Everyone talks about God. I knew a buddha who said: "god, gods, devas, asuras, ghosts, spirits, souls... all superstitions". What kind of insight makes him think so? We have another master, Thich Nhat Hanh who said: "I think that God is everything. Suddenly, God is not an idea or a notion. God is very real." Can the buddhas disagree? That's not possible. One of them is not a buddha, or both of them are not buddhas. However, what is the final conclusion of truly awakened ones? Is there the God? Who is the God? I really want to know, because this question is hunting me for a long time. I am in great doubt. Don't make me sad with affirmation, negation, double affirmation and double negation concurrently. Peace!

Why is it so?

Hi Oliver,

Ignosticism has a good angle on this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignosticism

"God is everything" is pantheism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantheism 

All the debate seems to add strength to an ignostic view.

So you think buddhists mostly find God irrelevant. Why?

Hi,

I can't speak for buddhists and don't consider myself one. My understanding is that one of the fundamental insights of the Buddha is that there is no permanent self, i.e. no soul, spirit etc. Another fundamental insight is "dependent origination" which does not leave "room" for something like a christian god.

From an ignostic point of view you would need to define "god" before your question becomes a relevant question.

Awesome. That's what I was looking for. How about Krishna?

I'm not sure you are going to find a satisfactory rational answer. One way of thinking about this: when you believe something to be true you typically have some evidence and you have a view/perspective within which the evidence is convincing. For example if one person believes in evolution and another in creationism then it is unlikely either will be able to find evidence that can convince the other. Both may however change their view and then the evidence from the other person does become convincing.

Buddhism provides a method for changing one's view/perspective. Meditation is a big (but not the only) part of that process. It seems that people come to a deep belief in dependent origination when following the Buddha's eightfold path.

Some rational explanation can be useful to help one start exploring. As we don't have the time to explore every mystic's claims. To begin with I thought of dependent origination as applying the principles of causality (cause and effect) and reductionism (dissecting experience into various components) to psychology from a 1st person perspective. It seemed close to the scientific method but looking "in" whereas science looks "out".

More less in line with what others have said - I have always felt that the Buddha said there is not a God because he was rejecting the concept, and the beliefs it creates. It was a rejection of all those Hindu deities, and by extension, the Chrisitian gaseous invertabrate of astronimical heft. At the same time, there appears to be an indirect acknowledgement of a voidless void, a nothing that is no-thing, a sort of consciousness without an object. The uncreated, deathless, etc.

If you are following the eightfold path, most likely you were already told from the beginning to look for and believe in dependent origination.  Just like in some religions people are told they will speak in tongues and then, for many, that very same thing does happen to them!   Prior belief has a strong influence on experiences  ;-P  How do you now what you experience is not just because that was what you were told to look for? 
-Eva

That's why it is of critical importance to not believe, but to take things without prior contempt or acceptance, and test them. And I've noticed that many people resist this, and it becomes a pressure upon others to simply accept what is taught, handed down, etc. I know in one of my first posts i expressed doubt about something on the path, and was told that doubt was a problem, an hindrance, and that it would lead to a lack of passion that would eventually lead me away from this forum, and this path.

Wow, huh?

I think a rigid doubt, a hardened skepticism is a hindrance, for sure. But to simply have doubt, and want to test things is healthy and neccesary. As we all know, the Buddha said as much.

DO, as with the three perceptions/marks/characteristics, the eightfold path, among others, can be tested and verified for one's self. But no one should ever take someone else's word for that. I feel if we don't find these things for ourself, by way of our own experience, then these things aren't as meaningful, and the realizations they might bring, would be shallow.

Hi Eva,

Prior to that sentence I wrote "Buddhism provides a method for changing one's view/perspective." I see beliefs as being true within a view/perspective. Hopefully that clarifies.

The best description or idea of what God is (or points to) that I have found so far is that "God is a personification of reality" (Rev. Michael Dowd said it on BATGAP). Buddha seems to have been averse to the idea of external gods (ie: personifications) for a good reason, that it would hinder your enlightenement process and substitute internal inquiry for external devotion.

My own personal experience, which was my original awakening that destroyed the atheist persona, is that I am god. Not that this body/mind system or the previous persona is, but that I AM. Perhaps a better way to describe it is that God is me, and that "I" don't exist (it's just a figment of divine imagination, as Junpo Denis Kelly puts it). In this context there's no difference between God, the universe, the sum of existence and non-existence. I guess you could call it the non-dual recognition, that I AM everything, and that this everything is seemless.

Seems to be a conflict going on in the system... interesting. Here's how it comes out:

It's not possible to be in a state outside of divine union, because that is all there is. This body/mind system is however not experiencing the full extent of that yet due to remaining blockages in the energy system as well as some contractions in the physical body.