Recently, a lot of people have been asking me the same question: "If God is virtually indistinguishable from the planetary ecosystem, how do I get prayer out of that? How do I talk to that?" Fair enough. But I can't answer that question in a traditional way, because "Whole Earth God" isn't a traditional model.
There are no experts when it comes to the Whole Earth God. There are no priests, no masters, and no saints. There is no ideal to fulfill and no wise formula to follow. There aren't even any guidelines or suggestions. No one is going to be abandoned by Whole Earth God based on what they do or fail to do. And we don't talk to that God in order to be included in his plan of salvation. We already are. Everything is. We talk to him in order to widen the range of our own understanding--to bring that understanding into alignment with the Whole.
In HOW TO BELIEVE IN GOD, I used the image of tossing a thimble into the sea. If you go down the to shore and scoop up a thimble's worth of seawater, it' true that you have a little bit of the ocean in your thimble. But if you then proceed into an ashram, a mosque, a synagogue, or a church, and you say to the people there, "Come witness the majesty and power of the ocean," well, then, the only thing sadder than that would be if the people there believed you and never made the journey to see the ocean for themselves. A better model is to take that thimble--that tiny vessel--down to the shoreline and throw it into the sea. There it is contained by the very thing it couldn't contain within itself. There, at last, if finds the answer to its questions and its home.
Shortly before 9-11 I befriended an Afghani shopkeeper in New York who taught me valuable lessons about Islam. Every religious tradition has people like this--ones who know the path down to the shoreline and aren't content just to tell you about their religion, but would rather take you to see their God instead. He directed me to the great Muslim sage Ibn Al-'Arabi, in whose writings I found the following Hadith ("Oral Record of the Prophet Muhammad, May His Name Be Praised").
Muhammad said: On the Day of Resurrection, the Most High will extend his mercy upon one whose errors surpass all those of other created beings. Allah will unroll before his soul ninety-nine scrolls documenting his wrong actions, each scroll extending in either direction as far as the eye can see.
Allah will ask, "Do you contest anything? Have the angels slandered you in any way?"
The soul will say, "No, my Lord."
"Do you have any good deed to offer in your favor?" Allah will ask.
Again, the soul will say, "No, my Lord."
After this, Allah will tell this soul that it has overlooked one deed and command that this deed be brought forth by his angels. Instantly, a small scrap of paper will be brought forward bearing the creed of Islam: "The is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his Messenger."
"Come close," Allah will say to the soul, "and weigh this deed on the Balance of Truth."
The soul will advance in despair before the vast scales and place his pitiful scrap of paper on one side, knowing that the other contains the full weight of all ninety-nine scrolls. But Allah will console him: "Have no fear. You will not be treated unfairly."
Thereupon the single scrap of parchment will be found heavy , and the ninety-nine scrolls ligher than the air.
Nothing has true weight or substance other than the Divine Name, says the Prophet.
Provided we read this passage at the shoreline rather than the mosque, this is what it reveals:
- Resurrection means inclusion in the Whole. It isn't something that has happened or will happen, but rather a reality that is always true.
- Most High is our way of talking about this Whole from which nothing can possibly be separate. Other religious names for it are Allah, Yahweh, Vishnu, or God.
- The Ninety-nine scrolls chronicle all the misery we bring upon ourselves and others through our failure to accept our place in this Whole.
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The Creed of Islam is simply the Divine Name Allah which lies at the heart of it. The ninety-nine scrolls look big in comparison because human self-importance is very big, but in reality they barely account for a thimble on the Balance of Truth. Allah, by comparison, is the ocean from which all things come and go.
The shoreline reading of this traditional story is one example of "talking" to the Whole Earth God.
