Craving the Creator
My Concept of, Need for, and Connection to God
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CHAPTER 1 Teenage Queries Walk Softly Walk softly this hallowed land. Honor Mother. Take a stand. Talk softly. Leave words unsaid. Listen well at times instead. Touch softly the pulse of time, karmic reaper, thump sublime. Watch softly Venus and Mars. Only at night we see stars. Taste softly salt of the earth, brine of the sea, spice of worth. Sniff softly the breath of dawn, mist of light to which I’m drawn. Sit softly. Be still. Don’t strain. Feel the tension. Free the pain. Think softly wisps of the mind. Settle in. Unwind. Unbind. Tread lightly the sands and sod. Be softly at one with God. WHERE DID WE come from? Where are we going? How can we get there? What are the limits of human potential? I have a longing. I have a passion to know, understand, and appreciate the source of the unimaginable energy, intelligence, and love that created me and everything else. I have a hunger for more knowledge, a need to know, and a fundamental thirst to appreciate and to express my gratitude more and more. Is it too much to ask? How much can I, a human being, know, understand, and appreciate the ineffable? How can I even be sure that what I know is correct, what I understand is true, and what I love is real? I must begin by defining my terms. What is a need? What I mean by a need is a desire for that which fills a perceived lack or fulfills or completes a craving within my body, mind, intellect, heart, ego, and soul. Who or what is God? That’s what I’d like to know. Who or what am I? That’s what I’m on a quest to find out. I cannot satisfactorily define the word God, and yet it has meaning for me. What does it mean to have a longing? Who or what has a yearning? Is it my mind’s nature to try to understand my life and surroundings? Is it an attempt to provide meaning and purpose to my life? Perhaps one way to begin thinking about God is to consider what God might be like. For example, God might be smart. After all, the Creator is said to have imagined, planned, and manifested all that I experience and probably much more. God might be powerful. The process of creation must take an enormous amount of energy. Energy of what kind? The kind that can be converted into mass? Thought energy? God might be peace. God might be love. Do I need God as I need a father and a mother? Do I need God as I need a cosmic Santa Claus, an ultimate bodyguard, or a power station generating love, light, and life that I can plug into? Just as I seem to see and hear what I want to see and hear, do I know what I want to know and understand what I need to understand, perhaps as I need to understand it? Do I know God because I need God? Do I need God because I know God? Can I know God without first knowing myself? Isn’t a drop essentially one with the ocean? Isn’t a flame essentially one with fire? Isn’t breath essentially one with the wind? Can God be both imminent, intimate to, and within me and beyond me, distant, transcendent, and external? Can I be both imminent and transcendent? Rather than singing, “I am weak, but Thou art strong,” should I have been singing, “I am weak, and I am strong,” all along? Is God an anthropomorphic projection of my illusory sense of being in control of my life? Through the ages, men and women have expressed a need to contact, know, align with, love, and sometimes appease one God or many gods. What were their motivations? For some, it may have helped to explain experiences that were beyond their understanding. Others have attempted to modify their experiences by petitioning, offering, cajoling, and bargaining. Some may have felt a need to be connected to, comforted by, and included in something grander than themselves. My thoughts on the need for God continue with some thoughts on the nature of desire and historical and contemporary concepts of God. Next, I will discuss some characteristics attributed to God in the light of modern science and ancient Vedic science as brought to light by my primary mentor, His Holiness Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Before closing, I will discuss personal and impersonal aspects of God and my desire to grow in wonder, experience, and the appreciation of life’s mysteries.
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Where did we come from? Where are we going? How can we get there? Who is God? What is God like? To what extent can God be known? Are beliefs influenced by our experiences? Are experiences shaped by our beliefs? How is the superstring field theorized by modern physicists related to us, the universe, and the Creator? Are there higher states of human consciousness? Can faith and science provide certain answers? Have we abolished wonder, mystery, and play? The nature of God puzzles me. From one perspective, God appears transcendental, beyond my experience, distant, up in heaven. From another perspective, God is intimate, personal, imminent, and to be found within me. Is there only one God? These questions and others have intrigued me on my spiritual journey. My Catholic education helped me to identify and clarify them. Three master’s degrees and a doctorate in physiology helped me to appreciate research methods and to explore secrets of living systems. Travels on three continents brought me into contact with people and traditions of other cultures. I became a teacher of the Transcendental Meditation program founded by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. I lived under his direct guidance and taught Maharishi Vedic Science. Surviving acute sicknesses, chronic illness, and a car accident helped me to develop a dearer appreciation for human kindnesses and the power, mystery, and unconditional love of the Creator. Sunrises, seashells, stars, and seasonal changes became extraordinary wonders of nature I no longer wished to ignore. I reflected on God’s omnipresence, intelligence, and bliss. Life tutored me in lessons of the heart. I honor all of the stepping-stones on my journey. In Craving the Creator, I share with you in prose and verse some of my experiences, inquiries, and insights. I offer them as food for thought to promote discussion, spark clarification, and enhance my personal growth and yours. Bon appétit!
About the Author
I graduated from Notre Dame High School, West Haven, Connecticut. I then earned a BS from Fairfield University, an MS in plant physiology with a minor in toxicology from North Carolina State University, and an MS and PhD in physiology and molecular and cell biology as well as an MBA from Maharishi University of Management (MUM). Instructed in the Transcendental Meditation (TM) technique in 1973, I became an instructor of biology at MUM in 1974 and a teacher of TM in 1975. I deepened my research in consciousness, traveled widely, and studied under the direct guidance of His Holiness Maharishi Mahesh Yogi 1983–1997. I now live in Massachusetts.