Pantheism and panentheism—respectively the philosophical belief that self/cosmos is God and that self/cosmos is in God—bear a fatal flaw and hidden danger: the deifying aggrandizement of self and nature that conceals pride and ego, and a solipsism (i.e. reduction of complex reality into simplistic introverted idealism) that fails to adequately account for the existence of evil and suffering. The apologetic of illusion (maya) or some similar concept is assumed.
Many Asian spiritual systems espouse either pantheism or panentheism, for example Buddhist Tantra, Hindu Advaita Vedanta, Yoga, and Kashmir Saivism. Modern teachings of the same, particularly in the western world, may blend these ideas with psychological terminology and give an impression of intellectual sophistication.
While innovative and refreshing for many, the fundamental belief in pantheism or panentheism remains uninterrogated. A veneer of empiricism traceable to mystical experience during meditation is often overlaid on the ideology pantheism and panentheism. This creates the mistaken impression that the underlying pantheistic or panentheistic cosmology is sound when in fact interpretation is here conflated with experience, ontology with phenomenology. And this happens implicitly and likely unconsciously, so much so that idea is mistaken for reality.
The idea “I am God” or “I am part of a bigger-than-me God” may sound comforting and empowering but may end up actually bolstering the ego, now exponentially enlarged, rather than humbling and dissolving it. Surrendering that is so much a part of true spirituality gets lost on the way. God becomes a thing to be appropriated and controlled by ego.
That said, the experience of infinitude of pure “I am” imbued with qualities of empty transparency, immediacy, and bliss is in itself not a problem. In fact, it can be liberating of sorts. The problem lies in the self-making and God-making complex of clinging, grasping, and identity formation.
Can we learn to experience the unbound experiencing in finite experience without making it into something or someone more than what it really is? I pray and hope so. Soli deo gloria.
