we revere or take the time to understand what the name is pointing to.  All a name does is point to or label something, right?  When we do this...we reduce the something that  is named into a concept, an idea. We reduce the essence of it into words and symbols the conscious mind can make sense of of. What is pointed to, named or labelled is usually so much greater than the name.

"God" is a name,  a label...we have given to this Almighty Everything, right? In other philsophies God is "That which cannot be named".  Even in the Bible God refers to Himself as "I Am That I Am." So in Andersen's claim that God is the USC that is in all of us. ...we just used a different name, a diffrent pointer, a different concept  to describe something that is really "Too Great' to be put into words; that is much greater than any concept or term or name could ever explain.  We just used a different pointer to point to the same thing.

Subordinate? 

Then to say this Great Thing That Really Cannot Be Named is subordinate to our limited human minds...can certainly seem like a "blasphemous " and untrue statement to make.  We are, afterall, by no means  greater than God. (I use the term God and I still attach to that pointer, an image of a loving father.  Even though when I really examine this "idea" I see how limted it in its ability to explain what God is. Still I use it. )

Anway...if God is the Greatest  power, how can God be subordinate to our minds?  Using my conceptual way of understanding God...we can say that the USC/God is subordinate only in the way a loving father is subordinate to his child's needs and wishes.  The conscious mind, our human form is the child created by the Father.  We desire something and if we have faith in it...it is placed in the USC/ The Mind of God...and God, loving His child, provides.  "Ask and you shall receive". 

Does that make it any easier to digest?

I hope so. We really cannot get hung up on terms..and need to seek the essence behind the name...the essence of what the name points to.

All is well in my world.


Andersen, Uell S.. Three Magic Words . BN Publishing. Kindle Edition.