...The only reason I read this book without any trace of judgement or without a filter of morales is because I had read it at a point in my life when I was utterly disillusioned----nothing in my life was working! Everywhere there was only immeasurable pain! And luckily unlike most people, I would sit up in the middle of the night, hammering against the bed or the table, asking, "What is REALLY happening here? What really is this life about? Like WHAT? Like what? What am I not understanding?" This roundabout of questions dug deeper than the usual superficial questions of "why is my life full of pain?",
"why are people so hateful around me?"
"I have no reason to live. Why live?“
I didn’t know at the time, but I eally was zooming out cosmically to glance in aerial view what was this small event of me in relation to life----what? Human answers didn't matter one bit at this point!
I really was going meta..... beyond.... I wasn't asking for answers mortal opinions would grant---no "God-thought" etc would have satiated me then. I wanted first-hand experience of truth in that moment. DIRECT EXPERIENCE. Not concepts like "God" and "Gita" and "Shiva". Hence the sabbatical I was had undertaken!
I later understood that that was the exact degree of open-mindedness which was necessary for me to grasp this book! If I lacked any speck of it, I swear the book would have annoyed the hell out of me! God himself states, this book is going to anger the world!
I will give 5 stars for all the points---on education, sex, politics, even the one on Hitler----because during my time of reading the book, I was past morales and I could for the first time see the tapestry of how cosmos worked--- understand this, cosmically there is no such thing as morales---there is only life shifting from one dimension to another. Morales exist only in the social structure created by what is called as "human"---the realm of human words!
I had a long discussion with my father about Hilter based on what the author states here--- "Hilter went to heaven....
and, “Hitler did nothing wrong"
Before I state anything about that I will explain one thing first—the entire book speaks from a cosmic point of view, not social point of view. If you are extremely inclined about going meta in understanding of life, not of understanding suffering which really is vested in the human mindscape, then you will begin reasoning well with God's words. I am speaking about going meta…..beyond….. questioning every single morality-judgement. Paradigm you are operating from, putting question mark on each and everyone of your own filters, if only you can go to that level of liberated viewing will God’s points of view about consciousness begin making sense. In truth, there is only one life force that is gaining expression in all different forms everywhere in the universe. So, singular creation/ consciousness is at play everywhere. In that aspect, everything in the universe is merely a dance of creation.
I will quote some stray lines of other great people here to align with my point—DANCE OF CREATION—stated above,
Sadhguru—> “The reason why everyone is not naturally enlightened is simply this: people have categorised the world as good and bad, God and Devil, high and low, sacred and filthy, pure and impure, heaven and hell. These are parallel lines that will never meet once.”
Alan Watts—> “Man take seriously what the Gods are creating for fun.”/
“The Godhead is not the object of its own knowledge”<——meaning the more you TRY to understand God by FIRST HAND EXPERIENCE, the more you situate this quest outwardly into the world forgetting you are IT. Just like you can’t bite your own teeth, the Godhead is not the object of its own knowledge.
So if everything is a dance of creation, is killing of any significance cosmically? No! It’s all one force in expression. An intangible force, what Taoism terms as “The way.”
In that context, understanding that Hilter too went towards the proverbial heaven makes very much sense, as God states.
Now the discussion that I was having with father around what God states about Hitler doing nothing wrong is agreeable as well. God speaks, remember not from the point of view of human consciousness of what-is-possible/ what-is-doable-or-not. God speaks from the point of view of one unified consciousness that is at play and hence in trying to explain our worldly problems, he states that Hilter could only have risen to power, and committed all of his atrocities because many others joined him for the same. True! Just like governments cannot take everything in their hands and it is only people whose everyday activities combine with the functioning of the government to make it one composite whole!
When I reflect on the atrocities at the concentration camps, I read and figured that Hitler had never personally visited any of the concentration camps and essentially the ruthless behaviours were mostly discreet, disdainful attitudes of the Nazi SS Men. You cannot entirely put the full blame on Hitler when these men offered to extend what was being promoted across the land——demolition of Jews. Yes! Many became Nazi SS men because they were scared they would be terminated otherwise, but so many did it by choice too. If you dig deeper into the attitudes of the Nazi SS Men and sit with it, you will come to realise most of them demonstrated, by original nature, more traits of bestiality than perhaps Hitler himself demonstrated openly. Or maybe at par! Once again, whichever way you weigh my previous line, from the viewpoint of a unified consciousness, you will come to understand that it was the conglomeration of several hotspots of similar-minded consciousness points that led to the creation of the Hitler-case. So, shedding the entire blame on one human makes utterly no sense even if from our societal viewpoint, he needed to be crushed for the holocaust to cease.
People like Hilter very much exist in today’s world. My own uncle, who was a doctor was murdered by his doctor colleagues (with sticks) when I was in 8th grade—reason was jealousy, and it was known to all. Where really is the difference between that and Hitler’s case? They (a small group of doctors from Serampore, near Kolkata) thought that my uncle didn’t deserve to live on and Hilter thought Jews didn’t deserve a chance in the world. One scenario had very few killers and only one person to be killed. The other scenario had many groups of people who collectively joined hands to kills thousands. So, the only real difference was not in the nationality and the premise, but the numbers. Aren’t there little such situations continuously happening around, and many being overlooked, or falling short of actually happening? Meaning such people abound the streets. Given multiple assisted hands, and assassins would flood the streets.
This is exactly what my father and I came to agree with when we had a heated discussion on his topic at home!
But from the cosmic viewpoint (the realm of the Absolute, of Gods), killings don’t matter. From the cosmic viewpoint, fish is being eaten by a bigger fish, fire is breaking into a forest and claiming lives, stars are colliding against each other and new nebulas are born, and humans are killing one another. Do you see where we stand then? Cosmically, it is all okay!
The reason why I wanted to explain this deeply is because I do not want people to naturally assume that the book is misguiding you, it’s not. I will have to explain further, that this book was written by the author’s continuous consultation with his intuition—It is entirely in question-answer form. He writes down a question in a paper and awaits the answers to form in his mind and he would invest no effort in altering whatever formed in his mind.
I experienced this many times—when I consulted a voice within me and I would weirdly be presented with an answer, very relevant to my question, astonishing in sudden appearance, that had remained dormant within me for ages, but I understand if you don’t believe any of this.
So wherein the Hitler-points are helpful is to help transcend words and see what REALLY is happening past any thought——it is a dance of cosmos, the Gods, the realm of pure absolute Love/ consciousness. This absolutely doesn’t state that you promote such atrocities. This portion of the novel is not to provide a different code of ethics about how to move about the world!
So, emotions and prejudices, likes-and-dislikes cloud truth--in the space of which nothing really counts! So, if I were a sole survivor of the Holocaust, my emotions---of hate, grief, anger and revenge--- would cloud away my understanding of truth, which is cosmically, there is no psychological or social judgements!
The book helped to make me aware of the fact that the whole of life is REALLY just a play and the only real work here on this planet is to discover who it is we really are. Ultimately, as stated by God, we have selected situations in our lives, at the time of birth, which will form the fertile grounds for rediscovering the truth of who it is we really are. This is also stated in book 1. Strangely this matches my life! So strange it kind of amazes me especially when I replay all and arrive at "today!"
The explanation of “Sex” given by God is one of the most beautiful expressions I have ever read my entire life, with regards to the topic of "Sex". It is absolutely ghastly that we were made to feel ashamed around a topic like that all our lives. Nonsense! You have to read this part. You won’t regret it!
The explanations about how schools disregards the natural tendencies of an individual and looking past diverse ways in expression every child naturally comes to reveal, was one of the painful realisations I had ever encountered with. It had given me a headache because I could finally yank out the truth behind the fact that I never quite fit into any institution as much, and that I was rejected by these institutions simply because they operated in a paradigm I never fit in! This was a very sad discovery for me when I first had it! But it granted me enormous hope for life——to no longer operate in the garb of my “8th grade trophies”
The book didn’t fully help me understand the meaning of “Oneness” although conceptually it did. This book was my firsthand experience of “Oneness” as a theory. But I experienced “oneness” for real only after following Mooji baba’s Satsang, and through my consistent personal self-inquiry of my inner voice. I recommend these for people who are seeking to experience truth and are hungry for it for real-time experience, but for conceptual understanding , “Converstions With God” is a very good start!
There is a lot more the book has to offer. I am warning you, if you don’t posses a striking ability to put a question mark on every prejudice you bear in your mind, on every concept you hold dear…..if you cannot put aside your cherished beliefs and attach a question mark on each of them…..this book can and will overwhelm you!
So, I will recommend this book for only those who are able to question every damn thing in their head (all their own judgements of people, your own likes and dislikes), and are able to question everybody in their lives! If you are in a place of —— “I really don’t know anything” (as I was when I read it, and which is really the case in truth), you are ready for the book!
We really KNOW nothing---for everything we KNOW has only been picked up in life! :)
A quote from the Untethered Soul beautifully matches all this talk about the book---> " “If you want to be happy, you have to let go of the part of you that wants to create melodrama. This is the part that thinks there’s a reason not to be happy. You have to transcend the personal, and as you do, you will naturally awaken to the higher aspects of your being. In the end, enjoying life’s experiences is the only rational thing to do. You’re sitting on a planet spinning around in the middle of absolutely nowhere. Go ahead, take a look at reality. You’re floating in empty space in a universe that goes on forever. If you have to be here, at least be happy and enjoy the experience. You’re going to die anyway. Things are going to happen anyway. Why shouldn’t you be happy? You gain nothing by being bothered by life’s events. It doesn’t change the world; you just suffer. There’s always going to be something that can bother you, if you let it.”
Although the author is different, the meanings come preciously close when regarded with precision!
The power of this book, as do the rest, lies in revealing truth to mankind. Truth is beyond words, morales, psychological and social judgements! If you desire only truth and not regular mundane desires that most humans seek, you are fit for this book!