It all depends on whether you’re referring to “God” or Godhead, I suppose. Godhead is the ultimate ground of being which, if it is a substance at all, is comprised of pure undifferentiated awareness.

Does this “feel” anything? How can we know. God, however, is the “supreme personality of Godhead” as the Hindu Upanishads put it. Since that is shown to manifest in the human realm, we should expect it to have very similar consciousness to ourselves.

Andrew Cohen’s emailed quote expounds this week on this question :

How Does God Feel?
I’ve always wanted to know, how does God feel? What I’ve discovered is that how God feels is always a paradox: On one hand, from the perspective of the unmanifest, unborn, empty ground of all being that has never entered into the stream of time, everything is always already perfect. Nothing has ever happened, and so God rests eternally, peacefully and blissfully. But for the part of God that has entered into manifestation, that decided to create the universe, the experience is one of ecstatic urgency, a feeling of ecstasy and the simultaneous sense that I must… And the intensity behind this ecstatic urgency is emotionally, psychologically, spiritually, philosophically, and physically overwhelming. And what begins to emerge in the human heart and soul, as we awaken to the authentic self or spiritual impulse, is the dawning recognition of the fact that each one of us, at our highest level, is that manifest dimension of God, the same energy and intelligence that originally inspired and initiated the entire creative process.

Andrew Cohen
From a retreat in Rishikesh,
December 2005

Here are a few quotes from the Dalai Lama’s recent book, The Many Ways to Nirvana :

“So we must make clear what the Tibetan Buddhist tradition actually is. It is the pure tradition of Nalanda [the ancient Buddhist university in India] … Unfortunately, Tibetan Buddhism is sometimes presented in its superficial aspects, with masks and countless rituals. In this, I think, there is real danger of misunderstanding Buddha Dharma.”

Q : Westerners don’t progess as quickly on the Vajrayana path [The Diamond Way, based on the Tantra] as the Tibetans do. Would you agree?

“In the Tibetan society as well, even though there are many who practise Tantra, there are very few who have the realization as explained in the Tantric texts.”

Q : How important is the method?

“That is extremely important. Because if you are able to follow a method and select a path which is relevant and suitable to your mental disposition, it will be much more effective.

“So, you see, the Buddhist way of practice begins with study. Study by hearing, by reading, just by absorbing information! Once you gather that information, you have to analyse it yourself. Don’t just rely on Buddha’s quotations. Rely instead on your investigations and experiments.”

It’s clear just from these few extracts, and indeed from the whole book, that the Dalai Lama stands firmly in the tradition of Gautama Buddha. If that sounds an obvious thing to say, it isn’t.

The Buddha believed in free inquiry (The Kalama Sutra). He challenged his hearers to find the truth for themselves, not to take his words as gospel. He discouraged a “cult of personality” forming around him. I’m not a god, was his constant message to those with ears to hear. Empiricism and scepticism, coupled with direct experience, made up his creed. How many of today’s Buddhists are “hearers” of the Buddha’s words?

Judging by the Dalai Lama’s book, he at least can make that claim.

My own book, The Nirvaneans — The Natural History of Nirvana will be published by Humdrumming on June 21 next year.

As part of Syntagma’s Meta- series, we’ll be launching Arunachala News in September.

This is a new website providing on-the-spot coverage of life on India’s most mystical mountain : Arunachala. It will be authored by Meenakshi Mammi, who writes a newsletter from this sacred spot made famous worldwide by the presence of Ramana Maharshi in the first half of the 20th century.

Ramana’s method was quite simple:

“As all living beings desire to be happy always, without misery, as in the case of everyone there is observed supreme love for one’s self, and as happiness alone is the cause for love, in order to gain that happiness which is one’s nature and which is experienced in the state of deep sleep where there is no mind, one should know one’s self. For that, the path of knowledge, the inquiry of the form “Who am I?”, is the principal means.”