The Suns of Poetry

For some, poetry aims highly at several things. As an art form it uses language in new and creative ways to express ideas and emotions; it creates its own vocabulary for expression of some of our deepest thoughts and feelings. The poet is, in the words of Indian teacher and mystic, Sri Aurobindo, the result of the harmonizing of
"five perennial powers: truth, beauty, joy, life and spirit." The one he terms, the "poet-seer" is someone who "sees differently, who thinks in another way... the poet shows us truth within its power of beauty, in its symbol or image, reveals it to us..."

Poets seek to illumine, to amplify or lift up in words, images and symbols in the way the visual artist does with his drawings or designs. For Aurobindo the term life carries further meaning than its base, scientific sense. In its use, Aurobindo means to signify "the life of feelings and passions. The inner life, which is infinite." Poets as seers and sages are gifted with the ability to perceive and elucidate upon those facets of living which many feel but can derive no words for meaning. The poet is much loved for the giving of words to otherwise unexpressed longings of ones' heart. Poetry then is the heart of the heart. Sri Aurobindo makes this clear when he writes about matters of truth, beauty and joy:

 Because Thou Art

Because Thou art All-beauty and All-bliss,

My soul blind and enamored yearns for Thee; 

It bears Thy mystic touch in all that is 

And thrills with the burden of that ecstasy. 

Behind all eyes I meet Thy secret gaze 

And in each voice I hear Thy magic tune: 

Thy sweetness haunts my heart through Nature's ways;

 Nowhere it beats now from Thy snare immune. 

It loves Thy body in all living things; 

Thy joy is there in every leaf and stone: 

The moments bring Thee on their fiery wings; 

Sight's endless artistry is Thou alone
Time voyages with Thee upon its prow
And all the future's passionate hope is Thou.

--Sri Aurobindo

The complete Works of Sri Aurobindo 


 

Nothing Special: Justice

"An appropriate and compassionate response does not come from the fight for justice..."  --Charlotte Joko Beck

Joko Beck in her book, Nothing Special, Living Zen, observes "When someone insists, 'I am never angry,' I am incredulous. Since anger, and its subsets, depression, anxiety, resentment, jealousy, gossip and backbiting and so on-- dominate our lives, we need to investigate the whole problem of anger with care... For the psychologically mature person, the ills and injustices of life are handled by counter-aggression, in which one makes an effort to eliminate the injustice and create justice. Often such efforts are dictatorial, full of anger and self-righteousness. In spiritual maturity, the opposite of injustice is not justice, but compassion... All anger is based upon judgements..."

The best answer to injustice is compassion, or love.  Joko Beck writes, "An appropriate and compassionate response does not come from the fight for justice, but from that radical dimension of practice that "passes all understanding," love.
As the Christ taught, "love your enemies," and Gandhi and Blessed Mother Teresea of Calcutta both knew, injustice is highlighted and resolved by means of love, of peaceful protest. It's not easy. We must go through the darkness, the pain and grief before coming to the lightness that will ultimately be our guide, and our justice.

"Let us not adopt some facile, narrowly psychological view of our lives. The radical dimension that I speak of demands everything that we are and have. Joy, not happiness, is its fruit."

Nothing Special: Promises Not Kept

"He who does not expect, has all things"

Charlotte Joko Beck writes, "Our human trouble arises from desire. Not all desires generate problems, however. There are two kinds of desires: demands, I have to have it, and preferences. Preferences are harmless, "they are what we would want to like to have,' Beck writes.

"Desire that demands to be satisfied is the problem. It's as if we feel that we're constantly thirsty, and to quench our thirst we try to attach a hose to a faucet in the wall of life. We keep thinking that from this or that faucet we will get the water we demand... We demand countless things of ourselves and the world; almost anything can be seen as desirable, a socket we can attach ourselves to, so that we can finally get the drink we believe we need... self-assured [or not], underneath it all we feel that there is something lacking.

We feel we have to fix our life, quench our thirst. We've got to get that connection, to hook up our hose to that faucet... The problem is that nothing actually works. 
We begin to discover that the promise we hold out to ourselves... is never kept... If we've been trying for years... to attach our hose... there comes a moment of profound discouragement... and it dawns on us that nothing can really fulfill our demands... 
That moment of despair is in fact a blessing, the real beginning... A strange thing [then] begins to happen when we let go of our expectations... 
Practice has to be a process of endless disappointment... [In] good sitting we must notice the promise that we wish to extract from other people and abandon the dream that they can quench our thirst."

Christianity refers to this experience as the dark night of the soul, the moment when one enters into union with that which is greater, and infinite love, though the gate may be narrow, the joys are great:

"Do to others whatever you would have them do to you. This is the law and the prophets.

Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate which is wide and the road broad, lead to destruction, and those who enter through it are many.

'How narrow the gate and constricted the road that leads to life. And those who find it are few."
--The Bible, Matthew chapter 7, verses 12-14

Spirit, Grace, Tantra and the Bliss of Identity

Joy is prayer--joy is strength--joy is love. --Saint Mother Teresa of Calcutta

Bliss of Identity

All nature is taught in radiant ways to move
All beings are in myself embraced
O fiery boundless heart of joy and love,
How are you beating in a mortal's breast!

It is your rapture flaming through my nerves
and my cells and atoms thrill with You;
My body your vessel is and only serves
As a living wine-cup of Your ecstasy.

I am a center of your golden light
And I its vast and vague circumference;
You are my soul great, luminous and white
And Yours, my mind and will, and glowing sense.

Your spirit's infinite breath I feel in me;
My life is a throb of your eternity. 

--Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Idea of Tantra 

When you are alone and in your own place, you are dancing for the god and identifying with it. This whole idea is basic to Tantra: to worship a god, you must become that god. No matter what you call the god or think it is, the god you worship is the god you are capable of becoming.
The power of a deity is that it personifies a power that is in Nature and in your nature. When you find that level, then you are in play. That is the work of art in general, because art is really worship.
 

--Joseph Campbell, Reflections on the Art of Living

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Does God Exist? 

Perceptible and yet not perceptible; invisible and yet powerful, real like the energy--charged air, wind, storm, as important for life as the air we breathe: this is how in ancient times people imagined the Spirit, and God's "invisible" workings... Spirit as understood in the Bible, means--as opposed to flesh, the force or power moving from God. An "invisible" force that is effective, powerful, creative, or destructive for life in judgement, in creation, in history, in Israel and later in the [Christian] Church. It comes upon one powerfully or gently, stirring up love, ecstasy, often producing extraordinary phenomenon, active in great minds of courage, of Moses, warriors, singers, prophets and prophetesses.
The Spirit is not--as the word itself might suggest--the spirit of mankind. This is the Spirit of God, who in the [oneness] Holy Spirit is the light of all creation and the world. He is not any sort of magic, supernatural aura, or magical being of an animistic kind. The Spirit is the One, the God himself. He is God close to mankind and the world... comprehending, bestowing, but not bestowable, free, not controllable; he is life giving love, power and force. A wind blowing through all of Creation by divine will, but not by any force."
He comes where he is willed and stays afar from where he is not, in a sort of Divine wisdom, the Spirit waits to be called.
 

--Hans Kung, Does God Exist?

 

Sadhana, the realization of life

"There is a bond of unity between our two eyes which makes them act in unison."  Sadhana; the Realization of Life by Rabindranath Tagore

Rabindranath Tagore, a Bengali poet, mystic and writer known for his elegant, lyrical writing style; he also is known for his Nobel Prize win for literature in 1913. Written in his philosophical prose style, Tagore's  book, Sadhana, the Realization of Life, addresses many aspects of the Self and the world. He writes for example, that opposites do not bring confusion; in reality they bring harmony. Rhythm can never be born of disharmony, or of  "the haphazard struggle of combat."

This principle is the chief mystery of all unities. Unity in Tagore's mind could be viewed as: the one which appears as the many. And while seeming to be opposite, it is the truth, a paradox of sorts. He writes of a great poem, as a compilation of most pleasing sounds, yet if one stops to hear the import of those sounds, something more emerges; 'the inner connects to the outer [meaning].'

In the following poem below Tagore writes a bit of this and other ideas further discussed in prose style in his book, Sadhana. The poem is 'a thing of beauty which transcends grammar, laws' and becomes unto itself.

I

By Rabindranath Tagore

I wonder if I know him
In whose speech is my voice,
In whose movement is my being,
Whose skill is in my lines,
Whose melody is in my songs
In joy and sorrow.
I thought he was chained within me,
Contained by tears and laughter,
Work and play.
I thought he was my very self
Coming to an end with my death.
Why then in a flood of joy do I feel him
In the sight and touch of my beloved?
This 'I' beyond self I found
On the shores of the shining sea.
Therefore I know
This 'I' is not imprisoned within my bounds.
Losing myself, I find him
Beyond the borders of time and space.
Through the Ages
I come to know his Shining Self
In the 'If ' of the seeker,
In the voice of the poet.
From the dark clouds pour the rains.
I sit and think:
Bearing so many forms, so many names,
I come down, crossing the threshold
Of countless births and deaths.
The Supreme undivided, complete in himself,
Embracing past and present,
Dwells in Man.
Within Him I shall find myself -
The 'I' that reaches everywhere.

Seeking Someone to Cover the Holes

"We find the courage to go on, even if it's only for one more breath."  --At Home in the Muddy Water --by Ezra Bayada

When practicing with relationship issues such as loneliness, Zen author, Ezra Bayada writes in his book, At Home In the Muddy Water, that we find the courage to go on, even if it's only for one more breath. As we stay with the loneliness, that hole of loneliness gradually heals. We learn [by experience] that inviting it in is far less painful than pushing it away.
He notes that for most of us, most of the time, we spend a lot of time thinking about what is happening to us. We just think; intellectual activity may obscure physical experiences such so that then, of course, we believe our thoughts are reality.

To the extent that there is suffering in our relationships, or to the extent that even the good in our relationships could become better, we need to work honestly with our blind spots and stuck places. Many experiences in day-to-day living challenge us, pushing us to our edges; it may be difficult to even remember the practice.
A voice in us activates thoughts such as: 'Hey, what about me, not fair, so much drama, tired of this', and so on.
With a spinning mind, separating our experiences from these notions is a tough sell. Learning to practice in the most difficult, the most trapped moment is also the moment we may realize the most, becoming the most joyful, make the most immediate decisions to reap the most benefit. There is joy and tranquility in every moment. Make it yours.

Soren Kierkegaard notes that 'perfect love' loves one intently, despite being very possibly the one, with whom we are mostly unhappy. In other words, working with our own reactions is the most perfect response to a loved one. 
Interactions with others vex us; what we fully want from others, is what they may not be able to give at a particular moment, and what we want most to give may just not be available to others.

It is often so difficult to give. If we [can] see that we're stuck in not wanting to give someone what they want, and if we're willing to work with the layers of emotion like anger and fear around our stuck condition, then in growing awareness it becomes a path to freedom.
Pushing beyond known edges may require intentional giving to increase our known self, and to face our fears. Less and less fear or anxiety comes to dictate our behavior, says Bayada, when we practice like this.

You Can't Go Home Again

"Simple persons live within the happiness of their inner world."--   Transformation  by R. Johnson

In most every spiritual tradition there is a sense of growing maturity, a ripening of the self into what some call satori, enlightenment or salvation, among other descriptions of this experience. Author and Jungian psychologist Robert Johnson discusses this in his book, Transformation.

He writes there are three levels of consciousness. They are universal the world over, yet in industrialized societies the progression of these experiences is made all the more difficult by our very advances in book learning and complex societies. The level of all mankind, endowed to each of us by nature is what he describes as 'simple consciousness,' followed by 'complex consciousness,' the "usual state of educated Western man, and an 'enlightened' state of consciousness, known only to a very few individuals."

Enlightenment, Johnson reckons, comes to very few men only after much work and training by highly motivated individuals. He recounts a simple story to illustrate these notions: 'the simple man comes home in the evening wondering what's for dinner; the complex man comes home pondering the imponderables of fate, and the enlightened man comes home wondering what's for dinner.
"Simple man and enlightened man have much in common, including a direct, uncomplicated view of life, and so they react in similar ways."

The difference between them is that the enlightened are conscious of their condition in ways that simple persons are not. Complex persons, however, are often engaged with worry and often live lives marked by anxiety.
Writing Walden Pond, 19th century author Henry David Thoreau writes about his experiences and those of others he knows. He chronicles the complex, Western man's attempt to regain a sense of simplicity in their life.
Gandhi urged India in an earlier era to retain its domestic simplicity; his urgings were largely ignored. Today when one travels to India we are often aware of the tremendous poverty, illness and wants of her citizens. All true. However alongside of these ills is a clear and abundant sense of joyfulness. There is a happiness among large numbers of Indians in their daily lives. Johnson writes of his experiences there, "I was witnessing the miracle of simple man finding happiness in a rich, inner world, not in the pursuit of some desired goal.

Simple persons live within this happiness of their inner world, no matter what the exterior circumstance may be. Those of enlightened conscious also know this and live with an attitude of happiness which bridges their inner world with objective facts, a connection the Simple person does not or is unable to make.
Many a Hindu learns that the highest worship is to simply be happy. On the other hand, complex persons often live in their sense of anxiety and dread, trapped between nostalgia and anticipation of what may come, a fate that mostly eludes ones' grasp.
Despite this, complex consciousness is so highly valued by Westerners that nothing is thought to be too great or expensive in a bid "to gain freedom, self-determination and choices," wrought by his expanded perception writes Johnson.

Traditional Indian society, he observes, is based "on a caste system that allows only a few superior individuals," Brahmins, the chief caste to gain consciousness. The lower castes are less concerned with enlightened minds or methods. This keeps the vast majority of Indians in a state of their natural given, simple consciousness.
For once on the path to enlightenment, many will make significant gains before meeting frustration warned Carl Jung, Johnson's mentor.

Jung noted that once one has left the innate state of simple consciousness for more complex states, one can no longer turn around to retrace the steps of the path from where one has come. Quite simply, he believed that on the path to consciousness, Complex persons may meet with stresses and frustration from which they cannot retire. In other words, Jung believed, one can't just go home again to an earlier simplicity and peace you once knew, in recognition of a certain loss of innocence.

The Most Personal Words

"Words become more personal the more emotional they are."  The Path to Love by Deepak Chopra

In loving practice, the "most valuable things you can learn about yourself  is what you mean by the words, 'I love you'." The phrase is complex because it involves you, says Chopra.  
This phrase has both past and present contained within; it is filled with self-expectation, and expectations for others. 
Some of these may be painful. In reflecting on the meaning of the phrase, it is both helpful and creative to actually 'brain storm' and write down words which you freely associate with 'I love you.' Chopra then asks his reader to reflect on the type of words and person(s) associated with them who surface in your unique list; he interprets for his reader.

Bringing the conversation back to the basis in Dharma, there exists a deep mystery of the 'soul,' one which is not easily defined or perceived. For in love, there is the 'blending' of soul, two making something which one is not alone. This creation forms uniquely between the two. What began as 'me' is now 'us' or 'we.'
The realization of an 'us' or a 'we' forms "the essence of surrender." Being in Dharma makes 'us' or 'we,' a possible reality by healing a sense of separation. There is a sense of a unified spirit acting in the best interests of the Oneness. This is not just rhetoric.
When you come from love, unity allows a clear view of another's viewpoint. You understand the one who is not exactly your self, and not yet so very different from you.

There is another meaning to surrender. It is the falling into what you deeply desire. The spirit "frames it as, 'I see that you need me." It is the process that is essential; the focus is just that moment to moment experience. The outcome is less critical. 
 "Spirit has no such ulterior motives. It acknowledges the other person's need, but it neither takes responsibility for that need nor denies it."
It accepts, even if you may not immediately understand. So the need that we most have is to be seen (known, recognized), to be invited, and to be welcome in our own daily life as we move through our dharma. The absence of these things is the source of much of alienation in modern life. Surrendering in the spirit of service gives "rise to joy."

All great religious traditions point to the Way, the spiritual path by that tradition. Often these ways are counter-cultural; they may be radical or culturally subversive. They ask for risk, for forward movement into places initially mysterious or even frightening; for outcomes which we cannot initially foresee. They may even seem to lead to death of a certain kind.
The "Vedas teach that human beings are capable of personal evolution." So Kali may not actually be Kali, nor Lord Siva, Siva.
When we are confused, we are out of dharma; if we refuse synchronicity, our path loses focus; we temporally lose our way. Everything happens in an ordered fashion. The way of dharma sees to that.

 Chopra continues his point. He writes that "love and attachment aren't the same thing...Isn't it love when you share your world with someone else? ...be exclusive in this way?
The answer is surprising, the deeper you  look, the more you will see love and attachment are not the same thing." Love, he says allows freedom of the Beloved to be unlike you.
Attachment seeks conformity; Love imposes no particular demands.
Attachment expresses overwhelmingly an 'urge to merge.' Love expands and includes; attachment wishes to exclude all others. It is possessive; it's jealous.
"The seduction of attachment is a feeling of security from the outside world." However that may be what deadens and insulates us.
But for some, it also prompts a cloying feeling, a paradox which jump-starts one, propelling them back into life itself.

In His Spirit

"I am the vine; you are the branches."   --John15:5

There are many aspects of the Holy Spirit, as it is known in the Christian world. Its activity while not limited to Christians, encompasses the whole of Creation; we learn of its presence and activities from the Gospels. More importantly we learn about its work from the experiences of our own lives.
 It's popular to think of luck, fortune or mere intuition as the active agents in one's world. And they are. But what if these activities are orchestrated, at least some times, by an over-arching energy, a spirit? What might that be like?

With the coming of the Spirit, there dawns a new thought in the world, a new way; while the Spirit, the angels and the sages were well known to Judaism, it is Christianity that carries it further, banking on the Spirit as part of a tri-une god. The way of the Christ for early Christians was their dawning of what today we think of as "Judeo-Christian" spirituality, even mystical experience.
Following the Christ in the Spirit does not mean conforming to a rigid code of behavior or thought; indeed the Spirit has come to set us and all captives free. Following in the Spirit does not mean that we are now without fault; indeed the Spirit brings forgiveness. Following in the Spirit does not mean denying our unique characteristics; indeed the Creator has already seen to that in forming us to be the good that we are.

Then what is this Spirit about? Jesuit theologian Richard Hauser writes in his classic introduction to the Holy Spirit, In His Spirit, that living under the influence of the Spirit, "[is] being forever concerned with 'building the Kingdom." From stories in the Bible one gets the impression that the Christ and those who follow, the disciples, are on the move.
They do not rest; such is their energy, their spirit and their joy at the realization of the existence of a heaven on earth. "Such is the Spirit's presence in the Christ and in the community that they are propelled forward in their work."

In this activity, they discover and experience the peace, joy and love rained down upon them by the Spirit, the Paraclete. This peacefulness, loving, kind nature is brought forward by the community. "In our day [when] Christians are becoming more and more conscious of responsibility for transforming the unjust structures of our societies through active involvement with society..."
 The Holy Spirit is our sanctifier. We are blessed and strengthened by its action, energized in our activity, in our prayer.

"The Spirit too comes to help us in our weakness. For when we cannot choose words in order to pray, the Spirit himself expresses our plea …" Romans 8

"The Father knows what you need before you ask him." Matthew 6


As we grow into a life in the Spirit, a life in its love, over time we may find greater ease in the expression of our innate self; the Spirit operates at the deepest levels of our beings. Its activity flows from the center of our daily lives because we are both bodies and spirits.
Thomas Merton, Christian mystic, insists that prayer is an expression of our entire being; it is rooted in life, and flows from life. In fact, in his view, meditation has no point and no reality unless it 's firmly rooted in life.

There are two principal ways the Spirit moves, easily recognized: first in times of happiness and consolations; secondly when we feel a quiet, inner peace, aware that God is with us; that we are loved wholly. This movement by the Spirit is unaccompanied by much intellectual activity.There is a quiet, a resting; words are less necessary as we come to know a person.
Good friends can enjoy each other's company and say very little. They know something of the heart of the other. The Spirit is many in its works.

Joy, the Radical Dimension

"There is no peace without justice" --Pope John Paul II

Joko Beck in her book, Nothing Special, Living Zen, observes "When someone insists, 'I am never angry,' I am incredulous. Since anger, and its subsets, depression, anxiety, resentment, jealousy, gossip and backbiting and so on-- dominate our lives, we need to investigate the whole question of anger with care... For the psychologically mature person, the ills and injustices of life are handled by counter-aggression, in which one makes an effort to eliminate the injustice and create justice. Often such efforts are dictatorial, full of anger and self-righteousness. In spiritual maturity, the opposite of injustice is not justice, but compassion... All anger is based upon judgments..."

The best answer to injustice is compassion, or love. Joko Beck writes, "An appropriate and compassionate response does not come from the fight for justice, but from that radical dimension of practice that "passes all understanding;" some call it love. As Christ taught, "love your enemies," Gandhi and Blessed Mother Teresea of Calcutta both knew, injustice is highlighted and resolved by means of love, of peaceful protest. It's not easy. We must go through the darkness, the pain and grief before coming to the lightness that will ultimately be our guide, and our justice.
"Let us not adopt some facile, narrowly psychological view of our lives. The radical dimension that I speak of demands everything that we are and have. Joy, not happiness, is its fruit." Radical because it is not what the world expects; radical because we may consciously and actively choose it.

Sadhana, the Realization of Beauty

"A thing is only completely our own when it is a thing of joy." Sadhana by R. Tagore

Investigating further into the work of Rabindranath Tagore, he writes in his book, Sadhana several essays on different topics, combined together to create the whole of harmony as he sees it. The realization of beauty, of beauty-harmony, as he describes, is in terms of the realization of what is real.
"The greater part of this world is to us as if it were nothing... but we cannot allow it to remain so... Things in which we do not take joy are either a burden upon our minds to be got rid of at any cost, or they are useful and therefore in temporary and partial relation to us, becoming burdensome when their utility is lost. Or they are are like wandering vagabonds, loitering for a moment on the outskirts of our recognition and then passing on."
But, writes Tagore, "the entire world is given to us," and our final meaning and powers are taken from a patrimony, if you will."
 What is the function of beauty in the process of realization of the self into this world? It is this question which the author takes on here. Tagore muses that if beauty is present to separate light and shadow, or ugliness and other, then "we would have to admit that this sense of beauty creates a dissension in our universe, and sets up a wall of hindrance."

While disagreeing with this understanding of beauty, Tagore writes that the comprehending of beauty is  unexplored territory, as he sees it. Philosophers have come up with discourse as to its nature, and science writes of issues affecting beauty, but its reality remains wide open for exploration.
Truth, he writes, is everywhere. And "beauty is omnipresent." Beauty often comes to us as a smack, awakening consciousness suddenly and definitely. It then acquires its urgency, "by the object of the contrast." It first rends us with its discords. "But as our acquaintance ripens, the apparent discords are resolved into modulations of rhythm."

At first "we detach beauty from its surroundings, we hold it apart from the rest," but in the end we recognize its harmony with the rest. Appealing finally to our hearts, beauty enters into conscious relationship with us; it becomes us and becomes our joy. Our hearts skip a beat as we apprehend that which is in the world, beautiful, joyful, our very own. Beauty, says Tagore, does not exist without Truth. All beauty is some form of Truth.

"Last night I stood alone in the silence which pervaded the darkness, I stood alone and heard the voice of the singer of eternal melodies. When I went to sleep, I closed my eyes with this last thought in my mind, that even when I remain unconscious, in slumber, the dance of life will still go on in the hushed arena of my sleeping body, keeping step with the stars. The heart will throb, the blood will leap in the veins and the millions of living atoms in my body will vibrate in tune with the note of the harp-string that thrills at the touch of the master."

-- Rabindranath Tagore

Divine Pathos

"The human mind is the meeting point of mind and mystery, of reason and trascendence." --Between God and Man by A.J Heschel and F.A,. Rothchild

It has been written of the Jewish theologian Abraham Joshua Heschel that he is 'anti-rational' and 'mystical' owing to his origins as a child of Jewish Hasidism. He is indeed often 'guilty' of both. To the mind of Heshel the beauty and awe of the world is both dependent and the result of the unknowable, the mysterious reality that the Torah names as G-d. To biblical Man, the world appears not as an intellectual abstraction, a thought but as a total happening. It is the reality of the Jewish world that the Lord who creates the heaven and the earth and all contained within should also lend to his creation a sense of both historical and ultimate reality. This he does and also imparts free will to his creations. Thus the struggle between the Creator and creation is set.

Between G-d and Man, writes Heshel, is not a simple presumption of G-d's existence but a "going beyond self-consciousness and questioning of the self and all its congitive pretensions... the ultimate [dimension] comes first, and our reasoning about Him second... Just as there is no thinking about the world without the premise of  the reality of the world, there can be no thinking about G-d with out the premise of  the realness of G-d..."

In the conception of authors Heschel and Rothchild there is in fact a 'Divine Pathos' in the relation between G-d and man. The book, Between G-d and Man, discusses the west, in religion and through cultures, that it is assumed  man is simply a subject and G-d is the object; that our spiritual search for Him, He Who Is, constitutes a means and an end. For Heshel, it is simply the opposite: it is G-d who seeks his Beloved, his own creation, who seeks to engage them in the work of creation. He covenants with them and calls them to the task. The pathos of G-d then in this way of thinking, is that He seeks, exhorts and cultivates holiness in the day to day lives of mankind. G-d cares ultimately.

This pathos does not arise out of nothingness. It is a reaction to the behavior of man which leads him fields away from the holiness of G-d, the ultimate unity, the one of all, which he intends. The divine intends action conceived in free will for the freedom of creation; from the slavery of self-centeredness and growth of the awareness that man while ineluctably placed within the view of of the divine, from which sight is inescapable. Creation  is also the object of unmeasured care and concern for its well being. Man may then experience a possibility of objective reality that is expressed in the unending joy of a co-creator. There creates the 'mystical union.'