You and God

mintoots said:
I need to hear more about this. Whenever something like this comes up, I can't help but refer to the character of Lucifer being a fallen angel. I've always somewhat interpreted this to mean that lucifer was of good and remains to be of God, albeit errant. To me this implies that all is indeed of God, pain included. I wonder what you might say to that, as well as my above post for @ThomasJ79.



This is a commonality for many of us, isn't it? This and the very expression of a relationship with God as something profoundly personal regardless of where we stand in terms of belief. I think there's something delicately telling about that. That God is presented to each of us here in this thread under a very intimate light, I think, speaks of how God is exactly within us.
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I relate to what you are saying but when i say i feel vulnerable i mean something a little different.

i'm more afraid of being judged or the people around me being judged because of the beliefs i hold. There is only one person in my life i speak openly about my faith to- my sister. I have mentioned it to a few people but the truth is i feel what i believe is radical and possibly offensive to others so i simply choose to keep it to myself so i don't alienate people. This makes me feel lonely and inauthentic at times. But its more important to me to love the people in my life than to make them understand me. In a way i suppose this comes down to trust....but also to appropriateness. I only share aspects of my faith with my daughter because she is only a child and i feel that my beliefs would confuse her.

My most honest and scariest post.....I'm sharing this to communicate my truth. If what i believe offends anyone, I'm sorry and i understand. At the heart of everything I believe we are One and we are Love.

In a nutshell what i believe is that I'm dreaming and I/we are all still with God. I believe this world is a dream/illusion/projection. Literally like the Matrix. I don't believe this world was created by God and I don't believe that any of this world or illusion is God's work. I think this world exists because i imagined/wondered what it was like to be separate from my creator. This projection is the result. Within the projection we experience duality, and we can experience the absence of god. No one is better or worse, we are all One experiencing variations of separation, individuation and duality....experiencing. But the reality is that it's not possible to be separate from God so I'm still Home with God and this projection is an illusion. God may not have created this projection but God has given me help and a way out through guides like Jesus and Buddha and many others that have left this projection but still assist us that are here. My purpose in life is to forgive the projection and end the cycle that I'm stuck in. Forgiveness is salvation. There is no such thing as sin and God does not recognise sin or forgive sin because neither exists. But in this projection I can learn to forgive myself for what i have mistakenly believed and done to myself and my brothers. I have been here thousands of times and I have also lived elsewhere in the universe. I have enjoyed life and suffered, and caused suffering and joy. But i know this is not my home and i want to return to God. I no longer want to experience being separate. Jesus helps me though this process- He is my guide and has given me an example to follow. I study and follow A Course of Miracles which i believe to be his teaching. So in essence i believe in complete non dualism. The closest similarities to these beliefs can be found in gnosticism, gnostic christianity, forms of buddhism, taoism and hinduisim. 'The disappearance of the universe' by Renard is a great introduction to nondualism.

I look forward to reading the all the posts that i've missed but for now i've gotta go start work. I've enjoyed this thread a lot. Especially the acknowledgement of the pain and suffering in this world. The world can be a horrible place and nature can be harsh. Not recognising that is cruel and fucked up imo. Thanks for reading and giving me space to share
 
Quiet said:
I relate to what you are saying but when i say i feel vulnerable i mean something a little different.

i'm more afraid of being judged or the people around me being judged because of the beliefs i hold. There is only one person in my life i speak openly about my faith to- my sister. I have mentioned it to a few people but the truth is i feel what i believe is radical and possibly offensive to others so i simply choose to keep it to myself so i don't alienate people. This makes me feel lonely and inauthentic at times. But its more important to me to love the people in my life than to make them understand me. In a way i suppose this comes down to trust....but also to appropriateness. I only share aspects of my faith with my daughter because she is only a child and i feel that my beliefs would confuse her.

My most honest and scariest post.....I'm sharing this to communicate my truth. If what i believe offends anyone, I'm sorry and i understand. At the heart of everything I believe we are One and we are Love.

In a nutshell what i believe is that I'm dreaming and I/we are all still with God. I believe this world is a dream/illusion/projection. Literally like the Matrix. I don't believe this world was created by God and I don't believe that any of this world or illusion is God's work. I think this world exists because i imagined/wondered what it was like to be separate from my creator. This projection is the result. Within the projection we experience duality, and we can experience the absence of god. No one is better or worse, we are all One experiencing variations of separation, individuation and duality....experiencing. But the reality is that it's not possible to be separate from God so I'm still Home with God and this projection is an illusion. God may not have created this projection but God has given me help and a way out through guides like Jesus and Buddha and many others that have left this projection but still assist us that are here. My purpose in life is to forgive the projection and end the cycle that I'm stuck in. Forgiveness is salvation. There is no such thing as sin and God does not recognise sin or forgive sin because neither exists. But in this projection I can learn to forgive myself for what i have mistakenly believed and done to myself and my brothers. I have been here thousands of times and I have also lived elsewhere in the universe. I have enjoyed life and suffered, and caused suffering and joy. But i know this is not my home and i want to return to God. I no longer want to experience being separate. Jesus helps me though this process- He is my guide and has given me an example to follow. I study and follow A Course of Miracles which i believe to be his teaching. So in essence i believe in complete non dualism. The closest similarities to these beliefs can be found in gnosticism, gnostic christianity, forms of buddhism, taoism and hinduisim. 'The disappearance of the universe' by Renard is a great introduction to nondualism.

I look forward to reading the all the posts that i've missed but for now i've gotta go start work. I've enjoyed this thread a lot. Especially the acknowledgement of the pain and suffering in this world. The world can be a horrible place and nature can be harsh. Not recognising that is cruel and fucked up imo. Thanks for reading and giving me space to share
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I understand. Our perspectives are not so different.
Be well <3
 
Quiet said:
Thanks for reading and giving me space to share
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Very many thanks and much love for sharing Quiet - I know how hard it is to talk about these innermost spiritual experiences. It’s not just that they are very intimate, but there is also a fear that something so important to us could be trampled all over by others who don’t understand and who want to debate or reject rather than just share.

What you describe is fascinating and gives much to ponder.
 
mintoots said:
I'm looking forward to it. Before then, the above quote is already resonating with me.
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Wyote said:
Same. What you wrote @John K filled me with emotion, thinking about the notion of what all that means and how it plays out in my own life. I don't think you even have to be Christian per se to feel the power embedded in the idea and symbolism of what you're talking about. @Ren has elaborated/pontificated on it somewhat in the past from a philosophical standpoint as well.
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Just following up on this now I'm back home again. Sorry if this is a bit rambley, but maybe there's something of value here.

What's hard for me to is to separate out actual spiritual experience from working out what it means, because the language tends to blur the boundaries between them. The thing is that my experience is firm, but my speculations are not. This isn't all that different from how we deal with many everyday things. I can say from experience that God is not like the way He is described in most accounts - he is both as close and as intimate as I am to myself, but at the same time utterly other. If I get too close to Him, it's as if I was to fly in a spaceship too close to the sun and the heat and the light of His love become intolerable. It's not that He turns me away, He wants me to come closer, but all my shadow is lit up and on fire - He isn't judgemental about this but lovingly amused and infinitely patient with me.

Spiritual experience isn't all warm and fuzzy and some is horrific. I have been utterly alone, with no world, no time, no past, no future, only myself and the illusion of the world around me. This was nothing to do with the devil or judgement, it was simply a situation I found myself in and in a sense I have never truly escaped from all aspects of it.

Some speculations .....

I suspect that the spiritual laws of morality are more like the laws of nature than the laws of society. There is no law court or process of judgement that convicts us of playing loose and free with the law of gravity - we mess around, we fall and we break our arm or leg. That doesn't mean God cannot intervene to support, teach and rescue, but he doesn't condemn - what happens is more like a sort of natural process of cause and effect.

There is a natural inflation in humankind that makes us think we are greater than we are. The world we are in actually has the feel of a kindergarten to me and this is so however old we are in years. It's just an early beginning, not a lead-in to either fulfilment or a final bonfire.

A lot of time and trouble has gone into making us if you look at the universe we live in and try and understand a little about it. It seems like a very massive overkill. Many people think this is an indication that humans are an arbitrary accident in an otherwise meaningless cosmos. I think 180 degrees away from this - just as with the problem of suffering we talked about earlier, it says to me that it's very hard to create us, even for an apparently all-powerful God. Suffering, and the bizarre scale of space and time, are necessary conditions of our existence, not cruel or whimsical. In Christianity, He has shared our situation with us by becoming one of us, so He isn't just some remote spirit watching all safe and sound from the sky. He feels from inside each one of us every pain and sorrow, every happiness and joy, that we feel.

So much trouble has gone into making us, and there are such compromises, that it's ridiculous to think any of us will be disposed of in some kind of hellish punishment cell. On the other hand, it's obvious from our experience with the physical world that the way we interact with people and things has consequences - this seems to be the way God has set things up, and I think this is probably true spiritually too. We have unlimited opportunities to find out how to get it right though. Maybe that means reincarnation of some sort, but it seems just as likely to mean some other form of existence that I cannot imagine.

It seems to me that my experience of getting very close to God is significant. I have to use a metaphor here - you can get very close to the sun if you are completely transparent because the sun's light and heat pass straight through you no matter how strong they are; or, you can hide yourself from it by growing a perfectly reflecting shell around yourself and staying inside it - if you do that you will be protected and you won't be aware of God, but you will head towards that awful nothingness that I experienced in my teens.
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This all probably begs more questions than it tries to tackle, but I start to lose myself in over-thinking if I take this stuff too far and end up confusing myself and others, so I'll stop there.

​
 
I don't know of course if I have come close to the god most are trying to describe here....but I can say I have felt much of what you have shared. This made me remember what it was like for me.

John K said:
I can say from experience that God is not like the way He is described in most accounts - he is both as close and as intimate as I am to myself, but at the same time utterly other. If I get too close to Him, it's as if I was to fly in a spaceship too close to the sun and the heat and the light of His love become intolerable.
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When I had my visit from ....this experience that suggests it was a god being.... my mind went completely blank. No Thought. No labeling of the experience. No MIND at all. Just Wonder and Awe.

It made me muse on the fact that it is said one cannot pronounce or say the god(of the bible)'s name. Maybe no one can describe them because the level of the human mind cannot contain the experience. We can only feel our way.
 
In all honesty, I am a deeply spiritual person. My connection with what most people call god is a connection with a higher consciousness, a consciousness that permeates all living beings, from a single cell to everything else. There is no absolute right, wrong, or divine interventions, or punishment/ rewards in an afterlife. Our actions have enough consequences in this life alone for us each to know what is good. It is inside us all.

we are all connected, not only through our energy exchanges and atoms, but on this plane of higher consciousness.

All is One

All is “God”
peace

love
 
Lately I've been a little stagnant with my spiritual practice and have been burning the candles at both ends overwhelmed by work and responsibilities. I forced myself to make time for God last night as I'm drained physically, mentally and emotionally by life.. As I was going through the experience of opening my hear to prayer I felt that sense of what i can only describe as resistance. On the surface it felt like distraction but on a deeper level i guess i still cling to that part of me that is separate, striving, suffering.....i feel all that Love yet I cant bring myself to completely embrace it. I've been reflecting on this and forgiving this
 
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