My first book, “God’s Whisper, Creation’s Thunder,” is back in print, albeit in another language. As I noted on my other blog yesterday, New Zealander Matthias Schneider-Marfels, a.k.a. Matt, translated my revision of the book into German.
We’ve managed to publish it through my own imprint, Adrasteia Publishing, and it’s now available on Amazon USA and Amazon Germany. Matt and I put a lot of work into the book. It’s satisfying to see it in print for several reasons, not least of which is that “Wenn Gott flüstert, donnert es in der Schöpfung” is a reflection of transformations I’ve been experiencing.
Compared to the original, this book is shorter, simpler, and less preachy. So am I now, which I’m glad about, though as I said in “Oh God, I’m shrinking!” I could do without the shorter bit.
A few years ago I decided to rewrite “God’s Whisper, Creation’s Thunder” because I could barely stand to read some parts of it. During the ten years since it was published by Threshold Books I’ve become more skeptical of the claim that some people have attained the status of being God in Human Form, or GIHF.
There may be GIHFs around. There may not. I don’t know. I do know that I’m not a GIHF, or it wouldn’t have taken me so long to find the Thai food leftovers in the refrigerator half an hour ago. And I’m not aware of any solid evidence that anyone else has a legitimate claim to the title of God in Human Form either.
So I took out all mention of “perfect masters” (or gurus). I put more emphasis on how the experiment of contemplative meditation can be used to test the hypothesis that the essence of us, consciousness, also is the essence of the cosmos. This makes scientific sense, since science theorizes that unity is a hallmark of ultimate reality. One Theory of Everything is being sought, not several.
Matt told me that he missed some of the material that I took out of the book. I’m sure other fans of the original will too if they read the revision (the English version of which I’m planning to publish fairly soon). I hewed pretty much to the Radha Soami Satsang Beas party line at the time I wrote “God’s Whisper, Creation’s Thunder” and that came through in some over-the-top preachiness.
I still firmly believe in the potential of meditation as a means of exploring whatever domains of consciousness may lie beyond our current everyday experience of waking, dreaming, and deep sleep. To my mind mysticism truly can be a spiritual science if it is purged of religious elements.
I’ve been similarly trying to purge my own spiritual practice of religious ritual, dogma, and blind faith. I hope that one day I’m able to fully practice what I preach (in a low-key scientific sense) in “Wenn Gott flüstert, donnert es in der Schöpfung.”
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