Hey guys!

Hope everyone’s new year is going well.

Okay, so I promised something special for this month… I’m actually hoping to kick off each year with a special blog post, so I’m pretty excited about that.

In any case, I had two ideas for this month’s blog post. One of the two was more time-consuming than the other and I’m doing the one that is less time-consuming. I do have exciting news coming up podcast-wise, so I am focusing my energy on that for now. However, stay tuned for the podcast news and the other blog post, both of which are coming soon!

In this post, I will talk about the correlation that I see between (1) divinity/godhood and (2) awareness. This may seem like a strange topic to write about, but I’ve often thought about some of my writings as being attempts at expressing patterns that I have noticed in my life, and this is one of the more esoteric ones that have crossed my mind. I’ve actually been meaning to write about this for quite a while.

The idea came to me as I was falling asleep a few months ago, just as I was texting good night to my girlfriend. The pattern struck me like a bolt of lightning, and I wanted to tell my girlfriend about it right then and there, but it wasn’t the right time (for either of us). I did text her the next morning though, which was my first articulation of this pattern.

So then, what exactly is this correlation? Well, as far as I can tell, there seems to be an undeniable increase in awareness that one gains as they become closer and closer to “godhood,” or in more secular terms, as they unlock more and more of their potential.

One of the reasons that it isn’t necessarily obvious to talk about this relationship in purely secular terms is because this pattern seems to manifest itself throughout a number of the world’s religious and mystical traditions. Have you ever seen, for instance, a biblically-accurate angel? And I don’t mean the Westernized version of a humanoid with wings. Take, for instance, Ezekiel’s depiction of an angel (in this case, Ophanim). Ezekiel describes a being made of interlocking golden wheels, with eyes visible on the exterior of the rings.

Now as I beheld the living creatures, behold one wheel upon the earth by the living creatures, with his four faces. The appearance of the wheels and their work was like unto the color of a beryl: and they four had one likeness: and their appearance and their work was as it were a wheel in the middle of a wheel. When they went, they went upon their four sides: and they turned not when they went. As for their rings, they were so high that they were dreadful; and their rings were full of eyes round about them four. [Ezekiel 1:15-18]

[Source: gravityglitch on Newgrounds]

It’s probably fair to assume that this kind of depiction has been the inspiration of some of Guillermo del Toro’s works. For instance, the Angel of Death from Hellboy has eyes on his wings.

[Source: Adam Tupper, reproduced with permission]

And of course, the classical monotheistic deity is omniscient, which is to say that He knows (or sees) everything.

Similarly, in Mesopotamian mythology, the highest god, Marduk, had eyes all around his head. Jordan Peterson would say that this is because Marduk is capable of seeing what is in front of him, that is to say that he knows what is going on with himself, in his relationships, in his society, etc. An ideal human being, as depicted in Mesopotamian mythology, is someone who is aware of what is happening around him and, with his lips that blaze fire, is capable of speaking the truth and triumphantly restore order out of the chaos around him.

[Source: Franz Heinrich Weißbach]

Finally, we can also see this pattern manifest itself symbolically in some of the works of Alex Grey, a visionary artist from the Unites States. Grey, who creates a truly impressive number of psychedelic paintings and art, regularly incorporates eyes into his works. Perhaps the most obvious example of this for Grey’s fans would be Godself, reproduced below.

[Source: Alex Grey ©, reproduced with permission]

The link to Grey’s website also features an excerpt from his book, Net of Being, that is definitely worth the read.

In any case, what is to be made of this apparent correlation between divinity and awareness? And why does this pattern seem to manifest itself so consistently across a wide range of seemingly unrelated religious systems and mystical traditions? Is this what Aldous Huxley would refer to as being part of the perennial philosophy, namely the idea that all religions point to the same underlying metaphysical truth?

Jo