From my experience in army intelligence, I came to have doubts, there was a god-like I had been taught. Considering I had a near-death experience and had experienced the Presence of the Divine I wanted to know what this Being was like examining religions from the standpoint of my intelligence training I found the same elements at the core of each religion.
There was a vast unknowable something that in pagan and heathen religions even the gods and goddesses were subject to and then the deities seemed to have grown out of a male and female archetype deity. It then seemed to me that many different deities grew and were defined by the different traits that were attributed to males or females. Again, this is looking at the patterns beneath the structures, rituals, and stories. In the basic Torah, we have the Ancient of Days who sits upon the throne which is the unity of God (Hear O’ Israel the Lord your God is One.) But God has a spirit/breath/presence/wisdom that is always referred to in Hebrew as the feminine, nurturing, life-giving element of the Divine. Also, God has the creative Word, the Dabhar which is the creative implementing force of God. In Christianity, these became God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. A Divine Triune Presence.
Also, Ma’at, the pillar of creation, Yggdrasil the World Ash Tree, Wyrd, Orlog, the Tree of Life, the Tree of Knowledge, and the Pool of Mimir, all of these things seem to have parallels. See also WISDOM ( when it’s written.)
These patterns, all came together for me when I heard the story told by Jewish Mystics about the blind men and the Elephant.
There was an Elephant in a room and blind men explored the Elephant and then came together to share their experience.
“Ah, the Elephant is an amazing creature! It is like a great wall, immovable, solitary, and vast. I came to the Elephant and it was unmoving and solid. I moved to the left and the Elephant was still there. I went to the right and the Elephant was there. The Elephant is a Great Wall.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about but you know nothing about the Elephant. The Elephant is like a great tree. I came to know the Elephant when I ran into it and far from being a wall that extends to the left and right it was like a Great Tree! I could put my arms around it but I could not move it. Like a tree it stood firm and fast but the Elephant is nothing like a wall!”
“Preposterous, no one can put their arm around the Elephant, you are a heretic.”
“No he is not!” said another blind man. “He is right. The Elephant is like a tree but he is mistaken as to why. The Elephant is not like a trunk of a tree. It is like a great palm. I felt the brush of wind from its great frond as it swayed back and forth. I reached out my hand and touched it and it was leathery, but like a palm leaf thin and flexible. All of this talk about it no moving shows you know nothing.”
“Absolutely, they are ignorant! But so are you!” Another Blind man said. “The Elephant definitely moves! It is not a palm but a snake! I came to the Elephant and it coiled around me and even lifted me off the ground into the air! The Elephant is amazing. I felt its strength and great power but it did not hurt me and set me back down again. The Elephant is very much like a snake.”
“None of you know anything about an Elephant?” said another. “The Elephant cannot be touched, it does not make a breeze, it is neither a tree nor a wall, or I would have found it. The Elephant is like a great Trumpet. I heard its great voice and approached but I could feel nothing. I could hear its movement and its great voice but you cannot touch anything as mystical as the Elephant.”
The blind men argued and argued and finally began fighting over what the Elephant was like. But they were all wrong, yet all of them were right too. Each had a different experience with the Great Elephant. The first came to the side of the Elephant and it seemed to him to be a wall he then was satisfied he knew the Elephant and left to tell others how amazing it was. The second came to the leg of the Elephant and thought it was like a tree, he too was amazed and went to tell others of its wonders. The next man had come to the Elephants ear flapping away flies and thought it was a palm, and the next experienced the trunk, while the other heard the trumpet call of the Elephant but never was able to touch it because it was elusive to him.
They all had true experiences of the Elephant but their limited experience did not embrace its vastness.
I have capitalized Elephant because in this story the Elephant is the Divine Presence and the blind men groping around it are the various religions of the Earth. We have finite brains and we will never fully understand the vastness of God. This story talks about the revelations experienced by the founders of the religions each having a vision of the Divine but it is imperfect and does not encompass all the Truth. Each account has errors.
Reading the different religions I came to the belief that if Christ, Moses, Mohammed, Buddha, and the Dalai Lama all came together they would recognize each other’s testimony as containing truth. Far from fighting they would share their stories. (OK, this had to be the early Mohammed who had respect for the people of the Book until they rejected his revelations.)
I am preparing the explanation of Wisdom, which differs from Revelation but it is related and found in all religions of the Earth.