By George A. Boyd ©2018
Q: I was reading an article online in Science Magazine, “Democrats More Conservative, Republicans More Liberal in Some Ways,” which was published on 2/21/18—the original article appears on the Baylor University website [1]. In this article, it said that people’s political philosophy varied depending on how they saw God. They mentioned that the Baylor researchers, whose findings in Sociological Forum [2] were summarized in this article, categorized study participants into seven different perceptions of God:
- God is distant
- God is ever-present
- God is removed from the world
- God is concerned with the world’s well being
- God is concerned with personal well-being
- God is directly involved in worldly affairs
- God is differently involved in personal affairs
How do these different perceptions of God arise? What states of consciousness give rise to these views?
A: God appears in different forms depending on where you encounter this Universal Being on the Great Continuum of Consciousness.
Type one, where God is distant, is commonly found when people relate to God through the cord of faith, which links the ego to God in His Form in the First Mesoteric Initiation.
Type two, where God is omnipresent, is found in those people who keep their attention ever merged with the Divine Spark within their ensouling entity, and they see the Divine everywhere. This is the pantheistic viewpoint: God is all-pervading in Nature, the Universe, and on the spiritual Planes.
Type three, where God is removed from the world, typifies spirituality where you are identified with a nucleus of identity, a spiritual essence, or an ensouling entity in the Cosmic, Supracosmic, or Transcendental levels of the Continuum. Here the emphasis is on getting away from the world—or having as little to do with it as possible—and to return to the God Source on your inner horizon.
Type four, where God is concerned with the world’s well being, resembles the idea of Providence, where God loves the world and all creatures and cares for them. Ecological movements and aboriginal religious groups commonly adopt this Deistic viewpoint.
Type five, where God is concerned with personal well-being, people believe God responds to your prayers and grants them, and He may send an angel to watch over you. This perspective conceives that God is loving and benevolent, and will guide you and protect you if you approach Him. Catholic and Evangelical churches of the First Exoteric Initiation hold this view.
Type six, where God is directly involved in worldly affairs, views God as the engine behind history. This gives rise to God-inspired movements that change the leadership of nations and installs benevolent leaders; social justice movements that struggle for equality, presses for independence from colonial oppression, seeks freedom from injustice and slavery, and seeks to protect human rights and freedoms. This type resembles the Social Justice Christianity of the Fifth Ray in the First Exoteric Initiation, which Dr. Martin Luther King embodied.
Type seven, where God is differently involved in personal affairs, suggests that God has selected a chosen people, an elect, or a group of secret initiates, and shares with them esoteric knowledge, a special dispensation, or unique blessings that others, who are not part of this group, cannot receive. This viewpoint is commonly seen in cultic groups, in groups that interpret their scriptures that God has made them a chosen people, or those who are the direct initiate of a spiritual Master that imparts esoteric knowledge and confidential meditation methods.
If you transform your ensouling entity at the cutting edge of spirituality, and explore your relationship with the Divine at every level of the mind, you will encounter each of these viewpoints along the way. Your Soul Ray and Personality Ray often influence the way you view God and how you establish a personal—or impersonal—relationship with the Divine.
To help you understand these viewpoints better, we have written on the varying perceptions of the Divine in our book, “Religions, Cults, and Terrorism: What the Heck Are We Doing?.” It may also be valuable for you to study about the Great Continuum of Consciousness and the Seven Rays—we have summarized these ideas in our book, “A Mudrashram® Reader: Understanding Integral Meditation.”
Those of you who may wish to take your God exploration to the next level may enjoy “The Mystery of God” workshop. This is one of our public webinars available through our Public Webinar Access portal, under the Public Webinars tab.
[2] Thomson, Robert A. and Froese, Paul “God, Party, and the Poor: How Politics and Religion Interact to Affect Economic Justice Attitudes,” Sociological Forum 1/30/18
