God On A Chalkboard?

Dictionary.com defines ism as “a distinctive doctrine, theory, system, or practice:
This is the age of isms."

It sure as hell ism.

People often ask me if I believe in God, or they may ask what religious belief or philosophy I follow or observe. If pressed, I would say that I am a Pantheist; regardless of how different or diverse things appear, it seems obvious to me that everything arises from One. However, I loathe labels and prefer not to place an identifying stamp on anything which is continually evolving, including myself. 

Life is dynamic. Words and names are static. They are used as tools, so to speak, to define or describe that which is, but they fall pitifully short in that regard. To put a static label on something that is constantly changing is to deny its true nature.

Then we have that ism suffix; a suffix which somehow reduces every such word to a relatively insignificant belief or theory, due to the overabundance of those so-described philosophies. Pantheism finds its place alongside panentheism, pandeism, monotheism, monodeism, monism, deism, nondualism, dualism, agnosticism, atheism, et cetera ad nauseamism.

Words are a problem. We get so lost in them and so easily bamboozled by them.

Gurus, mystics, spiritualists, and the like must use words in any attempt to reveal Truth to their readers and listeners. But words can only represent the Ultimate Reality or Truth. They can never, ever reveal it; just as they can never truly describe the ever changing you.

The mystic Theoron Felson said, "There is nothing wrong with asking "What is God?" or "What is the meaning of life?" — go ahead and ask. Humans, by their very nature, want answers to all of life’s mysteries. The problem lies in formulating a satisfactory response through the use of language, which is little more than an expression of the limited egocentric mind."

One can dissect and analyze virtually any subject to the point of exhaustion, and still not come up with a definitive conclusion. This is particularly true in philosophy and spirituality. When one gets to that unfathomable subject of the Silent Source, the Eternal, or God if you will, then all the world's available data and words fail miserably. 

A Wikipedia article about the great philosopher Alan Watts, says in part:

His lectures and books gave Watts far-reaching influence on the American intelligentsia of the 1950s-1970s, but Watts was often seen as an outsider in academia. When questioned sharply by students during his talk at U.C. Santa Cruz in 1970, Watts responded that he was not an academic philosopher, but rather "a philosophical entertainer."

What has academia to do with spirituality?  In what manner would these questions — however “sharply” posed — have influenced the musings of a mystic such as Mr. Watts? (I've joked that many of these students likely wouldn't have known a sutra from a suture, or a satra from a Sinatra.)

There seems to be an erroneous assumption that through analytical thought, intense study, investigation, scrutiny, and dissection, we can find the Source. But the Truth has never been and never will be found through a series of chalkboard equations pored over by the world’s greatest physicists. Nor will colossal volumes of intelligent discourse from the most brilliant minds bring any seeker closer to the Way.

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Joshu asked the teacher Nansen, "What is the True Way?"
Nansen answered, "Every way is the True Way."
Joshu asked, "Can I study it?"
Nansen answered, "The more you study, the further from the Way."
Joshu asked, "If I don't study it, how can I know it?"
Nansen answered, "The Way does not belong to things seen: nor to things unseen. It does not belong to things known: nor to things unknown. Do not seek it, study it, or name it. To find yourself on it, open yourself as wide as the sky."

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A master was asked the question, "What is the Way?" by a curious monk.
"It is right before your eyes," said the master.
"Why do I not see it for myself?"
"Because you are thinking of yourself."
"What about you: do you see it?"
"So long as you see double, saying 'I don't,' and 'you do,' and so on, your eyes are clouded," said the master.
"When there is neither 'I' nor 'you,' can one see it?"
"When there is neither 'I' nor 'you,' who is the one that wants to see it?"

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Questions, conjecture, and theories abound;

Some of them groundless, some of them sound.

Born of desire, the mind feels compelled,

To reach out and grasp what cannot be held.

The past and the future are offsprings of thought;

I must attend to the present if I am to be taught.

Questions, thoughts, theories — best placed on a shelf,

When attempting to know the Unknowable Self.