My bad. What's panentheism?
Panentheism is a perspective of God which takes the transcendence of God of theism and combines it with the immanence of God of pantheism. God is both wholly transcendent to the material world, and wholly immanent within it. It's paradoxical in the way nonduality is. It is not something the mind can hold conceptually, but is rather something that is known through experience to be true.
Put another way, can you conceive of infinity? If you could, then it can be held in an idea and is no longer infinite, because ideas have boundaries, defining lines. But you can experience infinity. You can experience infinity that surpasses all boundaries, all borders, all forms. And the experience of that infinity is to be found not only beyond all forms, but fully within all forms, because forms are within the infinite, and the infinite within forms. This is not to say fully within forms as a whole, but fully infinite within each and every individual form. Every molecule is infinity within itself, not separate nor contained in separate infinities, nor a collective whole that defines infinity. To experience this is the nondual, which is "not one, not two", meaning it is not wholly outside the world (theism), nor is equates as the world (pantheism or monism).
So Panentheism is itself not a definition of what God is, as any definition is an idea held by the mind and cannot hold God, but rather it is a 3rd person perspective on 1st person reality. It is a way to talk about God coming from a position of experience or a spiritual realization within the individual. One can likewise with theism legitimately experience God as wholly transcendent, and one can legitimately experience God as wholly immanent. But to say with the mind "this is God, and other ideas are not valid because they stand in contradiction to this", is to attempt to reduce God to an idea of the mind, a concept. It mistakes the sign as the referent, it reduces the experience to a concept, and becomes a self-annihilating referent because it takes Infinity and makes it finite, an object to be seen and understood by ideas. Anytime one approaches the infinite, contradictions will always occur. Paradoxes will reign. It is neither this, nor not this, neither that, nor not that, both this and that, and neither both this and that, and so forth.
As far as the personal nature of God versus the impersonal nature of God, that too is paradoxical as tries to make definitions surrounding that which approaches the Absolute, or Infinity. The personal nature of ones being is felt and experienced in the All. The universe is personal, and can be understood this way by the mind rationally as such because we are personal and are not separate from the universe. When one can experience one's own being with the Infinite, what is encountered is your original Face. The personal God is the infinite Self. The theistic experience is the finite small separate individual self encountering their true Self, Infinite-Personal in nature. It is the ultimate Face of the Absolute at the peak of the dualistic experience. It is the ultimate expression of Truth, but again from a
legitimately dualistic perspective. This is seen as wholly transcendent to the world of separate form.
But it is not Absolute as God is the Face of the Infinite to the dualistic mind, but there is reality beyond the dualistic mind. When you stop seeing objects, there is then the Infinite beyond God, God beyond God, Godhead, and this is seen as impersonal. It is the Ground of Being, the Source from which all arises and returns, the Void, Emptiness, the Formless. But to then turn around and say this then is the Ultimate, that Emptiness is "true reality" is itself
dualistic. It says form is unreality, and Emptiness is reality. It is still the mind putting a boundary around the Absolute, and that is dualism. It reduces Infinity to an "it". It is monism which defines the 'substance' of reality as "One, and not two". It excludes form as real, perceiving it as illusion. So it is itself not embracing Infinity.
The Infinite within form and the Infinite beyond form is still the same Infinite. It is seen and experienced as both the Infinite Personal and the Infinite Impersonal, while it "in itself" neither personal nor impersonal, nor not personal or impersonal. It is not outside these things, nor is itself these things, nor is "it" and it, nor not "it". These are all dualistic concepts attempting to grasp with the mind nondual Spirit. As long as the mind tries to say what it is, it will never apprehend the nature of the very eye that is doing the perceiving itself, as it cannot see itself. The Observer cannot observe the Observer. You are that Observer. You are the Infinite, in form, observing Itself. In this sense, the spiritual is Self-reflexive. It is nondual Spirit observing Itself through form, through 3rd person, 2nd person, and 1st person perspectives. As it perceives and experiences itself dualistically through forms, with 3rd person "it" perspectives, nature mysticism, and scientific analytic thought; then moves to 2nd person relational perspectives, in theistic deity mysticism and soteriological or mandelic thought; then move into the formless Emptiness in 1st person awareness, the infinite impersonal; it then moves beyond all of these and awakens to itself in all forms in infinite nondual awareness.
So to wrap up tying this back into Panentheism, that 3rd person perspective of God is itself not a definition of God, but is rather a type of deconstructive paradoxical twist on taking a strictly dualistic view of either theism or pantheism, as again both are dualistic. The dualistic mind cannot hold paradoxes, such as what is expressed in panentheism as they are self-contradictory in a this and not that system of conceptual thought. These paradoxes rest comfortably however within nondual awareness. It does not exclude perceptions and experiences, saying this and not that. Reality in form is dualistic, while Infinity is held both beyond dualism, and fully within dualities. God is wholly transcendent and wholly immanent. Panentheism to me is a dualistic expression of a paradoxical Infinity, a nondual realization.
It's just a way of expressing experience.
