Oasis In The Desert Of Time – Critical Perspectives on the Nature of GOD for Cosmic-Consciousness & Spiritual Growth by Godson Onochie Amechi; Ezu Books Ltd, Enugu, Nri, Abuja, Connecticut; 2021; 327pp
It takes courage to delve into the vexed issue of religion. Spiritual matters are always fraught with multiform controversies. For instance, a believer in God stresses ardently that all unbelievers are doomed, but then there is the contrarian contention that takes its cue from the German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, who made the damning pronouncement: “God is dead.” Godson Onochie Ammechi in his book Oasis in the Desert of Time – Critical Perspectives on the Nature of GOD for Cosmic-Consciousness & Spiritual Growth insists, in bold capitals, that God is alive and well.
Armed with a degree in Medicine from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Godson Onochie Amechi starts his march through religion, in the manner of a scientist, as a quest when he writes early on: “When I was young, as little as seven, I used to be intrigued about creation and my own place in the world.”
It is in his drive to know that Amechi underscores man in his many incarnations as a wanderer in the desert that has passed through many taverns until getting to the “oasis in the desert of time.”
According to Amechi, “This oasis is the universal quest of mankind, and all roads in the desert lead to it.” The divine destination is variously known as “Kingdom of God”, “Kingdom of Heaven”, “the City of God”, or “Paradise”. Some faiths depict it as “Nirvana”, “Moska”, or“Krishna consciousness” while the mystics call it “Union with God”, thus “identifying the oasis as the abode of God different from the abode of men.”
Amechi delineates his point-of-view thusly: “We adopt the name Cosmic consciousness in this book because our experience revealed to us that the cosmos is God and God is cosmos. What we actually strive to attain is God consciousness or the recognition of God at its highest level.”
In the author’s view, “Religion and science are nothing but roads to this oasis. When one gets there, one ceases all quests.”
Amechi’s bridging of religion and science gains its foothold from the statement: “Everything came out of Ether, be it Sun, Star, Man, Animal or Plant.” The author portrays the waters of creation in the Bible’s Book of Genesis as Ether while, in the sphere of science, the atom came from the Ether which is “the first building block of the physical universe.”
Positing the visible universe at 1 percent as opposed to space that accounts for 99 percent, Amechi avers: “The God idea is universal in man.”
In the scheme of Oasis in the Desert of Time, the Demiurge Intelligent Beings oversaw the process of evolution by creating a magnetic vortex within the void or space. In the course of time, the society bore witness to the Prehistoric Man and then the Animistic or Elemental Beings. Amechi supports his cause with the words of Abd-ru-shin, the bringer of Grail Message In the Light of Truth thus: “Without the workings of elemental beings, the spiritual could not possibly become anchored in the World of Matter and thus could not accomplish anything therein.”
Nearer home, Amechi cites the instance of psychic forces such as “Okwu Agadi Nwanyi” in Obosi town that stopped Nigerian soldiers from overrunning Obosi during the Biafra war.
In the hierarchy of beings, Guardian Angels can speak to us without us seeing them. Chi, the personal spirit, in Igbo cosmology is a pivotal force. The Holy Spirit serves as an immediate indwelling power of God.
Discarnate Entities, unlike Guardian Angels who communicate via “still small voice”, are loud and violent. The Angels and Archangels “are divine messengers relating messages from higher realm to lower realm of creation.”
According to Amechi, “The Planetary Spirit of the earth is an individualized consciousness superior to other gods on earth.” The Solar Deity is the consciousness behind the sun. For him, “The simplest method by which man communicates with his God is by prayer.” The call is to the universal consciousness.
God is the Supreme Being, Amechi affirms, stressing: “All that exists in the universe is God in expression.”
He sees Jesus as the Master of Masters whose only task is to lead humankind to “this oasis, that cosmic consciousness oasis in the desert of time, the oasis he called the Kingdom of God.”
It will make for much controversy in certain quarters that Amechi states that, after Jesus, there shall be another Messiah who is a member of the class of “Brethren of the Radiant Summit” who will continue and consolidate the task of Jesus, to wit: “He is to open the door of the Kingdom of God for easy entrance.”
Schooled in the known religions of the world, notably, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Jaism, Zoroastrianism, Taoism, Krishna Society, Baihai Faith, Grail Movement, and even Animism or the so-called Heathen, Amechi in Oasis in the Desert of Time goes way back to the inscription in the Greek Temple of Apollo at Delphi that states: “Man know thyself.”
He traces the evolution of the spirit of man and the evolution of the soul of man. He intervolves the evolution of man, that is, hominids or individuals that stood erect, with complete brains that performed complex functions.
He depicts the march of mankind from Homo Erectus to Homo Sapiens, and renders this unique information: “The spirit in man is the missing link that science has failed to understand.”
For Amechi, the purpose of reincarnation and incarnation is to afford mankind the opportunity to evolve, as he avers: “The cycle of incarnation and reincarnation in man is not an endless cycle. It comes to an end when all individuals have become sons and daughters of God and received into the glory of immortality.”
Amechi underpins the prophets or gurus who claim to hear the voice of God as only operating at just the level of self-consciousness. They are in need of a new birth into cosmic consciousness. He maintains that the experience of the new birth, which is the subject of Oasis in the Desert of Time, is not exclusive to Christianity. In his words, “Other religions have it but give it different interpretations. It is a very important milestone every incarnated ego on earth should reach.”
Amechi ends his thought-provoking treatise thusly: “We look forward to the universal incarnation of the Holy Spirit in every man. All men will then become cosmic conscious and the earth will be filled with the knowledge and love of God as water covers the sea. This is the goal before us and all the agencies in creation are working towards it. When this is achieved, then we wait for the unknown God to reveal His will for further development.”
Critics may see the “heaven on earth” cosmic consciousness ideal as utopian, but I would forever cherish the breadth of knowledge showcased by Godson Onochie Amechi in Oasis in the Desert of Time. The world definitely needs a temperate teacher like Amechi for its spiritual growth.