Cosmic Truth

"Delicious Solitude" by Bramley (1909)

Religion is the language through which social groups attempt to describe and interact with the divine, so truth is often embedded within it, but the flawed state of man obscures the pearl of truth in a sea of confusion. Historically, religion has in some sense been imposed upon people, so they have been forced to look for truth within a limited framework. This being so, studying different religions is useful because the more you do this the more all of the major religions seem, at certain points, to be hitting upon something fundamentally real. Christian mystics, Buddhists masters, Islamic Sufis and Pagan philosophers all have insights that suggest a fundamental sacred truth characterises the universe.

I have been on a long quest to try to understand cosmic truth, and after years of reflection I have tentatively come to the following conclusions (the main inspiration points being European Paganism and philosophy, Buddhism and Christianity):

• The One “The One” exists as the ultimate source of all things. The One is the fundamental driving force of all that leads to life and is synonymous with love, creation, energy, consciousness and truth, and can be understood literally and allegorically as light. It may be that “enlightenment” or “heaven” has something to do with perceiving the ultimate cosmic reality that is the One, who goes by many names, including “God”, and perhaps “Dharmakaya”.
• An Insight from Science Reality is the union of chemistry (or materiality) and physics (or energy) – this latter component is in some sense a manifestation of something divine (the One).
• The Soul Something resembling the “soul” exists, but it is not a true self for it has no fundamental stability, rather it is an everchanging energetic force. You are not that person you were when you were an infant, yet you are not not that person either. If you live a very long time, when you are elderly you will be very unlike the person you were as a young adult. When you try to grasp on to that thing called “you” you find, over time, that there is nothing to grab onto, for it keeps becoming something else. There is no fundamental reality to the identities you embrace.
• The Gods They exist as energetic beings, and they derive from the One, but some, perhaps even many, could be called demons (demons are not necessarily wholly malign), and others could be called angels, or bodhisattvas. Words are merely symbols we designate to describe the divine, so dictionary definitions are not ultimately helpful. I maintain that the realm of the divine is “poly”, but that does not mean that there is not a fundamental One which drives the totality.
• Worship I suspect holy beings don’t take much interest in our worship of them, but if we meditate on them this may be beneficial if it helps us to connect with cosmic truth. However, worship can easily stray into propitiation in exchange for worldly favours, and once it goes there it begins to stink of superstition, which is not helpful.
• Reality The universe is suffused with suffering and cruelty. This is the difficult truth – the cosmos is loving and beautiful, but also cold in some sense. To love the beauty of creation is to make peace with this. The divine does not exist to be a wish fulfilling entity, even though we try to make it so.
• Suffering We are here to suffer. Suffering is essential and unavoidable. Through suffering we can learn discernment. Through suffering we can ascend. Without suffering we will inevitably degenerate. But also, suffering is not inherently virtuous. Suffering does not equal ascension, suffering is just an essential aspect of ordinary life, so it should be accepted and tolerated.
• Justice There is no holy justice, as ordinarily understood, only cause and effect, or consequences. Justice is nothing but a dream in which the weak and the deluded take refuge. It is an illusion, as is the notion of human equality, human rights, and other utopian concepts. There may well be something that could be called cosmic justice, but it will not manifest in the way that most people will enjoy.
• Free Will We have at least some free will (within the constraints of circumstance, ie, karma, or cause and effect, or fate) and so do all humans – the chaos and cruelty which flows from this is thus inevitable.
• The Afterlife We cannot know what happens when we die, so if we are prudent we do not hold a fixed belief on the afterlife. Some say that the One and man seek unification with each other, but this necessitates man giving up his ”self” to the greater – something most of us are too self-oriented to do. Even if the One does not care for unification with us it is still the case that this sticky concept of “self” needs abandoning, because that self is fundamentally transient and illusory. The consequences for the great majority of us who fail to give up ourselves are inevitably unknown. It could be that some go to Elysium for a long while but then descend again, some are reborn in the world as another fleshly being, some souls lay in a latent state in Hades, and some are scattered into the darkness (howling with bitterness as their souls rip into ever smaller pieces).
• Paganism It may be that the descendants and followers of Odin get a limited run of high-quality rebirths, only to be ultimately extinguished at Ragnarok, the end of times. Odin (like Mercury – I believe they are the same God just differently manifested in line with cultural expectations – Odin is of northern Europe and Mercury is of southern Europe) is a seeker of knowledge, so there is no disloyalty in seeking truths beyond his domain. 
• Buddhism It is an excellent religion in most respects but it lacks that very western ingredient – love. Love in English, or in any European language, is an extremely nuanced word and I long for it, I adore it. It is the only emotion that is worth anything at all to me. In Buddhism this would be regarded as “attachment”, so it is a spiritual roadblock, and yet I cannot shake the feeling that love is a key, rather than an obstacle, to divine truth. On the other hand, when the nature of man is looked at plainly it is obvious that love is much rarer and more precious than indifference and resentment. It may be that my European attachment to love is my great spiritual roadblock.
• Christianity The more one understands ancient Greco-Roman religion and philosophy the more resonate Christianity seems. Historical context is key. Some of the context which is missing today is that Greco-Roman Pagans had a baseline belief that humans should make sacrifices to the Gods to win their favour – the offering of the Lamb of God reverses the fundamental assumption and so demonstrates God’s love. This then turns love into the most fundamental spiritual principle of Christianity – a process that Plato’s teachings had begun (love is understood as a transformative power that guides the soul upwards, inspiring virtue as it does so). Another bit of context is that ancient Greco-Roman philosophers (Stoics and Platonists – the most dominant philosophical schools) believed in the eternality of the soul, and a three layered understanding of reality was common – with “the One” as the supreme reality, followed by ethereal realities (Gods and other “invisible” but real beings), and then material realities. For Christians the Trinity was thus an easy concept to embrace, as “the One” could be understood as God, the ethereal manifestation of God could be equated to the Holy Ghost and the material reality of God was manifested through Christ. Like the Neoplatonists, Christians sought unification with the highest principle of reality (God or “the One”), they just had different ideas about how to do it. Once Christianity was fused with political power corruption was inevitable. I think this explains the dogmatism you often find today (as churches have often been used as tools of social control). The pre-Constantine churches would have been much more interesting than most of the ones around today, especially the followers of Origen, and ancient Christians may have been more tuned into truth than the didactic ones of our era.
• Islam Elements of Islamic mysticism are beautiful and compelling but ultimately the culture that surrounds this religion is too alien, too foreign, too different to be a viable path. I respect it, but it’s not for me.

Written by M' Sentia Figula (aka Freki), find me at neo polytheist (romanpagan.blogspot.com)