Albert Einstein’s hand-written letter in German questions whether an entity named God exists:
SPIRITUALISM – SPIRIT AND SOUL ARE TWO SIDES OF THE SAME COIN. SPIRIT IS RELATED TO THE HUMAN NATURE THAT SEEKS FREEDOM. SOUL IS RELATED TO THE RELATIONSHIP THAT ESTABLISHES THE DEPENDENT NATURE OF HUMAN EXISTENCE. ALBERT EINSTEIN FAILED TO EXAMINE THE TWO ASPECTS OF HUMAN NATURE AND ITS CONDITIONED EXISTENCE.
SPIRITUALISM – ABOUT SPIRIT AND SOUL – THE TWO SIDES OF THE SAME COIN :
I am pleased to share this letter with my readers. I am not surprised. Albert Einstein is no exception and like all others before him and after him( like Richard Dawkins ), he just chooses to examine one side of the coin and forgets that the same coin could have a second face. This is the same problem that I encounter while I read the thoughts of a variety of people. They fail to make the fundamental distinctions( for example, the distinction between the living and the non-living, or animate/inanimate ) and they tend to examine one aspect of the standard dualism( for example, Appearance – Reality, and Conditioned – Unconditioned ) . However, I have no reason to reject their views as they present a view of the coin, the face that they recognize. I would give a brief response and invite all to discuss the issue if that would be of any interest to you.
1. Human Identity and Human Individuality
2. Human Essence and Human Existence
3. Human Spirit and Human Soul
4. Human Creation and Human Evolution
5. Reality and Illusion.
There are two aspects or elements of human nature that are in perpetual tension with each other; 1. Freedom, and 2. Dependence. In ‘Spirit’ we seek Freedom, Independence, Liberation, Release, and Salvation. Freedom is associated with man’s ability called imagination, and man can find inspiration from within himself and from without to express his creativity. Man has this unique ability to set himself “FREE” in his mind. Man is endowed with an intellectual ability to seek “FREEDOM” even when that concept has no correspondence with an external Reality. Man can think that he is “FREE” while he exists in captivity. Man primarily uses his Freedom, the Free ‘Spirit’ to manipulate the dependent nature of his “conditioned” existence that is represented by the vital, animating, Life Principle called ‘SOUL’ on the flip side of the same coin. Man seeks to exist as an Individual with Individuality while being attached to the environment and the biological community in which he always exists. Man cannot escape from being an Individual with Individuality as this Individualism is the expression of the Individualistic behavior of the molecules( Deoxyribo Nucleic Acid or DNA) that are the biological basis for his existence. At the same time, man cannot find Freedom for he survives on support from an external source which demands a constant relationship with an external community of living things. I describe the second face of the coin as the ‘Soul’ which provides the attachment for man’s dependence. Man’s Spirit is expressed as his Essence and man seeks to describe his Identity in terms of this Essence and will be able to do so if and only if the Spirit is in relationship with the Soul that provides the attachment to draw energy from an external source. Man’s Dependence is associated with an emotional state or condition called ‘Devotion’ which is expressed as a behavioral attitude called Humility.
The matter that concerns us is not that of verifying the existence of God. Man is condemned to exist under the influence of an Illusion that generates Ignorance or inability to perceive the Reality. The experience of Ignorance is a fundamental requirement to support human existence. The perception of Reality puts an end to man’s existence. Man is free in his Spirit to seek Mercy, Grace, and Compassion to understand the nature of Reality while he is trapped by the powerful influence of Illusion. The Illusion that I speak about, describes the lack of sensory perception of the fact of existence on the surface of a fast-moving object. Man is free to describe the motion, but is not free to have a direct, sensory perception of that motion. Man’s Freedom is in his Free Spirit called ‘Bhavana’ and his relationship with the world and universe called ‘Jagat'( that which is constantly moving and changing ) in which he lives, is called Spirituality and Spiritualism. I like the concluding remarks made by Albert Einstein in his letter and it reads: “Therefore I think that we would understand each other quite well if we talked about concrete things.” In that spirit, I would invite my readers to talk about concrete things; this discussion is not about Albert Einstein’s personal belief, it is not about his Identity as a Jew, it is not about the stories found in Bible, and it is not about God. Let us talk about concrete things; man, his structure, his function, his behavior, his nature, and his existence in the world that we know and understand today.
Spiritualism and Albert Einstein’s God Letter : What is Appearance? What is Reality? What is Conditioned? and What is Unconditioned? Can man know the reality of the nature of his physical existence? Man exists like this Pencil in Water and has no choice other than that of the experience of an Illusion.
E-Bay will auction the original, handwritten, in German, letter and envelope, sent on Princeton University letterhead, by Albert Einstein to Eric B. Gutkind, on January 3, 1954, a year before Einstein passed away in 1955, sent as response to Gutkind’s book “Choose Life: The Biblical Call to Revolt”.
Key Passages in Translation into English from German: … I read a great deal in the last days of your book, and thank you very much for sending it to me.
What especially struck me about it was this. With regard to the factual attitude to life and to the human community we have a great deal in common.
… The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this. These subtilised interpretations are highly manifold according to their nature and have almost nothing to do with the original text. For me the Jewish religion like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions. And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people. As far as my experience goes, they are also no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything ‘chosen’ about them.
In general I find it painful that you claim a privileged position and try to defend it by two walls of pride, an external one as a man and an internal one as a Jew. As a man you claim, so to speak, a dispensation from causality otherwise accepted, as a Jew the privilege of monotheism. But a limited causality is no longer a causality at all, as our wonderful Spinoza recognized with all incision, probably as the first one. And the animistic interpretations of the religions of nature are in principle not annulled by monopolization. With such walls we can only attain a certain self-deception, but our moral efforts are not furthered by them. On the contrary.
Now that I have quite openly stated our differences in intellectual convictions it is still clear to me that we are quite close to each other in essential things, i.e; in our evaluations of human behavior. What separates us are only intellectual ‘props’ and ‘rationalization’ in Freud’s language. Therefore I think that we would understand each other quite well if we talked about concrete things.
With friendly thanks and best wishes, Yours, A. Einstein
The translation above is an abridgment of the letter from Albert Einstein to Eric Gutkind from Princeton in January 1954, translated from German by Joan Stambaugh.
