Harry Terhanian.com

Better the blind of eye than the blind of heart
For knowing one’s limits is wisdom’s start
The first can learn the value of truth
The second are ignorant right from birth

The blind of heart chose not to see
The value of spirituality
Their pride in self has no fixed boundary
They see not God nor pray for His mercy

You can wake up a man asleep
But pretenders keep eyes closed to count sheep
Thus ignorance comes from an act of will
That blinds the heart to God’s infinite skill

gahdounee kahkuh tegh eh uhseen, gaddoun
hoghov shoud dzahdzgetch

hahsguhtzogheen mehg, chee hahsgahtzogheen hahzahr ou mehg

For one person who understands, there are a thousand and one that don’t.

Ov vocheench kedeh, ahn amehn sooud pani guh havadah

I was invited to dinner by a friend. At the dinner table, my friend’s 10 year old daughter pointed out the window and said she had a friend named Allison who lived in the next house. She then said that Allison did not believe in God. Allison pointed out to her that “If God created everything, then who created God?” Allison’s mother had explained the nonexistence of God to her daughter by giving this statement. This statement assumes that everything that exists has a cause and we can never determine an ultimate cause because there is an unending cycle of cause and effect. If we say everything has a cause, then even God must have a cause, which nullifies God as the ultimate cause. Consider the following as an answer to Allison.

If someone has lived their entire life in a dark room, it is impossible to describe to them in tangible terms what light is. They must come out of the darkness and experience light to understand how it is different than darkness. Darkness being the total absence of light is a function of light. Light is not a function of darkness. The darkness depends on the light, but the light does not depend on the darkness. The cause and effect that we experience is like the darkness which is a function of something that is not caused by it. The light is not caused by the darkness, rather the darkness is caused by the light. There is an ultimate cause which is causeless and totally independent of everything else. The light is totally independent of the darkness and the ultimate cause is not subject to cause and effect.

The ultimate cause is eternal and not limited by time and space. Unless one frees themselves from a limited concept of time and space, it is impossible to understand the existence of an ultimate cause from which everything else emanates. This is the definition of God.

Allison’s mother, an atheist, has willfully denied herself the opportunity to experience what is beyond the cause and effect of the material world. She has become a prisoner of her self-imposed limited time/space concept. Like a frog in a well that hears about the expansive ocean, but cannot imagine how great the ocean is.The frog in the well can only measure things in terms of its own limited well. Although we see everyday the incredible power of God by observing His creation, atheists deny that there is a person behind the power. For example in a small city of 500,000 people there are hundreds and sometimes thousands of people involved in the city government. There are people involved in managing the police department, fire, electricity, social services, prison, garbage collection, taxes, etc. Above all these departments there is a city council and a mayor. All these people are necessary to manage a city. Whenever there is organization, there are organizers. An atheist will accept that a small city has organizers but will reject the notion that the same applies for the universe. This is an illogical conclusion not based on fact but on prejudice stemming from a willful limiting of one’s time/space concept like the frog in the well. Cause and effect are operating on the temporary bodies of living beings. The material body is like the well of the frog. However, in the spiritual world all beings and their bodies exist eternally without deterioration,therefore,there is only an ultimate cause, who is God, and the effect continues eternally without cessation. Continual cause and effect exists in the material world because all material bodies are temporary and subject to destruction. The material world and material energy are not subject to destruction,yet the material energy is sometimes manifest and sometimes non-manifest. This bewilders all uneducated observers who become confused by an unending progression of causes and effects. Only when we experience our existence as an eternal soul independent from a temporary material body do we begin to understand that there is an ultimate cause of all causes that is not subject to deterioration ( God is eternally present) and has no cause. Because we are limited we tend to think everything else is limited. For example, we perspire a small amount of liquid sweat. However, when God sweats, He creates oceans and rivers. This is unimaginable for our limited mindset. We cannot approach the subject of God without accepting that He has unlimited powers in stark contrast to our limited abilities. We are limited, He is unlimited. Because we exist like a frog in a well, when we hear about God’s expansive powers, we try to measure them in terms of our limited existence and fail utterly. Little Allison has been pulled into the well of her mother’s limited existence and although she can see God’s expansive energies, she cannot understand God’s existence due to the hamstrings of her mother’s tunnel vision.