(From the Mother): "I told him that God is everywhere and in all things; that everything is He; and then a great Force came down into me and I added, “Even when you descend into Hell, He is there too.”
Then everything stopped dead. Since then I’ve learned that it’s part of their teaching: that what is terrible in Hell isn’t so much the suffering, but that there is no God there; that it’s the only part of the creation in which there is no God — there is no God in Hell. And I asserted that He is there too.
***
It has always been so strange to me how readily the Christians can ignore their own Bible:
Psalm 139:
If I ascend into heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the morning, And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, Even there Your hand shall lead me, And Your right hand shall hold me. If I say, “Surely the darkness shall fall on me,” Even the night shall be light about me; Indeed, the darkness shall not hide from You, But the night shines as the day; The darkness and the light are both alike to You.
****
I used to find it amusing to talk to fundamentalist Christians when I lived in Greenville, SC (the home of many extreme Southern Baptists and other fundamentalists)
"Why," I would ask, "do you make God so far away?"
They would shuffle when I quoted one of Sri Aurobindo's favorite verses, the one Paul cited from the 3rd century BC Greek Poet, describing God as He "in whom we live and move and have our being."
And then they'd change the subject.
It's like so many Trump voters, upon hearing the Sermon of the Mount, would go up to their pastors and ask, "Why are you quoting such horrible Leftist nonsense? Where did you get that from?"
(From the Mother): "I told him that God is everywhere and in all things; that everything is He; and then a great Force came down into me and I added, “Even when you descend into Hell, He is there too.”
Then everything stopped dead. Since then I’ve learned that it’s part of their teaching: that what is terrible in Hell isn’t so much the suffering, but that there is no God there; that it’s the only part of the creation in which there is no God — there is no God in Hell. And I asserted that He is there too.
***
It has always been so strange to me how readily the Christians can ignore their own Bible:
Psalm 139:
If I ascend into heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the morning, And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, Even there Your hand shall lead me, And Your right hand shall hold me. If I say, “Surely the darkness shall fall on me,” Even the night shall be light about me; Indeed, the darkness shall not hide from You, But the night shines as the day; The darkness and the light are both alike to You.
****
I used to find it amusing to talk to fundamentalist Christians when I lived in Greenville, SC (the home of many extreme Southern Baptists and other fundamentalists)
"Why," I would ask, "do you make God so far away?"
They would shuffle when I quoted one of Sri Aurobindo's favorite verses, the one Paul cited from the 3rd century BC Greek Poet, describing God as He "in whom we live and move and have our being."
And then they'd change the subject.
It's like so many Trump voters, upon hearing the Sermon of the Mount, would go up to their pastors and ask, "Why are you quoting such horrible Leftist nonsense? Where did you get that from?"