Open Enlightenment

God Does Not Exist: Some Thoughts on Anselm’s Ontological Proof

Obviously, God doesn’t exist. But this is not to be mistaken for a statement of atheism, because consider: if God did exist then, like everything that exists, It would be inside the universe and part of the creation rather than creative.

If God existed It would have characteristics, in which case other things would be comparable with It. Many of the problems of orthodox religion, such as how God can be omnipotent or good, given the presence of evil in the world, are created by naively attributing characteristics or existence to God.

Anselm of Canterbury’s (1033-1109) ontological proof of the existence of God is an example of this error. God, argues Anselm, is by nature perfect, in which case It must possess the characteristic of existence else It would be lacking something (i.e. existence). Thus God, being by nature perfect, therefore must exist [1].

There’s nothing more human than wanting to bring God closer and make It ‘real’, but therein lies the source of Anselm’s error. A human being exists. To remove our existence is to take away all our characteristics. Without existence we cannot be a self, and the self is that which needs to exist. However, self is transcended when our dependence on existence is recognised and we understand how the self (unlike God) subsists only in things as a creation and is not itself creative. In other words, we draw closer to God on realising how the self does not exist.

Anselm Of Canterbury (1033-1109)

Anselm recognised that God is ‘perfect’, dependent on nothing, absolute, but his argument attempts to draw down God rather than encouraging us in the necessity to rise to It. God’s perfection is neither threatened nor completed by the possession of existence, because the instant that something exists it becomes dependent, contingent, relative to all things.

The absolute Itself does not lack or require existence because existence is the producer of lack, the basis of the need in things to assume an appearance of self.

The Australian philosopher Douglas Gasking (1911–1994) devised a parody of Anselm’s argument, which uses similar premises to arrive at the opposite conclusion: the non-existence of God. It goes like this:

1. The creation of the world is the most marvelous achievement imaginable.
2. The merit of an achievement is the product of (a) its intrinsic quality, and (b) the ability of its creator.
3. The greater the disability (or handicap) of the creator, the more impressive the achievement.
4. The most formidable handicap for a creator would be non-existence.
5. Therefore if we suppose that the universe is the product of an existent creator we can conceive a greater being — namely, one who created everything while not existing.
6. Therefore, God does not exist.

Rather than a joke or parody, I consider this a good working description of the nature of the divine.

Note

[1] Here’s a translation of Anselm’s argument in full from chapter two of his Proslogion:

[W]e believe that thou art a being than which nothing greater can be conceived. Or is there no such nature, since the Fool has said in his heart, there is no God? But, at any rate, this very fool, when he hears of this being of which I speak – a being than which nothing greater can be conceived – understands what he hears, and what he understands is in his understanding; although he does not understand it to exist. For it is one thing for an object to be in the understanding, another to understand that the object exists. For when a painter first conceives of what he will afterwards perform, he has it in his understanding be he does not yet understand it to be, because he has not yet performed it. But after he has made the painting, he both has it in his understanding and he understands that it exists, because he has made it. Hence even the fool is convinced that something exists in the understanding, at least, than which nothing greater can be conceived. For when he hears of this, he understands it. And whatever is understood, exists in the understanding. And assuredly, that than which nothing greater can be conceived cannot exist in the understanding alone: then it can be conceived to exist in reality, which is greater. Therefore, if that than which nothing greater can be conceived exists in the understanding alone, the very being than which nothing greater can be conceived is one than which a greater can be conceived. But obviously this is impossible. Therefore, if that than which nothing greater can be conceived exists in the understanding alone, the very being than which nothing greater can be conceived is one than which a greater can be conceived. But obviously this is impossible. Hence there is no doubt that there exists a being than which nothing greater can be conceived, and it exists both in the understanding and in reality.

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The Room

I’m not fond of the word ‘enlightenment’ and would prefer something like Nishida Kitaro‘s expression that is translated as ‘religious consciousness’. This would make it clear that what we’re talking about is not a personal attainment but a way of seeing that beings us into alignment with the Absolute. However, its disadvantage is that ‘religious consciousness’ still sounds like a state of mind. And – of course – it contains the endemically misunderstood word ‘religion’. But its biggest disadvantage of all is that if I talked about ‘religious consciousness’ then people might think, ‘Oh, that’s what he means. I thought for a moment he was talking about enlightenment, but of course that would be ridiculous!’

You have to experience enlightenment to know what it means. Someone who says that enlightenment is ‘boundless compassion’ probably hasn’t experienced it, although they may have experienced boundless compassion. Someone who says enlightenment is ‘a perfectly still and tranquil mind’ probably hasn’t experienced it, although they may have experienced a perfectly still and tranquil mind. It sounds stupid to say it, but only a person who has experienced enlightenment has experienced enlightenment, rather than what they suppose the effects of enlightenment to be. If a person who hasn’t experienced enlightenment experienced enlightenment, the discovery that it’s only the realisation of the Absolute (and not any of Its relative effects) would probably disappoint them, because it takes someone who has experienced enlightenment to appreciate what enlightenment is.

So what the hell is it, then?

Well, imagine that there is a room and the room is a metaphor for your experience. In the room are furnishings and objects and these are your experiences. While they are in the room they are part of your awareness. Yet the person who has experienced enlightenment sees how the removal of everything from the room is not the absence of experience, but the experience of absence. The person who has experienced enlightenment can see how the emptiness of the room is what enables things to appear inside it. These things include the person who has experienced enlightenment, who recognises himself as something that can appear in the room because the room is empty. The person who has experienced enlightenment sees how the room appears simply the way it already is, because it’s so empty that even he isn’t in it.

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The Absolute Versus The Relative

The description of enlightenment as the realisation of the Absolute is one of my favourites. Its advantages include the implicit notion that enlightenment is not something a person ‘has’ or ‘is’; not a state or feeling, but the arrival at a form of understanding.

Yet enlightenment as ‘realisation of the Absolute’ has distinct drawbacks. It might lead someone to imagine it is the adoption of an idea, or a particular version of the idea of the Absolute. Another disadvantage is that by identifying enlightenment with the Absolute it implicitly encourages us to draw a dualistic contrast between it and the relative.

The Absolute includes but transcends the relative, so it’s not a dualistic relationship. But not until the process of enlightenment is well under way can we begin to experience this relationship in anything but an intellectual and dualist sense. And yet I still think the notions of Absolute and relative are among the most useful tools we have for speaking about and teaching enlightenment.

This impression was confirmed when I recently read a translation of one of the final works of the Japanese philosopher Nishida Kitaro (1870-1945), who offers some valuable ideas for understanding enlightenment (or ‘religious consciousness’ as he tends to call it) in terms of the realisation of the Absolute, but with some important safeguards that prevent this model from degenerating into dualism.

In a sense, however, realising dualism is just as important as realising the Absolute. Nishida writes on how religious consciousness does not begin until we gain an inkling of the contradiction implied by the very notion of a self – that part of the world we pretend is separate from or is looking out on the rest of it (Nishida 1987: 66). Although some might reject outright the model of Absolute versus relative as too dualistic for the purpose of conceptualising enlightenment, Nishida is reminding us here that the manifest absurdity of duality is what fuels the whole enterprise of enlightenment. Duality is such a stupid way of seeing the world that it’s its own best argument against itself.

Nothing gives us a better handle on the stupidity of duality that the supposed dualism between the relative and the Absolute, because if the Absolute were conceived as the dualistic counterpart to the relative (its ‘opposite’, for example, or its ‘complement’, ‘shadow’, ‘avatar’, or any relationship whatsoever) it would therefore be in a relation to the relative – i.e. relative itself – and instantly, by definition, non-Absolute.

The attempt to think dualistically about the Absolute demonstrates immediately that the Absolute requires a completely different kind of logic in order to be conceptualised correctly. As Nishida puts it:

[T]he absolute is not merely non-relative. For it contains absolute negation within itself. Therefore the relative which stands in relation to the absolute is not merely a part of the absolute or a lesser version of it. If it were, the absolute would indeed be non-relative, but it would no longer be the absolute either. A true absolute must possess itself through self-negation. The true absolute exists in that it returns itself in the form of the relative. The true absolute One expresses itself in the form of the infinite many. God exists in this world through self-negation. (Nishida 1987: 69)

Wow…

(Now go back and read that again – slowly, this time…)

In other words, then, the relative has nothing to do with the Absolute (because otherwise the Absolute would be relative to it). The true Absolute, therefore, is non-relative because it negates its own nature, which it does by expressing itself as the relative.

This is the most stunning, the most beautiful description of the radical, bottomless emptiness of Emptiness, the most succinct description of why it can be said that ‘Emptiness is Form’ that I’ve yet come across. It’s also a vivid evocation of precisely what the enlightened mind sees and experiences when it meditates upon Emptiness.

Too bad that Nishida’s writing isn’t more widely read for what it manifestly is: his report on his own experience. Part of the reason for this is the position he occupies in the standard version of the history of ideas. He was among the first eastern thinkers to adopt western ideas and express himself in the style of western academic philosophy. For this reason he is often read in the West as another western academic philosopher – that is, someone who seeks to understand experience through the medium of ideas – albeit those ideas are a little more exotic than average, with their ‘Zen’ trappings and references to thinkers with funny-sounding names that we don’t read over here.

In the translation of Nishida that I own, the editor’s closing essay is revealing in this respect. Peppering his argument with the usual post-modern buzzwords, the editor takes issue with the idea that Nishida’s non-dualism can only be understood within a tradition of eastern mysticism. Yet he never entertains the possibility that Nishida might simply be describing stuff he has experienced. Instead, Nishida’s work is viewed as a kind of linguistic exercise, which has ‘obvious parallels’ in the work of western poets – such as Shakespeare, Milton and Wallace Stevens – and with the work of post-modern philosophers such as (oh, for Fuck’s Sake) Jacques Derrida.

The only thing this clueless argument demonstrates is the possible pitfall of trying to teach enlightenment as realisation of the Absolute. Of course, all models are fallible, but without an appreciation of the non-dual logic of the Absolute as deep and as subtle as Nishida’s, it’s all too easy for post-modern wind-bags to strand themselves in the shallows of rhetoric and ideas.

Source

Nishida Kitaro (1987). Last Writings: Nothingness and the Religious Worldview. Translated and edited by David A. Dilworth. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.

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How To Get Enlightened: A Tradition-Neutral Guide

Enlightenment is the realisation of the Absolute.

You might come across people with a more specific definition that involves the acquisition of particular behaviours or qualities, such as compassion or the reduction of our personal suffering.

If you want to become more compassionate, why not go and do voluntary work, or get involved in community projects? There are plenty to choose from. And if you’re set on reducing your personal suffering, you’re probably better off taking painkillers than engaging in the practices that lead to enlightenment.

‘But painkillers are only temporary!’ someone might protest at this. Okay: if your aim is to eradicate suffering ‘completely’ or ‘for good’ (which, as you might have noticed by now, flies in the face of reality where nothing is ever perfect or lasts eternally) then it would seem it is indeed something Absolute that you are secretly searching for.

The Absolute has nothing to do with our everyday experience, wherein everything is relative. The relative themes of compassion and suffering were those that particularly interested Siddartha Gotama, the historical Buddha. It was the investigation of these that led him along the path to his enlightenment, but having those relative qualities was not what made him enlightened.

There’s no need, then, to assume that the Buddha or Buddhism has a monopoly on enlightenment. The best teachers I’ve encountered are those that have knowledge of a range of traditions and are always interested in exploring the similarities and differences. On the other hand, those kinds of teachers that insist only one tradition can lead to enlightenment, or that one tradition must be chosen and practised to the exclusion of all others, often turn out to be simply religious dogmatists.

So – if it’s not about following a particular tradition or religion, how do you get enlightened?

The unenlightened mind is subject to a misunderstanding, a misperception. What needs to be done is to remove this. But this is not an intellectual exercise involving the renunciation of a wrong idea and the adoption of an idea that is right. The clearing up of a misperception occurs when the experience of that which is false is replaced by the experience of that which is true. In other words, a misperception is eradicated by having the experience of truth.

For some people, this just happens and enlightenment occurs spontaneously. I don’t think it’s too far fetched to say that probably for the majority of people enlightenment rears its head spontaneously in their lives, although usually in a temporary form. For that majority, some kind of practice is usually necessary to enable the experience of truth to ‘stick’.

The function of the practice is to provide an experience of enlightenment ‘by proxy’, or a sort of ‘pretend’ enlightenment. We continue with the practice until the taster that it gives us finally yields to the real thing. All practices, by their nature, are relative. Different traditions offer different kinds of practice. And it doesn’t matter a monkey’s testicle which one you choose – as long as it’s one that works.

If you find a practice that appeals to you, determine what it is that the practice promises to deliver. If the promised object is something relative, then approach with caution. Any practice that promises as its reward some kind of specific power or virtue – such as psychic powers or invulnerability to pain – is offering something specific, something relative. Also beware of practices that promise certain states of consciousness, bliss, or mystical visions of light, etc. Any practice like this, that aims to produce certain states and return the practitioner to them at will, is again offering something relative and should be regarded with caution. These states of mind are exotic, but they are simply variations on everyday states of mind: they come and go, and they are specific and limited by their very nature.

The type of practices to treat with more respect are these: firstly, anything that leads us into minute and serious investigation of reality or our lived experience as it is, or of what it is that constitutes the experience of being oneself. As long as the practice doesn’t involve changing or intervening in that experience – for example, engaging in guided visualisation. Secondly, although it seems wildly at odds with the first type, any practice that involves surrender to a sense of a higher power, or the universe itself, may prove useful. As long as the practice isn’t concerned with changing one’s behaviour with respect to this higher being in order to ‘please’ it or make it ‘happy’.

Both types of practice have this in common: they engage us in a process of pushing away or emptying the everyday self. The everyday self is being supplanted by our awareness of it. In the case of ‘surrendering’ oneself to the divine, this allows the emotional faculties to come more fully into play and may suit the temperament of some people better than others. But by whatever means, this emptying out of the self is a process that encourages an encounter with the Absolute.

If only it were as simple as choosing between practices that are useful and those which are not! Sadly, it’s often the case that practices that aren’t useful will dress themselves up as those that are. And oddly, sometimes the opposite is the case. For example: the western alchemical tradition, which disguises itself as instructions for making gold but is really concerned with spiritual transformation. Also, of course, it’s possible that the person teaching a practice doesn’t really understand its features or function, in which case a useful practice can be corrupted and rendered useless.

But let’s assume we have identified a practice that works and are engaging with it correctly. I shall limit the discussion of what happens next to the relationship between the two basic terms that the practice brings into engagement: the self and the Absolute.

When we begin the process, there is the self on ‘this side’ of awareness, and that is perhaps all we are aware of. We may not even have any belief or confidence in the reality of an Absolute. Even so, there is a strong urge or intuition that there is something ‘out there’ that can be grasped, otherwise we wouldn’t have made it even this far. And so, at the beginning, we engage with our practice in this spirit. We try, but our mind wanders, or we fail in some other way to realise our practice fully. We want to get it ‘right’ but we don’t and it seems we can’t. We furiously desire that the practice would transport us to the ‘thing’ that we sense is out there, but the self is too weak to stick to the practice properly and force it to deliver.

As we persist, this sensation of falling short of our goals intensifies. Or continued failure to be good at the practice often transforms into negative feelings that are turned back at the self. Our own efforts appear to us pathetic. In truth, we’re gaining important insight into how easily distracted and how full of trivia and irrelevancies our minds are. This is very upsetting and demoralising, and is the point at which most people give up. But what’s happening is simply that process of emptying out the self, which all the useful practices will put us through. (Useless practices often won’t, which is why they’re more popular.)

If we stick with the process, resolve to see it through and act on that resolve, eventually the self is emptied out to a degree where the perception of something other comes through. This is our first taste of the Absolute. It just suddenly appears, at a point which is probably the most crucial of all – because here is where our doubts evaporate. This first taste shows that ‘it’ is out there, although ‘it’ is probably not anything we imagined. Most people, having come this far, don’t give up but will now see the process through, the reason being that the Absolute, once glimpsed, is pretty compelling. It’s not an idea, sensation, image, feeling, or an experience – yet there it is! It’s completely unimaginable, inconceivable – until we are touched by it.

Understandably, what tends to arise at this point is the idea that our perception of the Absolute is the product of our practice. After all, doing the practice led to the experience, so surely ‘I’ brought this on through my own skill and ability. In a sense this is true, because doubtless it is progress, but even as we continue in this spirit there may come a point when the relationship to the Absolute changes again, in a way we may not expect.

We may be practising in the same way we always have, diligently, effectively, and we reach that climax where the Absolute peeps through at us again – but instead of fading, it remains. It comes into awareness and stays – or, at least, is suddenly always available to awareness in a way that was unthinkable before. This is quite disturbing, because we’re used to having the Absolute arise as the reward for putting effort into the practice. Now, however, it’s just there. All the time. We might not be practising particularly well, but it’s there. We might notice that our mind is wandering and we haven’t really been practising at all – yet even so, that contact with the Absolute is still there.

It now becomes properly evident for the first time that the Absolute has nothing to do with the self. Whether we practice well or badly, it’s always there. This is the mature section of the path. Over time, it may tend toward an increased focus on the role of the practice itself, alongside or perhaps even above the Absolute. Because if it’s now apparent that it’s not the practice that causes the Absolute to appear, then the burning issue becomes: what do we now do?

Perhaps we’ve been working on our practice for a good few years and have become good at it, only to realise now that it’s not necessary to support the goal we supposed it was there to produce. So why bother to continue? And yet, there’s still tension and uncertainty here. Something obviously not yet resolved in the relationship between us and the Absolute. These are probably the final kinds of questions to be asked in these terms before enlightenment proper, which relies upon a final shift in the relationship between self and Absolute that involves seeing how they are fundamentally aspects of the same.

I won’t go into further details, because my aim has been to focus on how the path is not dependent upon ideas and concepts, but upon bringing understanding into experience, because this is what is entailed by overcoming the misperception of the everyday mind. This sketch of what happens along the path is only pointing at certain kinds of experiences. The sketch itself is formed only of ideas; it’s not the experience itself.

If you’re seriously interested in getting enlightened, I’m more than happy to express these experiences in the form of ideas, but the most important part is your job: to find out how to gain those experiences for yourself.

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The Diamond

Enlightenment is not an idea.

Do you believe Taoism is about Taoism, even when Laozi wrote ‘The Tao-Path is not the All-Tao. The Name is not the Thing named.’?

Do you believe Buddhism is about Buddhism, even when the Buddha taught the emptiness of all things?

Do you believe Philosophy is about Philosophy, even when Proclus reasoned the One that cannot be hypothesized?

Do you believe Sufism is about Sufism, even when Mohammed said ‘Allah, the One, independent and besought of all, He begets not nor is He begotten, and there is none like unto Him.’?

Do you believe Advaita is about Advaita, even when Shankara argued ‘Brahman is the only truth’?

Do you believe Magick is about Magick, even when Crowley proclaimed ‘Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law!’?

To those who cannot see past ideas, all of these teachers and teachings appear contradictory and exclusive, each promoting their own absolute dogma at the expense of the others.

Yet how many teachers of enlightenment have taught that their teaching alone is true?

For those who cannot see past ideas, one facet amongst an infinite number is taken to be the whole diamond; and the discovery of the truth of another facet is taken to mean the existence of two diamonds, not One.

Yet how many teachers of enlightenment have taught the existence of many enlightenments, or that enlightenment can mean many things?

Unable to see past ideas, and conditioned to find the One Correct Answer, the beginner – seeing many facets of the diamond – cannot help but doubt if he has found the right teaching, to the extent he will either endlessly flirt with one tradition after another, or combat his uncertainty by convincing himself of the shortcomings of any method but the one chosen. The reflection of one facet is held superior to the reflections of the others because not only does conditioning demand it, but the practitioner has not yet seen the diamond personally.

But even the enlightened human may be guilty of persisting in the ignorance of trying to find the One Correct Answer, despite possessing the knowledge that the absolute truth is not an idea. When this happens, the enlightened human forgets the diamond all together when concerning himself with but one facet, and yet having knowledge of the diamond, will struggle in vein to raise up an amalgamation of various reflections to the status of the diamond itself. When this happens, the enlightened human may even deny the existence of the diamond by claiming only reflection exists. For such a confused human, enlightenment is not understood as knowledge of the Tao, Emptiness, the One, Allah, ‘not-two’; the illusion that the absolute is differentiated persists, almost as if enlightenment had never occurred. Of what use is enlightenment to such an individual if it is not or cannot be lived?

Can you admire the reflection of one facet without taking it for the whole diamond?

Can you appreciate the existence of many facets without denying the existence of the diamond itself?

Can you appreciate that no facet is the diamond itself, no matter how glorious, comprehensive or reasonably sound its reflection?

Can you hold within your gaze each and every facet, in all their relatively diverse, contradictory and paradoxical beauty, without trying to resolve them in to a single reflection?

Can you see past all reflections to the diamond itself?

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