Our notions of divinity come from the insane, or so some commentators such as Osho would have it. I tend to agree since most of these notions seem to be nothing more than inversions of our natural tendencies. So we should be meek instead of assertive, caring instead of indifferent, asexual instead of the sexual monsters we are, moderate in appetite instead of rapacious, patient, and long suffering instead of impatient and quick to modify circumstances that are unpleasant. It would almost seem as though the religious and spiritual leaders have simply observed our default behaviors and decreed that the opposites are what we should aspire to. In this way, they could easily boast superiority as we all fought against our natural tendencies.
Anyone familiar with Nietzsche will know that he was having none of this. He questioned the very notion that we could in some way “improve” ourselves as the priests and holy men claimed – the very people Osho called the insane. Nietzsche also claimed that what we call morality is nothing more than the creation of perverted behaviors promoted by the weak in society, behaviors such as charity, meekness, humility, patience, moderation, and so on.
This fundamentally flawed habit of looking at the world and saying that it should be other than it is is the main weapon of the resentful and hateful. In this way, they try to punish and impose their own twisted regimes on others. In the words of Spinoza:
He who can criticize the weakness of the human mind more eloquently or more shrilly is regarded as almost divinely inspired.
Spinoza
Well, let’s call it out for what our notions of divinity and morality are: they are the bitter rantings of the weak. If we can admit this then we can look at life with unbiased eyes and state clearly what is divine.
Hatred must be divine. We find it everywhere in the life of mankind and that of animals. It is a natural response to the competition for resources and the simple rule that if I am stronger you are weaker. The absurd must also be divine because all life, and particularly human life, is absurd in the extreme. To strive and suffer knowing all the time that the whole project is futile must qualify as the ultimate absurdity – and yet that absurdity can be seen as something truly delightful. Pain must also be divine, both physical and emotional. The whole of life is driven by pain, with pleasure being nothing more than temporary relief from pain. And so the analysis could continue to include the divinity of meaninglessness, amorality, ignorance, irrationality, caprice, despair – and so on.
If we could accept life as being the manifestation of divinity, with no notion of its unsatisfactoriness and no desire to change it, so our eyes would be opened to the nature of divinity and its magnificent awfulness.