Pantheism

Perhaps the most famous passage from the Upanashids, which are Hindu religious and poetic works, runs like this:

Though you do not see Brahman in this body, he is indeed here. That which is the subtle essence - in that have all things their existence. That is the truth. That is the Self. And that, Svetaketu, THAT ART THOU.
- Chandogya Upanashid

This is the essence of pantheism - that God is not only everywhere, but everything. We are not separate from God; this is an illusion. Everything is one thing, and that one thing is God - not a personal God, since personality is illusory, but a Cosmic All.

Alternatively, there is what might be called evolutionary pantheism, where everything is (perhaps through a process of reincarnation) becoming God. Regardless, nothing could be more different than the Hebrew view of a personal God totally distinct from a creation which derives its existence - its original existence, and its existence from moment to moment - from him.

A lot of texts on meditation, from both Eastern and Western traditions, talk about the end of meditation being union with God, exaltation to the Divine, absorption in the Cosmic All.

Hence, in the Zen-like Hindu text Centreing, published in the collection Zen Flesh, Zen Bones, Devi asks her consort Shiva:

What is this life beyond form pervading forms?
How may we enter it fully, above space and time, names and forms?

He replies:

...Imagine spirit simultaneously within and around you until the entire universe spiritualises.
Kind Devi, enter etheric presence pervading far above and below your form....
Meditate on the make-believe world as burning to ashes, and become being above human....
Feel yourself as pervading all directions, far, near....
In truth forms are inseparate. Inseparate are omnipresent being and your own form. Realize each as made of this consciousness.
Toss attachment for body aside, realising I am everywhere....
Feel the consciousness of each person as your own consciousness. So, leaving aside concern for self, become each being....
Believe omniscient, omnipotent, pervading....
This consciousness exists as each being, and nothing else exists....
This consciousness is the spirit of guidance of each one. Be this one....

These are the most pantheistic of 112 replies to Devi's question. I will quote others, approvingly, in the Journey Upward (they have to do with entering fully into the experience of the senses).

From a Christian perspective, I consider pantheism a fundamental error, perhaps the fundamental error of Eastern thought. The words of many mystics (including Christian mystics) about their experience of oneness with the Cosmos and/or with God notwithstanding, I take as foundational the concept that differentiated identity is not an illusion, but real. We are really distinct from each other, from God, from other entities in the universe, and from the universe itself. Indeed, we are by nature more separated, more alienated, than we like to admit.

Having said that, a feeling, or experience, of profound connectedness is not necessarily deceptive. Everything really is connected, and it is connected by, and with, God; but the God it is connected by, and with, is a personal God, distinct from creation, not an all-pervading Cosmic Consciousness or the simple sum of everything that is.

Just so you know where I'm coming from.

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