There were no painted feet in India that I saw. That is where the people of painted feet go to find god. India drips with god the way America drips with godlessness. Godlessness is a funny word. It does not mean atheist associations printing pamphlets and seeking converts like any other religion. It means ignoring the poor and ugly; ignoring the green and beautiful; ignoring the pollution and misery. God is outdated here: too slow, lagging behind everything else that has saturated our surface, covering us in an ineluctable goo our old sense of god has difficulty permeating. God is also a funny word. It does not mean Shiva the Destroyer, with the River Ganges emanating from his head (though to many, he means just this). It means knowing we are pieces of each other, pieces of this world. It means knowing the illusion is an illusion with the process within the illusion as quite real. It means the illusion exists for the process just as we exist for god. We are a context, after all. I exist so that god can know what it is like to be me. This is what it means to be alive: to make god happy to know what it is like to be you.
This brings me to an important question: does god have painted toes? The answer is: of course. They are right next to my leg. I am writing with god’s painted toes touching me. Though I love nature and India and jail and Burning Man; though I think of quantum mechanics and mythology; though I yearn for a woman’s body and a salad and my head out the window on the freeway -- god needn’t be far nor extreme nor perfect. He is right at hand, right here.
God is funny, too. Make no mistakes: he is perfect in his perfect parts, but he has allowed for imperfect parts as well. We are these imperfections, and he explores us with tremendous delight. If the meaning of my life is to find out what it is to be god, some of his meaning must be in my finding the meaning of my life.
Hindus have a lovely understanding of this dynamic. We believe that the Universe is Vishnu’s dream, and people are characters in that one dreamer’s expansive mind. When we become lucid within that dream, we awaken to our god-like nature. We are parts of god, floating in god. The consciousness and the materiality are all bits of god manifesting, swirling into each other like some great cosmic milkshake blending itself before our eyes. And where did the ice cream and fruit and sugar and ice come from? What were they? The ideas in god’s waking life before he had this particular dream? And what is the blender? God’s REM? And what is the straw? Is that indeed the great tunnel of light which we are told to go down once we molt our flesh for something more essential, more true, more dream-like? And what will the Universe taste like? sprinkle of protons and a dash of consciousness; a stream of light and an evolved ape jumping on the moon; a smile of words and a bit of warmth organized into a bit of body that holds onto its organization until it reverts to the Lego pieces of organic molecules from which I came? And finally, what will be drinking the Universe? When I eat a plum, some of the proteins go into forming my tongue while some of the sugars help my brain churn out more experiences. In other words, part of eating becomes future eating. In other words, all those who have or will have lived taste and digest are a part of all those who have or will have lived.
This brings me to an important question: does god have painted toes? The answer is: of course. They are right next to my leg. I am writing with god’s painted toes touching me. Though I love nature and India and jail and Burning Man; though I think of quantum mechanics and mythology; though I yearn for a woman’s body and a salad and my head out the window on the freeway -- god needn’t be far nor extreme nor perfect. He is right at hand, right here.
God is funny, too. Make no mistakes: he is perfect in his perfect parts, but he has allowed for imperfect parts as well. We are these imperfections, and he explores us with tremendous delight. If the meaning of my life is to find out what it is to be god, some of his meaning must be in my finding the meaning of my life.
Hindus have a lovely understanding of this dynamic. We believe that the Universe is Vishnu’s dream, and people are characters in that one dreamer’s expansive mind. When we become lucid within that dream, we awaken to our god-like nature. We are parts of god, floating in god. The consciousness and the materiality are all bits of god manifesting, swirling into each other like some great cosmic milkshake blending itself before our eyes. And where did the ice cream and fruit and sugar and ice come from? What were they? The ideas in god’s waking life before he had this particular dream? And what is the blender? God’s REM? And what is the straw? Is that indeed the great tunnel of light which we are told to go down once we molt our flesh for something more essential, more true, more dream-like? And what will the Universe taste like? sprinkle of protons and a dash of consciousness; a stream of light and an evolved ape jumping on the moon; a smile of words and a bit of warmth organized into a bit of body that holds onto its organization until it reverts to the Lego pieces of organic molecules from which I came? And finally, what will be drinking the Universe? When I eat a plum, some of the proteins go into forming my tongue while some of the sugars help my brain churn out more experiences. In other words, part of eating becomes future eating. In other words, all those who have or will have lived taste and digest are a part of all those who have or will have lived.
