T h e ex p e r i e n c e o f G o d This page intentionally left blank The experience of God BeinG, consciousness, Bliss David Bentley Hart New Haven and London Published with assistance from the Louis Stern Memorial Fund. Copyright © 2013 by David Bentley Hart. All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publishers. Yale University Press books may be purchased in quantity for educational, business, or promotional use. For information, please e-mail [email protected] (U.S. office) or [email protected] (U.K. office). Set in Adobe Garamond type by Integrated Publishing Solutions, Grand Rapids, Michigan. Printed in the United States of America. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Hart, David Bentley. The experience of God : being, consciousness, bliss / David Bentley Hart. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-300-16684-2 (cloth : alk paper) 1. God. 2. Experience (Religion) I. Title. BL473.H37 2013 211—dc23 2013007118 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48–1992 (Permanence of Paper). 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 For Richard Shaker —whose vision of reality often differs from mine considerably— in gratitude for forty years of an indispensable friendship This page intentionally left blank Contents Acknowledgments, ix Introduction, 1 Part One God, Gods, and the World One “God” Is Not a Proper Name, 13 twO Pictures of the World, 46 Part tw O Being, Consciousness, Bliss three Being (Sat), 87 FOur Consciousness (Chit), 152 Five Bliss (Ananda), 238 Part three The Reality of God Six Illusion and Reality, 293 vii Contents Notes, 333 Bibliographical Postscript, 343 Index, 351 viii Acknowledgments I owe my greatest thanks to my wife, Solwyn, and my son, Patrick, for their patience with me and with my sporadic work habits and capriciously shifting schedule during the writing of this book. I must also thank my farseeing and longsuffering editor at Yale University Press, Jennifer Banks, who endured far more delays in the delivery of a final manuscript than I myself would have toler- ated, and did so with a grace of manner I could not even attempt to emulate. To my indefatigable agent Giles Anderson I owe an immense debt of gratitude. And, finally, I must sincerely thank Roland W. Hart for his friendship, for allowing me to learn from the wisdom with which he approaches all of life, and for his willingness to listen to me on our numerous long walks together through the woods. ix