If God is All, then what am I?
By Peter Dziuban
[Dr.
Alfred Lewis Aiken (1897 – 1968) was born in Norwalk, Connecticut. He was a veteran
of World War I & II, a chemistry teacher, a dentist, a medical doctor, an
actor, playwright and many things. But one question that he never left until he
discovered the true answer was “if God is All, then what am I and where does
that leave good and evil?” He talked and wrote about his findings during the
50’s and 60’s, much before Non-dual teaching was popular in America. Hillier Press makes his works available to all. Peter Dziuban,
who is not unknown to the readers of this Blog, has studied Alfred’s teachings
in depth and realized that Consciousness is All that IS. I am very grateful to
Peter who has been extremely kind to make this short contribution for our Blog on
Dr. Alfred Aiken’s teaching -- ramesam.]
If God is All, then what am I?
By Peter Dziuban
Did you ever ask yourself, “What is God to God?”
It’s like asking, “What is Infinity—not to me—but what is
Infinity to Its own Infinity?”
What if the only One that experiences God is God?
What is it like where the only One that experiences pure
Consciousness is that very same pure Consciousness—and that there is only the One pure Consciousness?
What does it feel like when reading these questions?
With all this talk of there being only one infinite God, is also
there a feeling of a “me” being left out?
Or does it feel clean?
Is there an aliveness to the pure singleness, the clear,
clean, only-ness of the infinite, the pure Divine One?
This infinite Divine One is pure Consciousness. Then, as there is only the One, mustn’t this Infinite One have
something to do with this very
Consciousness aware here, now, as these words are being read?
There is a common sense notion held today that the Infinite
is something vast, somewhere out beyond what the human mind experiences as its
finite world. From this finite view, it
is sometimes conjectured that it is possible to attain the Infinite—but to do
so, one must first rise out of
finity.
But what happens when you flip this view around, and start
from the “other direction”—start from the Infinite instead of the finite?
That’s the game changer.
Infinity, being infinite
(which is another way of saying All),
leaves only Infinity. Infinity doesn’t
go only so far until It stops and bumps up against a finite state, and begins
to co-exist with finity. Infinity, being infinite, precludes there being a
secondary finite state out of which It could rise.
Being infinite, Infinity leaves nothing besides Itself from
which It could come to arrive at Itself.
Infinity is.
“Instead of looking ‘up to God’ let us begin looking ‘out
from’ God.” From That Which Is, by Alfred Aiken, published by Hillier Press.
.jpg) |
| Dr. Alfred Aiken |
That passage was a real “stopper” for me. In another sense, it was the start, a
beginning of a new way of living. It
brought all the seeking to a screeching halt—but it was not the end of
unfoldment.
I first came across Alfred Aiken’s work on Infinite Reality
in the 1980’s. I had been seriously “on
the path” for several years, and a part-time seeker for many years prior to
that.
There’s no need to go into all that had been previously
studied. The main point is that I had
worked sincerely, and made a lot of progress (or so I had assumed). I still had further to go, but I was getting
there. And that’s just it. “I” was getting there. There was still a “me” who was slowly making
the grade, or trying to. There was still
a “middle man”—this me who had progressed beyond the old Peter, but still had
quite a long way to go to reach the Divine.
The power of Aiken’s passage was that it stopped “me” in my
tracks.
“Of course,” the realization came, “Infinite Consciousness,
God, the Self, is already AT or being
Itself. And that is this very Consciousness being aware right here, now. This Consciousness can’t belong to a
‘Peter’—because Peter is just a body,
an unconscious thing. And other than that, ‘Peter’ would consist
only of a lot of thoughts and feelings—but they’re not conscious either. Only the One Consciousness Itself is being
this Consciousness, and It can’t progress to Itself because It already IS
Itself.”
There isn’t space here to go into all the implications and
ramifications of turning the perspective around—in which God is looking out as God, instead of there
being a separate “me” that is looking up
to a God. If this has “struck a
chord” with you, you can investigate Alfred Aiken’s work further if you wish.
There are however, two distinctions worth mentioning.
The first is something that immediately felt different, and very direct.
Yet it took a while to be able to articulate exactly what the difference
was. It’s this: pick up virtually any book of spirituality,
nonduality, whatever. Almost always, the
author’s writing is done in such a way that it is merely talking about—talking about Self, talking about nonduality, talking about experience,
talking about what “you” should or shouldn’t do. And, the writing even may be very accurate in
what it’s talking about.
But when you first pick up a book such as That Which Is, you instantly notice that
there is a different feel to it.
It’s because the writing is clean. It is done in the awareness that It literally
is the One Infinite Consciousness that is being conscious so the writing can be
done. And the writing is done on the
basis that the Infinite Self, being the only
Self, is simply talking to Itself. There
is no middle-man author, no interpreter,
talking about Self in order to help or clarify things for a separate
“you.”
As is always said, words can only point. True.
But whenever anything is put into words, those words carry a certain
“energy signature”—that’s why the author chose to use those particular,
specific words instead of countless other possible words that might have been
used. Words are like mental footprints,
and they can always be traced back to the state of thought or level of
awareness that gave rise to them.
Meanwhile, the reader appears to be receiving that certain
“energy package” or feeling while reading what the author has “transmitted.”
Now consider the difference
in that transmission, or feel, if the writing is imbued with a sense of, “there
is another self ‘out there’ that this writing is going to enlighten.” That’s one type of energy.
Compare that to the feel of writing that is not imbued with
any layers of anything—and has no agenda—but is just “coming from” the Purity
and Clarity of Infinite Being. Period.
Such writing never talks to a “student,” or one that needs
enlightening, or one that must do
anything. All there is, is the eternal,
present Perfection of that one, pure Omnipresent Self, and no other that has
to, or can, become anything or see
anything. In other words, the Author is
the same One as the Reader.
Another distinction is one of emphasis.
Sometimes in nonduality, the majority of emphasis is given to
seeing through the ego, or seeing that there is no limited “personal me,” no
separate self, no subject/object, no “doer,” but just experience
happening. That is all well and good—but
often that’s about as far as it goes.
What about the Unlimited-ness, the Grandeur, the
Majestic-ness of Infinite Consciousness?
The very Consciousness that is presently aware so these words
can be read, also effortlessly includes what appears as an unspeakably vast
stellar universe. And that’s only when
speaking on a three-dimensional basis.
This same Infinite Consciousness is also un-dimensional—meaning It is
greater than, or inclusive of, what may appear to be going on in a fourth,
fifth, and who knows how many other dimensions!
This very same Consciousness is also absolutely all the
Presence existent. As It is all the
Presence existent, the only
Presence—It is the only power.
And that’s just barely scratching the surface of the
wondrousness, the spontaneously fresh aliveness of the One reading this now.
For more information about Alfred Aiken’s work,
you can visit Hillier Press.
