Welcome to the Hedge Maze
One of the great problems in communication is that we are largely limited to the use of words which are totally inadequate. I can ask you to think of a dog, but I can be certain that you will not think of the same dog that I do. If we can not picture the same dog -- something we have all seen extant in our world -- how do you imagine that any two people can picture the same god?
When you consider the limitations of using words to describe the indescribable you can see that any god that you can describe is not worth worshiping. We tend to anthropomorphize our deities, often reducing them to being just like humans, only way more powerful.
The dao that can be told is not the eternal Dao
The name that can be named is not the eternal Name. Lao Tzu
This is the opening passage of the Dao De Jing, the foundational text of Daoism. Lao Tzo's description of deity is both profound and thought provoking. When presented with this sentence to complete -- God is ... -- many say "love" or "great," but the correct answer is to add a period at the end and call it a sentence. God is. There is simply no descriptor or adjective that is adequate.
I often refer to the supreme being as GDW (God - Dao - Whatever). Since I have been told that there is only one God, I can't see that it matters much what I call it. Nor does it matter much to me how many gods you choose to worship. The very concept of GDW is so vast it makes perfect sense to me to divide the idea up into smaller components. I see GDW as a force without attributes, neither good nor evil, without form, gender, race or other dichotomies. GDW simply is.
So for me there is no Heaven and no Hell awaiting us after death. I don't know what is there, but then neither does anyone else. Since we have to use metaphors and analogies to describe any concepts
outside our reality, I have chosen the image of a hedge maze.
For those who have not had the experience, a hedge maze is a garden feature with tall walls made from pruned bushes. The goal is to reach the center and there is no straight path to the goal. Every choice we make within the Maze, whether we go forward, backward or stay put does one of two things: either it brings us closer to the center or it does not.
The Maze itself is formed from all of reality -- every thought and deed by all of life. Your progress is not a matter of reward or punishment. No one makes it from the outer edge to the center during a single lifetime. We are not born in equal circumstances. We don't all get the same breaks. Therefore I believe in reincarnation. In the hedge maze analogy, you enter the Maze at the same point where you last left, so the progress made in one life is not lost before the next begins.
However, the actual opening to enter the center is extremely narrow. Only souls that are completely unencumbered can pass through. Both Buddha and Jesus carried the same message: that you already have everything you need to reach the center. Jesus said "The Kingdom of Heaven is within you." (Luke 17 20-21) Men like Buddha and Jesus -- and yes, they were actually human -- seemed to have been born very near the center. They and the many others like them have pointed the way for the rest of us. Sadly those who follow Christ have been trapped in the wrong part of the maze since the Council of Nicaea in 325 CE.
So that has been my goal, to reach the center of the maze and to do this I have formed my own spiritual philosophy which I call Zen Gnostic, a blending of Daoism, Buddhism and Gnostic
Christianity. What follows then is my exploration of this concept. If it rings true for you let me know.
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