Seeking God Through Writing

By Dawn Raffel

I've spent much of this year completing a novel that I've been researching and thinking about since 2021. With the rise of artificial intelligence, the question becomes, why? What's left for humans writing books or, for that matter, making music or art? AI can generate manuscripts so fast that Amazon now limits the number of books individuals can publish per week. The quality is improving too, much to the dismay of the literary world. More than one recent prize has been rescinded when the authors were caught "cheating."

So can AI write a great book? Maybe. But one thing it cannot do is give you the experience of writing a book--and this experience, this work, can be sacred. In Jnana Yoga, Swami Vivekananda writes, "Now, human language is the attempt to express the truth that is within."* This seems like a simple statement, but the more you think about it, the more profound it becomes. 

When I am fully engaged in writing, I become so inwardly focused that I lose track of time and physical surroundings. Words emerge that come from an inner place much deeper than my intellect. Often, fiction writers will say things like, "The characters just took over." But the characters aren't real. God is real. "The truth that is within" -- the Truth -- is real. The writing is the attempt, however imperfect, to express it. 

Long before I received initiation into spiritual life, I understood that the words I write do not belong to lower-case me. There is a grace by which they flow from a much deeper source, if I impose the discipline of attention and trust. It is the practice itself that is my reason for writing, along with the hope that someone reading may make the connection.

If AI-written books win prizes, who cares? The Bhagavad Gita says, “You have the right to work, but for the work's sake only. You have no right to the fruits of work. Desire for the fruits of work must never be your motive in working. Never give way to laziness, either."

I'm old enough to know that winning an accolade or prize may be satisfying for a minute, and then you want another. This so-called fruit is more like junk food. It's like that famous ad for Lay's potato chips: "Nobody can eat just one." In the case of potato chips, your craving can give you a stomach ache. In the case of chasing worldly success, it can make you miserable.

On the other hand, it does no good to quit working because you believe that somebody else, or even AI, can do a better job than you. That's essentially using low self-esteem as an excuse for laziness. As Swami Vivekananda said, "The greatest sin is to think yourself weak."

Whatever our work, if we can do it with our whole heart fixed on God, then we won't need to fear failure, competition, or the advancing technologies of our changing world.

*Jnana Yoga, fifth edition, pg. 25.