The supreme being…the one and the all

Philosophers, theologians, thinkers and the advocates of organised religion have, throughout the ages, tried to beat down the concept of the supreme being and creation into simple ideas, even mythologies, that could be explained to and believed by the common man. The grappling with the idea of a supreme being behind the mechanics of all manifested form, has been a challenge and pursuit of many throughout recorded history.

The idea that the supreme being is one and the source of all, is the fundamental precept of all theists. Hermeticism, that is based on the Corpus Hermetica, ascribed to Greek compilators around the second and third centuries BCE, but previously attributed to the Egyptian God Thoth (the God of Wisdom) at least around 3000 BCE, promulgated God or Atum as the supreme mind that thinks up everything, and consecutively, gives it form. He is the one that unites all opposites and therefore contains all opposites.

The Hermetica states: “Atum is the Primal Mind…/ He is hidden/ yet obvious everywhere…/ He is bodiless/ yet embodied in everything…/He is the unity of all things.

He is the root and source of all/ Everything has a source/ except the source itself/ which springs from nothing./”

The contrariness and the unity of all are well-discussed in the Hindu Upanisads, metaphysical treatises written by various thinkers from around the 6th century BC. In the Sandilya section of the Chandogya Upanisad, it s stated that: “Verily, this whole world is Brahma…He who consists of mind, whose body is life, whose form is light, whose conception is truth, whose soul is space, containing all works, containing all desires, containing all odors, containing all tastes, encompassing the whole world…smaller than a grain of rice…greater than the sky, greater than these worlds.”

The Katha Upanisad states “Sitting he proceeds afar,/ Lying ,he goes everywhere.” The contrariness is also expressed in the Mundaka Upanisad as: “What that is, know as Being and Non-being.”

Hermeticism contains a basic dualism wherein, it differentiates the Mind of God from the Mind of the Cosmos: “The Primal Mind/ which is Life and Light/ gave birth to the Mind of the Cosmos/ The Primal Mind is ever unmoving, eternal and changeless/ containing within it this Cosmic MInd/ which is imperceptible to the senses./ The Cosmos which sense perceives/ is a copy and image/ of this eternal Cosmic Mind/ like a reflection in a mirror./”

Hinduism expresses the idea that the supreme being is without his creation and within his creation. In the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna states that Brahman is both immanent and transcendent of the universe and its limitations. The Nirguna Brahman refers to the concept that Brahman is beyond time and space. In the Isa Upanisad, it is stated: “It moves. It moves not./ It is far, and it is near. / It is within all this,/ And it is outside of all this.”

I perceive it as the Supreme being is a point within a circle. The point of singularity that in a burst of energy gave rise to the entire area of the circle. And from which point the energy flows in every direction. Like concentric waves flowing out ceaselessly, wave after wave, moment after moment, encompassing all time and space, from the minutest to the infinite.

The Vishnu Purana, which is a medieval Hindu Text, states that :”The energies of the Supreme are spread throughout the Universe.” In Hinduism, Brahman is omnipresent throughout the universe and all living beings carry a part of that Brahman within them.

The Katha Upanisad describes Brahamn as: “that which is awake in us even while we sleep, shaping in dreams the objects of our desire – that is indeed pure, that is indeed Brahman and that verily is called the immortal. All the worlds have their being in that and no one can transcend it. That is the self.”

It is the supreme being’s objective that his creatures come to realisation of himself – that part of him that is within them. It takes the individual will to bring this into fruition. Because the supreme being gave his individual creatures the will to pursue the option of a union with him or to simply fall away. Hermeticism expresses the optimism that eventually there will be union with God alongside the pessimism that there will be consequences of the fall.

Hinduism explains it in the cyclical nature of rebirth and reincarnation. The Chandogya Upanisad blames Karma as the cause for reincarnation. The Kaushitaki Upanisad explores the conclusion of the cycle of reincarnation. Whether the human soul can be rid of it. The Katha Upanisad aptly describes the human being as a chariot. The soul is the master of the chariot, which is the body. Intuition is the chariot-driver. The mind the reins. The senses and instincts, the horses. The object of the senses, the paths. The objective being to manouevre the chariot in a manner as to achieve freedom from reincarnation.

Those who tread the materialistic and unspiritual path never achieve self-realisation and get back into the cycle of reincarnation. The wise and disciplined manifest the ultimate objective of freedom from the cycle of rebirth.