How can we know "God" exists?

[Tiberius]

It does to me. He expresses this quite well in fact. Don't assume because it doesn't click for you within the scope of your personal experience it's nothing but "buzz words". What he is saying is quite insightful, not buzz words.

Then please feel free to explain it in clear English.

Not if that absolute reality is nondual. You perceive yourself in a dualistic reality. A dualistic reality is only a half of nonduality. And the cool thing is, nonduality is THIS reality. You just don't see it, yet. And that's the living in an illusion that all the mystics speak about.

Define what you mean by a non-dual reality.

Everything is evidence. Evidence for me, is evidence for God.

I disagree. You are detectable by many methods. I can detect the light reflecting off you, I can detect your mass, I can detect your sound, small, heat, etc. None of this is possible with God.

Also, if everything is evidence for God, please explain to me how a flower proves God. bear in mind that a sufficient proof will not just explain why it is proof of God, but it will also explain why God is the best/only possible explanation. I can provide such an explanation for how flowers support evolution.

But the salient point is evidence is not knowing. If you truly know yourself, you know God. And I don't mean those mental constructs you call the ego-self "me", is knowing yourself. I mean knowing yourself behind and beyond all those masks, those faces we put on.

I think you are trying to imply a false dichotomy here.

For example, let's say there has been a murder. We have a suspect. We find the murder weapon at his house. We find his fingerprints on the weapon. We find his DNA at the crime scene. We find that the victim met with the suspect at the time of the murder. We find the victim's blood on the suspect's hands. We have surveillance footage showing the suspect moving towards the victim shortly before the time of death.

We have lots of evidence that the suspect committed the murder. Is this the same as knowing that the suspect committed the murder? No. But we don't therefore say that the possibility that the suspect is guilty is the same as the chances that he is innocent.

Who are you? Look at that long and hard, and when you say "that's me", then ask if that's you, then who is looking at you and saying it's you? And keep going, and going, until you are left with who you really are. Then come back here and let's talk about evidence.

If God exists in reality, then he exists independent of me. My knowing myself is not required in just the same way that one does not need to know oneself in order to comprehend a particular chemical reaction.

To you, of course. Admitting you don't get it, is the beginning.

It's philosophical nonsense.

In a sense, yes. In a sense, no. God is the face we put upon the Infinite unknown. At a certain point, we see that Face is our own, and that our face we thought was us, is That which has always been our original self - from before the Big Bang.

Nonsensical. If God exists in reality, then he does not require my existence.

Exactly. This is good! Or as Yoda would say it, "Good, this is."

If you think that incomprehensibility is a good thing, then I doubt you have anything of value to say.

You do realize that every single experience in your life is created by your brain? And that every single person likewise in the most mundane of this so-called 'reality' you speak of, likewise have "wildly differing views" about what they see and experience?

Close, but not quite.

What I experience is my brain's interpretation of actual events. Since it is highly unlikely that I will have the full picture of any event, my interpretation is based on incomplete knowledge and is therefore not accurate. However, it is as accurate as I can make it, because I base it off my understanding of the way the world works.

But the point to remember is that what I experience of the real world comes from external stimuli.

I've never seen anything at all that suggests to me that a religious experience comes from external stimuli. And until I see evidence of external stimuli for religious experiences, then I will consider that a religious experience is solely confined to within the brain, and NOT a result of the brain experiencing things external to itself.

Truth is, you are interpreting the world through your particular set of eyes, just as those who experience God are. Yet there is just as much agreement as to the experience of God between those who have that, as those in your "real world", from the simplest of experiences. There's never 100% agreement in anything! Don't single out religious experience here.

Rubbish. Unless there is some force at work that is external to the brain when it comes to religious experiences, then each person's religious experience will be entirely unique to them.

I'll answer you this, if you first answer me who are you? Your body? Your hair? Your name? Your experiences? Who exactly is "me"? Please start with that super-easy question, and see just how super-easy it isn't.

The "me" who experiences my life is made up of interactions and chemical pathways laid down by my neurons.

 

[Windwalker]

Not really, duality only arises when the conceptual mind interprets reality. Iow, when the mortal mind is still and has ceased all thoughts, duality can't arise. That non-dual state of mind is the real 'you'.

You are describing Emptiness, the casual, the formless state. That is not nonduality. Nonduality includes duality.

Historically the great traditions begin in the first Axial Age where it was viewed that the world of form was to be overcome and we should seek Nirvana. We should flee form and seek the formless. That the world was illusion. Flee the many, find the One and rest in the formless.

It wasn't until Nagarjuna in the East, and Plotinus in the West that it was recognized that the above itself was a form of duality. It separates spirit from the world. It splits Spirit up. They realized that Spirit is also found in manifestation, in form. This began the nondual traditions. Nonduality sees that Emptiness in Form are not two things. (Don't confuse this with monism, or pantheism).

What you are referring to, correctly, is the illusion of the separate self. I very much agree with this, that as you are able to cease all that busy activity of the mind and simply rest in the formless, you realize what you thought was your 'self' is not really 'you'. It is an illusion. The world of form, that we saw as a fixed reality, is in fact just perceptual which we simply 'believe' with the mind, using all it's conceptual objects in a dualitistic reality.

But then there is something beyond that. And that is the recognition, the experience of that emptiness in duality. I am That. This is not monism or pantheism, which sees that all in one substance. Monism for the same reasons is duality. Nonduality instead see that all forms, are forms in themselves, and they are all emptiness. I am still this body and this mind, but I am the formless All.

I believe it was Sharkara who said this, which expresses this well,

The world is an illusion.
Brahman alone is real.
Brahman is the world.


You see the progression there? The last line is the twist, creating the paradox. Flee the many to the One, but then move from the One to the many. From the many to the One, from the One to the many. So what Willhemena said, was right in this context.

Of course there is the irony that the mystic must use concepts to explain that the use of concepts obscures the reality for which those concepts represent, but the astute student understands and accepts this.

I like this. This is well put. It is a challenge to use words at all, since our language is rooted in, tied to, and reinforces a strictly dualistic point of view. The best we can do is bend the language to allow light to crack though. Those who understand what is being said, can allow for this flaw in language and hear what is being said. They don't get hung up on these things. And that ties nicely to my favorite quote from Meister Eckhart,
"Theologians may quarrel, but the mystics of the world speak the same language."

 

[Ben Dhyan]

You are describing Emptiness, the casual, the formless state. That is not nonduality. Nonduality includes duality.

No sir, that may well be your conceptual impression, but my words were used as an expedient to explain that words have no reality except as symbols to represent reality.

If you would want to know what the reality is that is represented by the concept of non-duality, then your mind will need to be still, no thinker and no thoughts. So long as there is a you that thinks, then duality naturally is present, the thinker and the thoughts.

 

[Willamena]

You are describing Emptiness, the casual, the formless state. That is not nonduality. Nonduality includes duality.

If I may amend the wording, more properly nonduality cannot exclude duality, not without being duality. To include or exclude is duality.

 

[Windwalker]

If I may amend the wording, more properly nonduality cannot exclude duality, not without being duality. To include or exclude is duality.

Correct. I too struggle with the language.

 

[Windwalker]

No sir, that may well be your conceptual impression, but my words were used as an expedient to explain that words have no reality except as symbols to represent reality.

I agree that words may be mistaken as reality. But if we experience words, isn't that reality as well?

If you would want to know what the reality is that is represented by the concept of non-duality, then your mind will need to be still, no thinker and no thoughts. So long as there is a you that thinks, then duality naturally is present, the thinker and the thoughts.

Nonduality is not a concept. If you wish to have a nondual experience, you may do so in duality. This may help to explain the difference: Not Duality is Not Non Duality | School of Yogic Buddhism

"It suggests a path out of dualistic paradigms through embracing the experience of ambiguity and paradox in which non-dual experience and dualistic conceptions both take place. It suggests that the key to the discovery of non-duality relies on entering wakefully into the experience of dualism rather than denying it."​

 

[Almustafa]

the highets level of understanding we can have in the relative existence is polarity, which is the one non-dual truth described in pairs of opposites, like one battery with two ends(+/-)
"form formlessness given form"-heart sutra

might one suggest that anyone confused about the terms take a hop over to Nondualism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Pantheism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Monism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Windwalker]

Then please feel free to explain it in clear English.

Define what you mean by a non-dual reality.

You difficulty is in understanding the context of the usage. That doesn't make them buzz words. Buzz words are meaningless sound bites. I guarantee you these are not that. Minds far greater than mine are quite fluent in their use.

First it may help if you understood what duality is. Do you? If not, it is the division between subject and object. This is a dualistic reality, where you are not the other, and hence in your mind using dualism you see God as "other". You here, God there. You here, me there". That's dualism.

Then there is not-dualism, or monism. That says that all that is is one substance. We are all made of atoms, or strings, or spirit, etc. This is where pantheism comes in. We are all God, in the sense God is every thing, every object. But this too is a dualistic view if you think about it, becasue it sees the universe as an object. Any time you identify some thing, you make it 'there' with you 'here' making the distinction.

Nonduality, is best explained in what I linked to this in a previous post: Not Duality is Not Non Duality | School of Yogic Buddhism This isn't something you can intellectualize. It is experiencing yourself in the world, beyond a strictly dualistic reality, which is the common, default position for our minds to take.

I'll let you process that for a bit, and you can come back with questions.

I disagree. You are detectable by many methods. I can detect the light reflecting off you, I can detect your mass, I can detect your sound, small, heat, etc. None of this is possible with God.

Oh, but how are you defining me? A body? A physical form? What about my mind? Where is "me" in there?

You need to answer my question first about 'who are you'?, before you can begin to say you can detect "me". All you've done is detect a body. Is that all you are? And if so, who is it identifying what is you? It can't be whatever it was you just identified, because you had to be outside it to see it. Who are you? Who am I? Then, ask what is God? Start with you first before you leap to asking about God.

Also, if everything is evidence for God, please explain to me how a flower proves God.

Because a flower arises in the world. Everything that arises is a manifestation of Spirit. Is that scientifically provable? Of course not. Science only looks at objects.

Want a good way to think about God? God is the subject of everything. Process that using science.

bear in mind that a sufficient proof will not just explain why it is proof of God, but it will also explain why God is the best/only possible explanation.

All science does is look at the exteriors, not the interiors. I don't believe magic created the flowers (other than really all of evolution is really quite a wonder indeed!). I believe the world exists as it is. Knowing it, from the inside, is knowing God. Not looking for signs of some magical Leprechaun out there somewhere doing feats of magic. That's not God. That's a mythological representation of God. And it's that representation that you find fault with. Big deal. That's easy. So do I!

I can provide such an explanation for how flowers support evolution.

Cool. So can I. I not only accept evolution, I embrace it as part of my spiritual path.

I think you are trying to imply a false dichotomy here.

For example, let's say there has been a murder. We have a suspect. We find the murder weapon at his house. We find his fingerprints on the weapon. We find his DNA at the crime scene. We find that the victim met with the suspect at the time of the murder. We find the victim's blood on the suspect's hands. We have surveillance footage showing the suspect moving towards the victim shortly before the time of death.

We have lots of evidence that the suspect committed the murder. Is this the same as knowing that the suspect committed the murder? No. But we don't therefore say that the possibility that the suspect is guilty is the same as the chances that he is innocent.

I'm not talking about who you identify as "you" physically. Of course I have my body. I also have my personality, my friends, my job, my house, etc, etc. All these things I associate with my unique form. But the question is vastly deeper than all this. I am asking who is it looking at all these things, existentially? Who are you? Who is it that identifies himself with these things?

All you are doing in all your arguments, is seeing out through a set of eyes you are unaware exist, at a world outside yourself. What has to happen, is you turn those eyes inward. Behind all those things you identify as "you". You can back, and back, and back, behind all those things you call "you", to that set of eyes itself. Pure awareness. Now, who is that???

Now you can begin to ask the question, what is God, or what is 'that', if that's even a question at all anymore.

If God exists in reality, then he exists independent of me.

Says who?

My knowing myself is not required in just the same way that one does not need to know oneself in order to comprehend a particular chemical reaction.

Says who? I say otherwise. I speak from experience.

It's philosophical nonsense.

Hardly.

Nonsensical. If God exists in reality, then he does not require my existence.

In how you define the undefinable.

If you think that incomprehensibility is a good thing, then I doubt you have anything of value to say.

This is laughable, actually. Do you think you comprehend everything, and yet somehow are able to breathe it into you and find your heart and mind elevated into Awe? It is ridiculous in the extreme to think we have to be able to comprehend everything in order to feel alive, to experience our own being.

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom the emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand wrapped in awe, is as good as dead —his eyes are closed. The insight into the mystery of life, coupled though it be with fear, has also given rise to religion. To know what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms—this knowledge, this feeling is at the center of true religiousness.”


~ Albert Einstein​

If it is comprehensible, there is no Mystery, Commander Data

What I experience is my brain's interpretation of actual events.

Including those of the future??? How about things of the past even? Those aren't actually events! This is you, whoever or whatever that is, interacting with mental objects. Those objects is what you interface with. How is that reality?

But the point to remember is that what I experience of the real world comes from external stimuli.

Except of course when create a world inside your head you live and interact within, which your body then follows you. You have no idea how deep this rabbit hole goes, Alice.

I've never seen anything at all that suggests to me that a religious experience comes from external stimuli. And until I see evidence of external stimuli for religious experiences, then I will consider that a religious experience is solely confined to within the brain, and NOT a result of the brain experiencing things external to itself.

Look up at the night sky. React to it. That's a religious experience. But that's not the only place it comes from. It comes from deep within as well.

Know yourself, know God. Know God, know yourself.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

I agree that words may be mistaken as reality. But if we experience words, isn't that reality as well?

The only reality of words is that of being words, not the reality for which they represent. The experience of words is duality, pure reality can't be experienced, it just is absolutely, if it were to be claimed or imagined to be experienced, it would be the delusion.

Nonduality is not a concept. If you wish to have a nondual experience, you may do so in duality....

This is just silly beyond words,..."nonduality is not a concept",...of course it is a concept. Is there an actual reality represented by the concept though? That is for the mystic to realize or no.

You say,.."If you wish to have a nondual experience, you may do so in duality.? This is an oxymoron, and with due respect you do not understand yet that the reality of nonduality represented by the concept of nonduality is not conceptual, it can't be conceived of for all conception involves duality,.i.e. the conceiver and that conceived.

 

[Windwalker]

Did you read the link I provided?

 

[Ben Dhyan]

Did you read the link I provided?

Of course not, you have not convinced me that you understand what is being said to you yet. No point in wasting time if that remains the case...

 

[Windwalker]

To put a point on this, I'll quote from the link I provided, highlighting a few points:

Rinpoche: It seems to me that people can rationally comprehend it, but yes, realizing it's lived meaning is something else altogether. The key seems to be not taking the aggressive approach of doing away with or denying duality. Instead dualistic conceptions are rendered unproblemeatic. They are only problematic as long as they are taken as definite reference points. When they are experienced as opened ended reflections or "appearances," then they can simply arise and dissolve as one aspect of the texture of experience. If we do not grasp onto dualistic conceptions, if we do not revolve around them, if we do not identify with them, if we do not build our world around them, then they are not problematic. The practices of our path aim at getting to know the non-dual texture of experience within which dualistic conceptions arise. The more we are able to communicate with that non-dual texture then the less problematic dualistic conceptions are. They can simply come and go. They can impart their intelligence and even reflect non-duality more starkly by indicating it to us when we have trained.

It is a more ambiguous space to allow dualistic conception to exist than is monism. In monism everything is defined, tidy, captured in exalted spiritual language. In non-duality, both monism and dualism exist as temporary partial reflections of reality - flavors of the moment.

The key seems to be meditation practice, there is the experience where non-dual experience and dualistic conceptions could take place simultaneously and non-problematically, the situation is self-liberated.​

Now this ties into what I was heading to earilier in citing the history of the progression towards nonduality, coming out of the 1st Axial Age, and being brought into the world beginning with Nagarjuna in the East and Plotinus in the West. What I didn't get to and will now, is that with the rise of Yagocara in East Asia, this is where the spiritual path took on what you are hearing about which is Tantra. You come to know the Absolute through form.

Here's what the Rinpoche says before this that ties into this:

Rinpoche: The Dzogchen teaching on emptiness is that emptiness is form and form is emptiness. "Not-duality" is a way of saying that duality is emptiness. It is a reversal of the usual mindset because most people think reality in terms of Duality and that reality is form; that is the ordinary mindset. The ordinary mindset is that form is all there is and that any emptiness that pokes out can be avoided, ignored, or fixed through some strategy. Monism is a way of saying that Duality is empty, that form is empty. That would be the equivalent of Sutra; Sutra is the path of establishing that form is empty. Then Tantra establishes that emptiness is form. Dzogchen is the recognition that form is emptiness and emptiness is form.
​

Do you understand this yourself?

 

[Windwalker]

Of course not, you have not convinced me that you understand what is being said to you yet. No point in wasting time if that remains the case...

Yes I understand this. Furthermore, I experience this.

So, yes I very much do get what you are saying. Do you follow this?

 

[John Thiel]

One way or another, God may be known.

 

[Tiberius]

You difficulty is in understanding the context of the usage. That doesn't make them buzz words. Buzz words are meaningless sound bites. I guarantee you these are not that. Minds far greater than mine are quite fluent in their use.

The fact that the words have meaning in certain contexts doesn't mean that they aren't meaningless buzzwords when used by someone who just strings them together.

First it may help if you understood what duality is. Do you? If not, it is the division between subject and object. This is a dualistic reality, where you are not the other, and hence in your mind using dualism you see God as "other". You here, God there. You here, me there". That's dualism.

Any and all investigation of the world would tend to support the "You there, me here" idea. I am here. I am not there. You are there and not here. If you were here, then wouldn't we be sharing the same space? That doesn't happen.

Then there is not-dualism, or monism. That says that all that is is one substance. We are all made of atoms, or strings, or spirit, etc. This is where pantheism comes in. We are all God, in the sense God is every thing, every object. But this too is a dualistic view if you think about it, becasue it sees the universe as an object. Any time you identify some thing, you make it 'there' with you 'here' making the distinction.

This is where I have the problem. Just because we are made of the same substance does not mean that there is part of you in me, or vice versa.

And you seem to be saying that thinking of anything as a separate object is wrong. This is not a practical way of doing things, and you don't do it yourself.

Nonduality, is best explained in what I linked to this in a previous post: Not Duality is Not Non Duality | School of Yogic Buddhism This isn't something you can intellectualize. It is experiencing yourself in the world, beyond a strictly dualistic reality, which is the common, default position for our minds to take.

Again, this is all just vagueness and tells me nothing concrete. Give me specifics.

Oh, but how are you defining me? A body? A physical form? What about my mind? Where is "me" in there?

A person's "mind" is formed from the interactions between their brain cells. it's been measured. We can see that when they experience fear, say, a particular part of their brain has a lot of activity. When they experience love, a different part of their brain experiences activity.

You need to answer my question first about 'who are you'?, before you can begin to say you can detect "me". All you've done is detect a body. Is that all you are? And if so, who is it identifying what is you? It can't be whatever it was you just identified, because you had to be outside it to see it. Who are you? Who am I? Then, ask what is God? Start with you first before you leap to asking about God.

As I said just then, the mind of a person is formed from the interactions between their neurons.

Because a flower arises in the world. Everything that arises is a manifestation of Spirit. Is that scientifically provable? Of course not. Science only looks at objects.

So you use an assumption and then call it proof. That's not how proof works. If that's the best you can do, then you have not been able to show that a flower proves God. All you've done is say that you really REALLY think it shows God.

Want a good way to think about God? God is the subject of everything. Process that using science.

Want a good way to think about magical moon fairies? Magical moon fairies are the subject of everything. Process that using science.

See how nonsensical that argument is?

All science does is look at the exteriors, not the interiors. I don't believe magic created the flowers (other than really all of evolution is really quite a wonder indeed!). I believe the world exists as it is. Knowing it, from the inside, is knowing God. Not looking for signs of some magical Leprechaun out there somewhere doing feats of magic. That's not God. That's a mythological representation of God. And it's that representation that you find fault with. Big deal. That's easy. So do I!

And yet you can't provide any representation of God that matches with what we can verify about the real world.

Cool. So can I. I not only accept evolution, I embrace it as part of my spiritual path.

At least there's that...

I'm not talking about who you identify as "you" physically. Of course I have my body. I also have my personality, my friends, my job, my house, etc, etc. All these things I associate with my unique form. But the question is vastly deeper than all this. I am asking who is it looking at all these things, existentially? Who are you? Who is it that identifies himself with these things?

All you are doing in all your arguments, is seeing out through a set of eyes you are unaware exist, at a world outside yourself. What has to happen, is you turn those eyes inward. Behind all those things you identify as "you". You can back, and back, and back, behind all those things you call "you", to that set of eyes itself. Pure awareness. Now, who is that???

Already answered this.

Now you can begin to ask the question, what is God, or what is 'that', if that's even a question at all anymore.

It's not. You are resorting to vague undefined terms and treating them as if they mean something.

Says who?

Because the real world does not need me to exist.

Says who? I say otherwise. I speak from experience.

Then please provide a specific example of how you have been required to know yourself in order to find some verifiably accurate fact about the real world external to yourself.

Hardly.

I say otherwise. I speak from experience.

In how you define the undefinable.

There you go, there's a buzzword for you.

You say things, but they provide no understanding.

This is laughable, actually. Do you think you comprehend everything, and yet somehow are able to breathe it into you and find your heart and mind elevated into Awe? It is ridiculous in the extreme to think we have to be able to comprehend everything in order to feel alive, to experience our own being.

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom the emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand wrapped in awe, is as good as dead —his eyes are closed. The insight into the mystery of life, coupled though it be with fear, has also given rise to religion. To know what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms—this knowledge, this feeling is at the center of true religiousness.”


~ Albert Einstein​

If it is comprehensible, there is no Mystery, Commander Data

More philosophical mumbo jumbo.

I am fully aware that I can not comprehend everything. My point is that we should not accept things as true just because we cannot comprehend them.

Including those of the future??? How about things of the past even? Those aren't actually events! This is you, whoever or whatever that is, interacting with mental objects. Those objects is what you interface with. How is that reality?

The events of the future haven't happened, and so they cannot influence me. All I can do is use my expectations of what those events will be.

The events of the past are not happening now, but they have consequences and also leave memories, and both of those will affect me in the here and now.

Except of course when create a world inside your head you live and interact within, which your body then follows you. You have no idea how deep this rabbit hole goes, Alice.

And you're delusional too.

Look up at the night sky. React to it. That's a religious experience. But that's not the only place it comes from. It comes from deep within as well.

It's awe-inspiring, yes, but not religious. I do not see God when I look up at the stars.

Know yourself, know God. Know God, know yourself.

There is no God.

 

[Windwalker]

The fact that the words have meaning in certain contexts doesn't mean that they aren't meaningless buzzwords when used by someone who just strings them together.

And how would you know the difference?

And you seem to be saying that thinking of anything as a separate object is wrong. This is not a practical way of doing things, and you don't do it yourself.

I have never said that. "Wrong" is your word. You must think in terms of black and white, True/False. I don't. And there is the disconnect at the outset. These are not concrete, black and white things I'm talking about.

Again, this is all just vagueness and tells me nothing concrete. Give me specifics.

Why do you need concrete? That is the entire issue here. Life isn't concrete. It's anything but that, except in some artificial reality of our own making.

A person's "mind" is formed from the interactions between their brain cells. it's been measured. We can see that when they experience fear, say, a particular part of their brain has a lot of activity. When they experience love, a different part of their brain experiences activity.

This is foolish. Of course there is part of the brain that activates. That activation is not the experience itself. There is content in it. If it's all just physical, then why try to "understand" anything? Why not just be a bundles of responses.

As I said just then, the mind of a person is formed from the interactions between their neurons.

And the brain is nothing but a bunch a cells, and the cells are nothing but a bunch of molecules, and the molecules are nothing but a bunch of atoms. Congratulations, you don't exist. Nothing of you is real. You are just a magical collection of atoms pretending to be a brain, pretending to be you.

Want a good way to think about magical moon fairies? Magical moon fairies are the subject of everything. Process that using science.

Then they are God. (Except they're too mythological for my tastes).

And yet you can't provide any representation of God that matches with what we can verify about the real world.

I exist. Everything represents God. Not God as you define it maybe.

At least there's that...

Ditto.

Already answered this.

You have not.

Because the real world does not need me to exist.

Let's put it this way. You and I are looking at the same thing. We see things differently. Which one is seeing the "real" world? Please answer that to the best of your ability.

Then please provide a specific example of how you have been required to know yourself in order to find some verifiably accurate fact about the real world external to yourself.

External to myself? When you come to know yourself, these boundaries between you and the world dissolve. That's when it gets interesting.

More philosophical mumbo jumbo.

LOL. You missed who said this?

Albert Einstein. Good god kid, are you that arrogant you know so much here?

 

[Ben Dhyan]

Yes I understand this. Furthermore, I experience this.

So, yes I very much do get what you are saying. Do you follow this?

Sorry to be blunt, but you are deluded, you have not experienced non-duality, nor can you ever. So long as there is a you experiencing anything, it is duality.

Now that is not to say that the human mind, when it is still and free from thought, can't temporarily become one with the non-duality, but when this happens, the 'I' is not present for that period of altered state of mind non-dual awareness. When the 'I' returns, the mind state of non-duality ceases and all that remains is the ego claiming it had the experience of non-duality,...which of course it didn't as it wasn't present, but it has the memory of the event.

Now it is almost inevitable that the novice mystic will make the error of thinking that the same ego who experiences thought, experiences the non-duality state of mind, but in fact when the non-dual state of mind is present, the mind is one with the oneness and there is no second source of being to disturb the awesome peace of non-duality.

 

[Windwalker]

Sorry to be blunt, but you are deluded, you have not experienced non-duality, nor can you ever. So long as there is a you experiencing anything, it is duality.

You're speaking from theory. And yes, I have experienced nonduality. You should read what I linking to. Until then, I see you as defending your ideology.

 

[Windwalker]

Sorry to be blunt, but you are deluded, you have not experienced non-duality, nor can you ever. So long as there is a you experiencing anything, it is duality.

Back to this, since I'm a bit ****** off right now. You have no clue what you are talking about here. If you had read what I wrote you would understand my usage historically, and in schools of thought regarding nonduality. You really should expose yourself to knowledge.

It's a shame you block yourself off from it, for some reason. You are talking about Causal Emptiness, and yes I agree with you! That is not an experience! It is timeless. That is not nonduality. You should read what I offered.

Now that is not to say that the human mind, when it is still and free from thought, can't temporarily become one with the non-duality, but when this happens, the 'I' is not present for that period of altered state of mind non-dual awareness. When the 'I' returns, the mind state of non-duality ceases and all that remains is the ego claiming it had the experience of non-duality,...which of course it didn't as it wasn't present, but it has the memory of the event.

"The non-duality"??? Do you not hear duality in this??? This is what Nagarjuna was point at calling it a duality. This is NOT nonduality. Your calling it "Pure Reality", is dualism.

Now it is almost inevitable that the novice mystic will make the error of thinking that the same ego who experiences thought, experiences the non-duality state of mind, but in fact when the non-dual state of mind is present, the mind is one with the oneness and there is no second source of being to disturb the awesome peace of non-duality.

I understand this, but it's not nonduality. It is the Causal state. I have this in meditation, the sublte, the causal, and the nondual. You are not describing nonduality. And you are not speaking to a novice either. What's with you?

Read the article, please, Rude Buddha.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

You're speaking from theory. And yes, I have experienced nonduality. You should read what I linking to. Until then, I see you as defending your ideology.

Fine,...for now your brain fires neurons in a pattern that you equate with the experience of non-duality,...all the best for your future unfolding.