How Do We Know Our Experience of "Oneness" or "God" is an Experience of a Real "Oneness" or "God"?

[Sunstone]

There seems to be a somewhat rare* human experience that, at it's core, consists in an awareness of the oneness or unity of all things within the perceptual field. Some people who've had this experience call it "an experience of god", while others who've had the experience do not. But one thing nearly everyone seems to agree on is that the experience involves an overwhelming sense or feeling that the oneness of all things is more real than our normal perception of things as being separate and discrete.

In fact, I have spoken to several people over the past 35 years (ever since I became interested in the experience) who have adamantly assured me that the feeling of oneness is so real, there can be no chance at all but that oneness is the ultimate reality of this world.

However, it seems to me that the sense or feeling that something is real is a product of our brains. For instance, we routinely feel that colors are real in the sense that they exist independent of us, but this is shown to be false by physics and psychology. Could not a feeling or sense of the reality of the oneness of all things also be a mere product of our brains?

So how can someone know whether or not his or her experience of oneness is an experience of the actual oneness of all things? Can he or she be sure one way or the either? If so, how? Or must they remain an "agnostic" on the question? If so, what makes it impossible to decide the question either way?




*At least one scholar estimates that perhaps as many as a few million people worldwide have had this experience. If so, it would still be relatively rare given that a few million is not much out of a human population of seven or eight billions.

 

[Valjean]

"You had to have been there."
The experience is clear enough when you're in it, but there's no way you're going to communicate it.
Sometimes we try to draw parallels with physics -- relativity, quantum theory, M theory -- but this rarely communicates much.

 

[beenherebeforeagain]

Personally, I'm of the belief that we humans are not capable of knowing very much for certain. If we observe something/experience something, we can try to study it to see if we can understand it, both on the individual and collective ("scientific") level. We can try to express and interpret and appreciate our experience through various arts. But in the end, there may well be things that we can experience, but that we cannot understand...with the caveat that until we try to understand it, we won't know if it's understandable or not. So what remains is what is unknown, a mystery; "religion" in this way is the recognition that we experience mysteries. To name them, give them identities, powers, histories, personalities, etc., is not warranted in my view--but maybe that's just me.

May or may not be a side note: knowing a cause or physical correlate of an experience is not knowing the experience. I once had the terrifying experience of having the walls of my psyche/personality be reduced from their normal solid nature to weak, fluttering pieces of fabric or paper, as a horrendous storm raged "outside" that threatened to tear them apart and sweep "me" away into the maelstrom. Knowing that the experience was likely rooted in a structural irregularity in my brain (as revealed later by eeg) combined with the consumption of alcohol and/or THC, and that others have experienced similar conditions, does nothing to reduce the utter terror and helplessness of the experience itself. It was the experience itself that led me to change my behavior, not the "explanation," or "understanding" of the event.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

Could not a feeling or sense of the reality of the oneness of all things also be a mere product of our brains?

It certainly could be, or rather a mere product of our minds. The question is it whether these subjective experiences correspond to anything objective, internally or externally. I don't see there's any reliable way of telling, so it comes down to personal belief and interpretation. The fact that a lot of people have such experiences doesn't "prove" anything either way.

 

[George-ananda]

I believe such a state is real (never been there myself) from my study of many eastern masters and others. I think (without objective proof) that reality is in levels; the ultimate level is cosmic consciousness. While asleep we believe the dream is real. When awake we call the dream unreal and our waking world real. When someone experiences cosmic consciousness, they consider our relative waking reality unreal.

 

[crossfire]

There seems to be a somewhat rare* human experience that, at it's core, consists in an awareness of the oneness or unity of all things within the perceptual field. Some people who've had this experience call it "an experience of god", while others who've had the experience do not. But one thing nearly everyone seems to agree on is that the experience involves an overwhelming sense or feeling that the oneness of all things is more real than our normal perception of things as being separate and discrete.

In fact, I have spoken to several people over the past 35 years (ever since I became interested in the experience) who have adamantly assured me that the feeling of oneness is so real, there can be no chance at all but that oneness is the ultimate reality of this world.

Approaching this logically, of course everything within the perceptual field is connected in some manner, otherwise we wouldn't be able to perceive it.

However, it seems to me that the sense or feeling that something is real is a product of our brains. For instance, we routinely feel that colors are real in the sense that they exist independent of us, but this is shown to be false by physics and psychology. Could not a feeling or sense of the reality of the oneness of all things also be a mere product of our brains?

So how can someone know whether or not his or her experience of oneness is an experience of the actual oneness of all things? Can he or she be sure one way or the either? If so, how? Or must they remain an "agnostic" on the question? If so, what makes it impossible to decide the question either way?

If you can come up with a way to logically disprove that the interconnectedness of the perceptual field is what enables perception, then you could disprove the experience. I would say that having the subjective experience as a sense of oneness of all things in the perceptual field speaks more to the separation of the individual's subjective universe from the objective universe.

 

[Jiddanand]

Oneness and God. God is oneness and oneness is God.