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Monistic Multiplicity There are three elemental cosmologies postulated by different religions. The monotheistic understanding that God is separate from the world and created humans in His own image, means that He is a very powerful being who looks a bit like us. He is our father in heaven. The creator is separate from, and transcendental to the creation. Indian cosmology has two main understandings that are both based on enlightened experience. Buddha, Osho and many enlightened Indians say existence is eternal and self-created. They are scientists of the inner world and stick to their own experience. They have attained the highest enlightened consciousness and dissolved in the ocean of existence - which they believe is made of eternal divine consciousness that is intrinsically intelligent. The divinity is only immanent. This pantheistic understanding means all of existence is God - and since Buddhas are the highest flowering of consciousness in existence - it is only aware of itself through them. Hence many Indian gurus are deified and worshipped as a god by their devotees. Their experience of conscious oneness is perfect but their logic and understanding of monistic multiplicity are both flawed. Advaita cosmology is monistic, there is only one force animating all existence. It shares Buddha's experience of conscious oneness, but agrees with science; the universe had a beginning and therefore must have an unknown source. That source cannot be existence because the intrinsic intelligence of the universe requires a source with a superior intelligence to design and create it. Existence is just that which exists. It is the universe plus the energy, astral, psychic realms and the Self or Being. The universe is created along with the rest of existence by the eternal, intelligent consciousness of the void of non-existence, or God. Only God, the beyond has the power and intelligence to design, create and sustain the universe and the rest of existence, which are made from the mysterious consciousness of God's ultimate reality. Advaita means 'not two'. Existence and its source, non-existence, are one indivisible consciousness with an infinite multiplicity of manifestations. This monistic multiplicity is irrefutable, either by reason or enlightened experience - and in fact, it rests on both. Monistic multiplicity means that God is both immanent and transcendental. He is simultaneously existence and its mysterious source. This insight relieves Buddhas of their promotion to god on Earth that is so common in India. Buddhas are the highest human consciousness, but their limited nervous systems can only accommodate a tiny drop of the ocean of intelligent awareness that is both the void of creation and all existence. 'God' is a beautiful word that has been polluted by millennia of dualistic monotheism and irrational dogma. It is time to redeem the word 'God' and reclaim it to mean: The eternal, intelligent awareness of the void, that is both all existence and its source. It is time to reclaim the word 'religion' from the plethora of orthodox beliefs that distort it and restore its true meaning of spiritual enquiry. And perhaps it is also time for new age seekers to transcend the beliefs they have collected that reflect a limited understanding of monistic multiplicity. As the sat yuga dawns we are moving towards a shared understanding that has the foundation for spiritual renewal and an holistic world religion of Unity for the Third Millennium. Monistic multiplicity accurately reflects the cosmic reality of one power animating an infinite number of phenomenal manifestations. Its rational, unifying embrace synthesises the mutually exclusive polarities of pantheism and monotheism. We no longer need to be limited by these outdated, dualistc cosmologies. God is simultaneously immanent and transcendental. He is love, intelligence, awareness and playfulness. Very soon His light will transform the world.     Maitreya   Maitreya is launching the second expanded edition of his 'Biography of a Buddha,' from which this excerpt is taken, by giving away a couple of thousand full format PDF ebook versions of the 220 page text. Anyone who would like to receive a free copy email: maitreyacentre@xtra.co.nz