Can we prove God?

		SPIRITUALITY IN MIND 9. Proving God
1. Spiritual Music 2. Love 3. Meat 4. Finding Good Teachers 5. Reincarnation - The Effects 6. Reincarnation - A Story 7. Positive Books 8. God is like Mozart 9. Proving God 10. God and the Banana: A Story		"God hasn't been proven scientifically." "Why hasn't everyone learned to experience God yet?" "Religions are dogmatic and stifling." "I would like to experience God, but I am not very persistent . . . " "God hasn't been proven scientifically." "I want a scientific proof that God exists," agnostics say. "What somebody felt, with his mind, doesn't convince me. You can't measure with your mind." A critical person doesn't believe just everything he hears. A critical person only believes in the scientific method. "If an experiment can be repeated by another researcher, and gives the same outcome, the results are valid." Thousands of people in the world, throughout history, have repeated the experiment "searching for God" and got the same outcome. The reason that we in the West don't believe it, is that we want to see results on an electronic screen, instead of in the mind. Usually our mind is a very unreliable measuring instrument. It is not under our control, it seems to go wherever it wants. The mind is like a couple of wild horses, it has been said. It is true. Until you learn to use it effectively. You can tame the wild horses of the mind. Yogis and mystics did exactly that, before they began to search for God. That process is called meditation. Is an electronic instrument more reliable than the trained mind? Most of us don't believe how good a measuring devise the mind can be. But we do believe what we see on the screen of an electronic instrument that discovers a brain tumor, or shows the trajectory of an electron. Do you know how such instruments work? Do you know that they work? Trained scientists and doctors have made incredible mistakes when they interpreted what their instruments showed them. Instruments have often turned out to measure something else than the designers thought they did. The problem is that measuring with external instruments is a very indirect way of proving something. You see the result of electrons hitting a screen, not the real object. It is like when a deaf and blind man tries to guess which car just drove by. Perceiving something with the mind is the most direct way there is. In case of mental or spiritual things it is also the only way. God can't be measured with a telescope or with radar. You need only one thing for an accurate measurement: the knowledge of how to operate the mind, how to make it silent and sensitive enough. If we believe the indirect knowledge that we get from a piece of electronics, we can also believe in the direct experience of the trained mind. In case of spiritual research, we don't even need to believe. We can check it out for ourselves. Spiritual science is much closer to us than electronics. Most of us can't check whether the X-ray instruments of our doctor functions. Most of us can't even check if the gasmeter works correctly. But all of us can do spiritual research. By doing meditation, we can check the findings of those who said they found God. "If the way is known, why hasn't everyone learned to experience God yet?" For one thing, the ways to expand the mind have been kept secret by both mystics and religious leaders. By the latter because they couldn't rule and manipulate believers who knew God. Religious leaders wanted to remain a necessary link between the believers and God. The mystics taught meditation only to few people, because meditation develops tremendous powers in a person, and many people have misused those powers. Hitler was an example of this fact. Yogis wanted to teach taught meditation only to those who could be trusted with the results. The other reason that meditation is not so widespread as it could be, is that it is not an instant solution. Using meditation to experience God is, though not complicated, not easy either. It requires effort and persistence. Those who do an effective kind of meditation, discover that it brings out a lot of their hidden qualities, both good and not-so-good ones. Before you can experience God, you have to deal with these not-so-good qualities. So you need patience and persistence for meditation. And courage to face your weaknesses and bad habits and change yourself. "Religions are dogmatic and stifling!" Agnostics and atheists usually point out the irrational and inconsequent things in religions. They are often right. But these illogical things were not told by the founders of the great world religions. The founders experienced God, the Whole, directly. After them, the technique to experience God gradually got lost. The students of the students of the founders only had half- or misunderstood bits and pieces of the original teachings. From there dogmas sprang up, rituals developed -empty and sometimes harmful practices. Their original form, long lost, was based on direct experience of God. Their later form was based on theory, misunderstanding and often on the consideration how the religious leaders of the moment could manipulate the believers most effectively. The Christian belief in heaven and hell is a good example of it. Christ himself never states that there is a fiery place where 'bad' people go to after their death. Hell can only be your next life, where you reap the consequences of the wrong things you do in this life. But belief in an eternal hell with a devil and brimstone keeps believers obedient to the church, so the medieval priests encouraged it. Other religious dogmas, for instance "women are inferior to men", helped insecure men to have power and feel superior. Many dogmas exist because it is safer to believe in something others told you than having to find out for yourself what is true. But all this has nothing to do with what the founders of the religions have said, who perceived God directly. With the help of spiritual practices (meditation), you can feel connected to everything, you can experience the oneness of all. In that state of mind you directly experience the truth of things. You will not be influenced by superstition and dogmas anymore. No-one will be able to make you obey them out of religious fears. No wonder many religious leaders have not encouraged meditation . . . "I would like to experience God, but I am not very persistent..." Persistence and patience and courage will grow in you when you deeply wish to experience God, when you deeply wish to experience what mystics have called the (your) truth about life. If your wish is not so deep yet, but you are interested, then keep reading about spirituality and talking with spiritually-minded people. And ask yourself regularly: you are trying to find lasting happiness in many ways, but do you have success? When you feel tired with these attempts, remember the life-changing experience of those who experienced God. And remember that for meditation you don't have to sit in a cave in the Himalayas. Meditation can be done in your house, even in a train or a bus. Meditation is part of a completely normal way of living.
Copyright 1998-2000 by Joost Boekhoven