 Gnosis of the Creed –by Swami Nirmalananda Giri
Chapter Five—And in one Lord
 Another Dimension
We have already said: “I believe in one God, the Father almighty, Maker of heaven and earth and of all things visible and invisible.” But the Christian revelation does not stop there. We rightly believe that there is a transcendent, unknowable, inconceivable Being: God, Who dwells in light unapproachable, Whom no human has seen or can see, from which the mind and the senses turn back. Yet there is another dimension to God, which the next portion of the Creed points out when it says: “And in one Lord” (Kyrios).
The Twofold Nature Of God
The first portion of the Creed speaks of the Theos, the aspect of God which is transcendental, absolutely “other”–in fact antithetical to this world. But this being so, how has the world come to exist? The answer is: God is not limited to abstract Being as the Theos, the Transcendent beyond creation, but is also the Kyrios, the Immanent within all creation. It is this latter aspect of God which we designate by the term “Lord.” This term implies that God is ever present in creation in the most intense mode of being, “nearer than the near, the eye of the eye, the ear of the ear.” So we need to have a balanced understanding of God, Who is both absolutely other, and absolutely near. The Lord Is The Ruler
He is also called “Lord” because He rules and maintains the creation, for He is the actual, active Creator.
When we think of God, the Theos, we are thinking of God as the impersonal–though not indifferent–Father. God, the Kyrios, on the other hand is the personal Creator God Who is the active Consciousness inherent in all relative existence. His Presence holds all things together as a unified cohesive body of energy, and forms that energy into atomic particles, atoms, and molecules, causing them to exist in an objective manner. That is God as Kyrios, the Lord. He is intensely personal and is the only thing in this world that is truly real. He is nearer and closer to us than we can conceive.
He Manifests The World
The Gospel, in speaking of God the Lord, says: “All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.” The word incorrectly translated “made” is egeneto, which actually means “to make manifest,” “to produce,” “to generate.” Everything is eternal in its essence, being part of God. Nothing either comes into existence or goes out of existence; it is simply manifested in varying forms. Here again we see that the doctrine of God making the universe from nothing is inconsistent with authentic Christian theology.
A better translation of this verse would be: “All things were brought into manifestation by Him, and without Him nothing was made manifest.” This is so very important because it underscores the truth that everything in its essence is the eternal, unchanging Life of God, that He is in truth “all in all.” The Son Is Also The Father
Therefore this Lord, Whom later on we will also call “Son,” is at the same time also the Father, the progenitor. This is why He said to the Apostle Philip: “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.” There is, in a sense, a Greater Father and a Lesser Father, though of course all these terms are symbolic and also limited, being drawn from human experience. The Greater Father is the Source of all, but the Lesser Father is the Controller, the Ruler of all. Therefore He says: “All things that the Father hath are mine.” The Lord is the Father of all creation.
The Lord Is Intermediary
We have a further revelation of the nature of the Lord in His words: “Not that any man hath seen the Father, save he which is of God, he hath seen the Father,” and “No man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” He is the bridge, the link, between the consciousnesses in relative existence and the world of the Absolute, the Theos. He is the communication of the Father to the creation, and therefore is called the Logos, the Word, of the Father.
It was not the Theos with Whom Jacob wrestled, but the Kyrios, the Lord. He it was Who spoke with Moses “face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend.”
Whenever God relates to man, in fact whenever we can even use the term “God,” it is God in His aspect as the Lord we are speaking about. It is only to the Lord that we can apply the terms omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent, for these words are used in relation to the relative universe. These are not terms of infinity, of the Theos, but of the Kyrios, the Lord, Who has willingly taken on seeming limitations to communicate with us.
It is not even correct to say that Theos, the Father, exists, for by existence we mean the relative mode of being which enables something to manifest within creation. Rather, God the Father is existence itself, from which we derive the ability to exist as part of His limitless life. But of the Lord, Who spoke with the prophets and appeared unto the visionaries such as Daniel and Saint John, we can say: “He exists.” He it is Who is called “the Ancient of Days” in the Bible. The Father, the Theos, knows no days, for there is no time for Him. He is utterly outside that mode of existence. But He, the Kyrios, the Lord, Who is before the days and from Whom the days (the lifespan of the universe) have come forth, is truly “the Ancient of Days.” He it is Who is the Lord of lords. He is the first one with a power relating to separate existence, relating to a universe and the beings within that universe. He it is Who brought forth the bodiless powers and those whom we may rightly call “gods.” He is their ultimate ruler and the Power behind all powers. Therefore it is He alone Whom we call “God of gods, and Lord of lords.” About the Father we can say nothing.
We Must Believe In Both Aspects Of God
By believing in the immanent God as well as the transcendent God, we come to realize that His life is intimately bound up with our life. What we think is our life is really His greater Life. He is the nearest and dearest, the One Who loves us forever, Who is always with us and never forsakes us.
Why Are We Separated From God?
Someone might then say: “Where is this God when He is needed?” The answer is: He is ever present, but seems absent because we have cut off our lines of communication with Him. We have blinded our eyes and deafened our ears in relation to Him, and they can only be reopened through a life of meditation, of inmost communion with Him.
He who truly believes in this Lord so lives and meditates that he may consciously know that “in him we live, and move, and have our being” as part of that greater Life. We must live in the consciousness that our life is not separate from His, that the experience of separation from Him is an illusion.
As We Believe, So We Live
A person who truly believes the words of the Creed will live as though God is not only the Source, but also the constant Companion of his life. All aspects of our life must be viewed in that perspective. We may say: “God is Love,” but we must love that Love above all others. It is not just a matter of complete dependence on God, but of understanding the nearness of God Who cares for us beyond our capacity to grasp. The wise invest in that care and love which does not fade, for He does not change or pass away. His love for us is His own Self that He wills to share with us.
When we were floating in the atmosphere as an atom of hydrogen, struggling upward to the face of the sun as plants, moving within and upon the earth as animals, and finally coming to self-awareness as human beings, He was ever with us, loving us and drawing us unto Him through a call in the depths of our spirits. He alone has been with us as the ages have passed, watching and waiting for our return unto Him. He has watched our wandering spirits passing from life to life and from form to form. He has heard us call out for peace, but He is more than peace and therefore could not answer us. He heard us calling for “happiness,” but He is more than happiness and still could not answer. He cannot be less than what He is. He has watched us worshipping external forms in vain, for He is not contained in them, though they are in Him. He has beheld us worshipping abstract concepts of Him in our intellects alone, but since He is beyond all conceptualization, He yet remained out of our field of communication. He has seen us seeking “heaven,” but He is not heaven and could not answer our callings. He has listened to us complaining with bitterness that He would not answer our prayers. But we have always been seeking what God could give us, not God Himself, and so we have not found Him. We Do Not Seek And So Do Not Find
The ignorant heart of man will seek for peace, for happiness, for heaven, even for freedom from rebirth, but not for That which is beyond birth and death. The real problem of the human condition is simply this: we do not seek for God. Yet He told us through the prophet Jeremiah: “Ye shall seek me and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.” And the Lord Jesus said that the greatest commandment was: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.” Certainly it is a full-time pursuit! Yet, what do we do? We completely lose ourselves in our little daily routine, giving our whole attention to that. We sit before a television set and get completely absorbed in news that does not have even the slightest practical effect on our lives, while God goes unheeded. If at the end of each day we sit and reflect on how much we have thought of God–how little we will discover it to be! Yet God is our life. Many people worry about whether God really cares for them, but the problem is that they do not care for God. The Solution
What is the cure for this indifference to God? How can we so attune our hearts that we will not lose sight of our spiritual goal? How can we “taste and see that the Lord is good”? By meditation alone. And not just any meditation. Right Meditation is needed, as Buddha said long before.
Meditation is itself an act of God Himself, and when we are meditating we can know that He is working within us, no matter how far away He may seem to our blinded minds. Is It A Little Thing?
“Another parable spake he unto them; The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened.” Think how small the quantity of yeast is in proportion to the amount of dough in a loaf of bread, and yet it affects the whole mass. In the same way, the time spent in meditation may seem a small thing in comparison to the time demanded by our daily lives, but if we “hide” the leaven of meditation within the depths of our being, in time it will transform the whole of us. Even if at first we meditate without much skill or strong attention, that will come of itself in due time. Though our endeavor be feeble and small, it will grow like the grain of mustard seed. The inner activity of meditation is in very truth “a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God.”
Meditation Is Love And Work
The person who faithfully, regularly meditates, not saying: “Oh, I’m just not in the mood, so what good will it do?” or “It can’t be good to force myself,” not making excuses not to meditate–is really loving God.
All good deeds will eventually pass away, but meditation produces eternal effects. This is why the Fathers have said that meditation is the only real Work we have, and they called it “the Sacred Work of the Heart” (iera niptikon). As the hermit Nikon of Mount Athos wrote, it is the Art of arts and the Science of sciences.
Meditation is the path of the Prodigal Soul back to the Father. The Mystery Of Silence
Meditation is such a simple practice because the mind must be made simple to reflect the simple (i.e., unitary) God. The mind must be made blind, deaf, and dumb in the silence of meditation. This is a great secret: we cannot attain to silence by mere absence of words or thoughts. Instead, we must find the Silence that lies at the heart of us all, to immerse ourselves in the silence at the core of our being. This is a great Mystery. Only he who meditates is truly keeping silence.
Meditation is a pillar of fire by night and a pillar of cloud by day, leading us into the promised life of Christ. As a child hangs onto a post and whirls around and around, even getting dizzy and yet not falling, so the person who meditates regularly will not fall, no matter how much he “whirls” in his daily life.
It is our own experience of meditation that will prove all this to be right. The first thing needed is the knowledge of how to be silent in the depths of our heart and to maintain that silence throughout our daily life. Then and then alone is there the possibility of ascending unto Life, unto God, and knowing by direct experience the Truth behind the words of the Creed.
More chapters of the Gnosis of the Creed:
• Chapter One—The Nicene Creed
• Chapter Two—I believe
• Chapter Three—In one God, the Father almighty
• Chapter Four—Maker of heaven and earth, And of all things visible and invisible
• Chapter Five—And in one Lord
• Chapter Six—Jesus Christ
• Chapter Seven—The Only-begotten Son of God, Begotten of the Father before all ages. Light from Light, True God from true God. Begotten not made, Being of one substance with the Father; By Whom all things were made.
• Chapter Eight—Who for us men, and for our salvation
• Chapter Nine—Came down from heaven
• Chapter Ten—And was incarnate by the Holy Spirit
• Chapter Eleven—Of the Virgin Mary. And was made Man.
• Chapter Twelve—He was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate. Suffered and was buried.
• Chapter Thirteen—And the third day He rose again according to the Scriptures. And ascended into heaven. He sitteth at the right hand of the Father.
• Chapter Fourteen—And He shall come again with glory to judge the living and the dead.
• Chapter Fifteen—Of Whose kingdom there shall be no end.
• Chapter Sixteen—And in the Holy Spirit, the Lady and Giver of life: Who proceedeth from the Father. Who together with the Father and the Son Is worshipped and glorified. Who spoke by the prophets.
• Chapter Seventeen—And in one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.
• Chapter Eighteen—I confess one baptism for the remission of sins.
• Chapter Nineteen—And I look for the resurrection of the dead. And the life of the age to come. Amen.
1) John 1:3 [Go back]
2) John 14:9 [Go back]
3) John 16:15 [Go back]
4) John 6:46 [Go back]
5) John 14:6 [Go back]
6) Genesis 32:24-30 [Go back]
7) Exodus 33:11a [Go back]
8) Daniel 7:9 [Go back]
9) “God standeth in the congregation of the mighty; he judgeth among the gods.” (Psalms 82:1) [Go back]
10) Deuteronomy 10:17a [Go back]
11) “Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear: But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.” (Isaiah 59:1,2) [Go back]
12) Acts 17:28 [Go back]
13) Jeremiah 29:13 [Go back]
14) Matthew 22:37 [Go back]
15) Psalms 34:8 [Go back]
16) Instruction in meditation is found in Introduction to Om Yoga. [Go back]
17) Matthew 13:33 [Go back]
18) Matthew 13:31,32 [Go back]
19) Psalm 46:4 [Go back]
20) Exodus 13:21 [Go back] |
