ABSTRACT
In my paper called "The True and the False God" (Appendix A), I try to differentiate between God in the way I have been speaking about the absolute, the infinite, and the popular idea of God as a figure who directs us and tells us what to do (visual aid: Intensifiers—see frontispiece). The seers who gave rise to the Upanishads understood what I call the true God is the way. The Chandogya Upanishad is one of the oldest. There is also a type of power of God that is quite different from that. There is a story that most people, certainly of a Christian education, will find familiar:
He got into the boat followed by his disciples. Without warning a storm broke out over the lake, so violent that the waves were breaking right over the boat but he was asleep. So they went to him and woke him saying, "Save us, Lord, we are going down!" He said to them, "Why are you so frightened, you men of little faith?" And with that he stood up and rebuked the winds and the sea, and all was calm again. The men were astounded and said, "Whatever kind of man is this? Even the winds and the sea obey him."
78I want to stress that in all the great religions there is a jewel of great price, but there are also elements that I believe are harmful. It is quite clear to me, for instance, that Jesus said some profound truths, but he also said things that I don't think have been helpful. Very often, when you hear people presenting a patient clinically, they say things like "And so the patient just obliterated it from their mind" or "They just smothered it" or "They sealed it over" or "They got rid of it." One of the things that I think is very important when you hear things like that is to ask, who got rid of it, and who sealed over, and what was it in the personality that did this. It is the God in the personality that gets rid of pain, suffering, guilt, sadness. I remember once making an interpretation that was helpful to someone, and it took me some time to realize that as soon as I said something that was helpful, she had taken the words and invested them with a sort of magical power. All her difficulties—her shyness—were gone forever, so, as it were, Jesus had stood up and rebuked the shyness and a great calm had settled on the Galilee of her mind. You have to ask yourself whenever you hear a clinical presentation, and you hear "such and such was sealed over" etc., what it was in the personality that did it. That's why I come back to the point I made before that there is no significance in pointing out omnipotence in someone unless one can show them that this God—and I prefer to call it God because that actually means something to people—this God in the personality gets rid of things, or gets rid of suffering, obliterates what has been said, etc.—particularly pain.