Doesn't it sound self-contradictory?
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Have They Experienced God or Not?
- Thread starter Sunstone
- Start date
Doesn't it sound self-contradictory?
I think you're making interesting distinctions that I'm not so sure bear out very well. The experience of a theophany (to use that terminology) is a state or "peak" experience. It is a peak experience, because the experience happens far above where you are at developmentally, it lasts temporarily, and then you fall back to where you are at in your normal stage of growth. I've experienced this, and its impact has lasted and is lasting my entire life time. It's the core of who I am. But I do not abide in that state at all times. That is a stage of development one must grow into. More on this later.
State experiences may or may not contain a deity form, or a theophany, but may have equally long-lasting effects. There are different types of mystical states and in order they are all higher than gross, or body-mind level normal waking consciousness. These state experiences follow in order beginning at the peak of the gross body-mind experience with nature mysticism (experiencing oneness with all that is); subtle level, or deity mysticism (experiencing theophanies for instance [which I have], characterized by "I-Thou relationships); casual or emptiness mysticism (God beyond God, or godhead experience of "I AM", the formless, etc.); and nondual mysticism (the experience of emptiness in form, the Infinite and the Finite as the One and the Many).
I have, and do experience all of the above, beginning with the "theophany" experience when I was 18, followed shortly after by the experience of the nondual days later. These are all state experiences that can happen either randomly by chance, or by putting yourself into the path of these happening through regular practices of meditation. There's a funny saying that I believe draws from something Krishnamurti said, "Enlightenment happens by accident, and meditation makes you accident prone"
. However, abiding it in, being fully immersed in it is not a state experience, but a stage of development. As the saying goes, states are free but stages are earned. All state experiences subside, even theophanies. I know, because that has been my experience. It's not that the effect of it, the ripples going out because of the event don't change the terrain of your life, which they certainly do, but they are not permanent states. The waves wash over the landscape, but then retreat back again.
So religious ecstasies as you make the distinction, seem to be really nothing other than just small stones dropped into the pond, versus the larger rock of a deity mysticism experience, or larger rocks of casual and nondual ones as well.
But actually, what it is has far more to do with ones receptivity than it does the nature, or form the mystical experience takes. The more receptive someone is, the deeper the impression of the state experience is, and the greater the lasting effects it has on ones life! That really is what it comes down to, I am coming to understand right now as I'm typing this out, drawing from my personal experience and years of practice. It's not that a theophany has a certain type of effect versus another type of state experience which makes all the difference, but that the lasting effect of any state experience depends on the fertility of the soil itself. Someone must have intention to receive, and a heart ready to learn. Otherwise, even God in the form of a theophany gets pushed out again.
People mistake that it's all some external thing than changes us. That's not true at all. It an internal openness, a readiness that allows what is there in all it's myriad forms, from the natural, to the subtle, to the casual, to the nondual, to enter into us fully and transform us. People wait for God, but "God" so to speak is simply waiting for us. What happens in peak experience is a temporary hole through the walls we construct to box ourselves into which allows us to see beyond. When we're ready, we step out of the box itself, rather than looking through holes, or state experiences.
I'm processing my thoughts out loud in this response and will just post it as is and see where it goes. Hopefully it will engage some meaningful discussion, which is always my hope.
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Muffled
I believe that you have not taken even second to contemplate on what 'Being-Consciousness-Bliss' may mean. But its ok.
Since you call yourself Monk Of Reason, I ask you, "Is the dream consciousness as understood from a 3rd Party waking consciousness can be called understanding of dream consciousness?"
Allow me to use an analogy. Suppose I am water and i am conscious. I exist in three states: gas, liquid, and solid. Can I understand myself from within a single form? Can I say that knowledge I acquire during my existence as liquid water can describe all three states?
CynthiaCypher
Well-Known Member
Why would would it?
Monk Of Reason
༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ
Altered mental statuses have been studied in excess. The functions they provide is to help us with our main mind's main objective which is the primary consciousness. The "dreams" we have are actually simulations that our brains put ourselves through and uses it to sift through all of the new information that you have been dwelling on.
For example if your worried about a test one might dream up the worst possible situation in order to subconsciously train you for a real life event.
So it isn't the same thing as water/gas/ice. And even if it was water isn't sentient in the way we are so I have no reason to believe that if it was, it wouldn't have memory or understanding of its other forms.
Entheogenics? The very idea is odd at best. And you propose that they actually enable "God-Experiences"?
It would be a rather capricious God one that allowed that.
Same way they'd know anything?
CynthiaCypher
Well-Known Member
How could one enter a locked door without a key or a ability to break down that door?
I don't do them anymore by the way.
Ok. So, for you consciousness is only the manifested waking time awareness.
For some it manifests in three states but is distinct from the states. It is the Seer of the states.
Ok. But that was a mere analogy.
There are those who say the brain naturally releases DMT which allows for these sorts of experiences. So, if you are to attribute to God the status of puppet-master who allows and disallows things (a premise I personally reject), then apparently God "allows" for us naturally to experience God. Why do you suppose that might be? What might the purpose of experiencing God be for evolutionary reasons?
Orbit
I'm a planet
Your last question intrigues me. At the moment of death there is no "survival value", no evolutionary reason for something. I had a DMT experience which was not a hallucination. I've had hallucinations on entheogens and this didn't have the quality of a hallucination, it had the quality of reality. In this experience my basic, core consciousness left my body. It did return. But what if my body had been dead? Would my consciousness go to another place, another body? Did I glimpse the mechanism of reincarnation?
I haven't made up my mind about any of these things, but your question made the think.
SkepticX
Member
I'm copying and pasting this from another forum and editing to protect the innocent:
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Subjective, individual proof = not proof of any kind. That's mistaking compelling and/or meaningful for proven, even on an individual level. [Sam] Harris doesn't make the mistake of presuming an interpretation of such events has been proven simply because the experience is real and compelling.
I've mentioned several times in here that I've had a couple of powerful experiences that most would interpret as spiritual (in fact I did interpret the first as spiritual). The first was like a powerful, intimate presence connecting to me in a complete sense, as in the entirety of my mind was somehow in contact or part of with this powerful presence (to my mind at the time, God). The second was a sense of connection to the cosmos that was both deeply and absolutely impersonal--it was personal in the sense that it was a very direct, intimate, emotionally powerful connection, but impersonal in that it was a sense of total connection, without separation, that rendered the idea of distinct "person-hood" meaningless. Both experiences had that powerful personal/impersonal dynamic, but the first one was very proprietary (it was at a state wide youth revival kinda thing with a lot of like-minded fellow believers and music and other crowd/social dynamics going into it), and the second completely inclusive (as far as I can tell it was totally spontaneous and I was completely alone).
Those dynamics had a lot to do with shaping the experiences for me, but the character of the physical/emotional sensation was itself exactly the same, as I recall. As far as I can tell the differences in the quality of the experiences were entirely about my state of mind at the time and my interpretations. I'm reasonably certain the connections I felt, though profound and deeply meaningful to me, were pure fabrications of my own mind. In fact I'm pretty sure the totality of these experiences themselves were as well. They could have been neurological misfires or brief neurochemical imbalances of some sort. The presences I felt (God, the Cosmos) and my interpretation of the experiences is quite meaningful to me, but I don't presume what I felt was actually what was going on or anything at all beyond entirely normal human experience--part of being a human brain owner/operator, which makes it all the more profound and powerful. Such experiences are just part of what it is to be human.
Detaching this deeply meaningful aspect of being human from humanity and shifting it to some inhuman other-ness sells yourself and humanity short--denies us an extremely powerful connection with each other through this entirely natural common human experience. It fosters the idea that such profoundly meaningful experiences have to come from external sources, because we're just not neato enough, or even because we suck, and sometimes I think that's the greatest harm our religious nature does us when it's not kept in check.
--
Subjective, individual proof = not proof of any kind. That's mistaking compelling and/or meaningful for proven, even on an individual level. [Sam] Harris doesn't make the mistake of presuming an interpretation of such events has been proven simply because the experience is real and compelling.
I've mentioned several times in here that I've had a couple of powerful experiences that most would interpret as spiritual (in fact I did interpret the first as spiritual). The first was like a powerful, intimate presence connecting to me in a complete sense, as in the entirety of my mind was somehow in contact or part of with this powerful presence (to my mind at the time, God). The second was a sense of connection to the cosmos that was both deeply and absolutely impersonal--it was personal in the sense that it was a very direct, intimate, emotionally powerful connection, but impersonal in that it was a sense of total connection, without separation, that rendered the idea of distinct "person-hood" meaningless. Both experiences had that powerful personal/impersonal dynamic, but the first one was very proprietary (it was at a state wide youth revival kinda thing with a lot of like-minded fellow believers and music and other crowd/social dynamics going into it), and the second completely inclusive (as far as I can tell it was totally spontaneous and I was completely alone).
Those dynamics had a lot to do with shaping the experiences for me, but the character of the physical/emotional sensation was itself exactly the same, as I recall. As far as I can tell the differences in the quality of the experiences were entirely about my state of mind at the time and my interpretations. I'm reasonably certain the connections I felt, though profound and deeply meaningful to me, were pure fabrications of my own mind. In fact I'm pretty sure the totality of these experiences themselves were as well. They could have been neurological misfires or brief neurochemical imbalances of some sort. The presences I felt (God, the Cosmos) and my interpretation of the experiences is quite meaningful to me, but I don't presume what I felt was actually what was going on or anything at all beyond entirely normal human experience--part of being a human brain owner/operator, which makes it all the more profound and powerful. Such experiences are just part of what it is to be human.
Detaching this deeply meaningful aspect of being human from humanity and shifting it to some inhuman other-ness sells yourself and humanity short--denies us an extremely powerful connection with each other through this entirely natural common human experience. It fosters the idea that such profoundly meaningful experiences have to come from external sources, because we're just not neato enough, or even because we suck, and sometimes I think that's the greatest harm our religious nature does us when it's not kept in check.
Muffled
Jesus in me
I believe the spirit is capable of a fantasy that is as near to real as anything possible. I believe one has to inquire of the spirit whether it was reporting memory or issuing fantasy.
Muffled
Jesus in me
I believe this is not a matter of doing a shift but of recognizing what is. I don't see a necessity for humankind to glorify itself.
I don't believe so. I don't believe I suck at baseball because Joe Demaggio was so good but simply because in reality I couldn't catch a ball or hit one either. I don't believe that Joe Demaggio pre-empts other players from being good or better. I do believe you can't get any better than God but that is His nature and not ours just as it will never be my nature to be a good ballplayer.
I believe Jesus calls us to be more than we could be on our own and that is a good thing. I don't believe it does us any harm to see that it can be done. Maybe it inspires us to be able to do it on our own.
SkepticX
Member
It's not the glorification, as I said, it's about the shift of focus from us to a god. Rejecting unreasonable self-deprication doesn't require or even imply its opposite, and by shifting our focus externally we're refusing each other credit and missing the powerful, real connections available to us merely because we're humans.
Muffled
Jesus in me
I believe that does not make sense. I am going to follow my wife into cheating on the marriage because she does it and I should take my cues from sinners? I stay true to God and faithful to my wife and I believe that is a superior focus.
Rick O'Shez
Irishman bouncing off walls
It's a good question. Such experiences are inherently subjective, and people interpret them according to their beliefs, so there is no way of knowing that I can see. It just comes back to what people believe or assume.
Rick O'Shez
Irishman bouncing off walls
Exactly. People often see what they expect to see.
SkepticX
Member
Whatever you did to what I wrote in-between your eyes and your brain obviously doesn't make sense if that's your reply to it. Doesn't appear to have gotten to your brain in a recognizable fashion though--doesn't appear that what you think you took away from that post was actually in it. Looks like what you ended up with was at least 90% from you, and maybe 10% was from my post.