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I should let her respond herself, but since I'm in a responding mode at the moment... I would say connection in this sense is where what you normally perceive and experience as outside yourself is seen, understood, and experienced as not separate from you, that you are united with it, and that it is not "other" to you on a deep being level. The sky is not 'up there', but is an extension of you as your own hand is, and so forth.
Interesting definition and one that all of us on the Western Left Hand Path should seek to separate from (this connection)
I think I may have offered some much deeper insight into this question, and point you raise here in the other thread about the paths of ascension and descension and the nondual. This is an interesting discussion to me. http://www.religiousforums.com/thre...-joined-at-the-hip.184539/page-2#post-4631123
Where does the spiritual connection exist in it? To be clear what I was saying about the experience of connection above, it has little to nothing to do with conceptual frameworks such as realizing cognitively that we are all stardust. Though such a realization may inspire the mind and the heart, actually experiencing that as a realized state is is quite another matter.
I would have yo say the WLHP connection to the Divine lies in One's connection to their Higher Self which is seperate / isolate from the OU.
This is a question that I have not given much thought to for a very long time. The so-called connection is consciously experiencing ones larger identity. Due to differences in understanding, each will define that "larger identity" in their own unique way, though many may be similar in their descriptions due to the limitations of language - of rendering non-dual experience into verbal terms. For me, it is not outside the realm of logic or thought because I've expanded my notions about reality far enough to include much more than is usual. For me, it was the only logical conclusions to arrive at, in that it is you and you are it. It's like being aware of a future part of yourself that sits looking back smiling at the you that you are now... as you sit, looking at each other you understand that there is no division and in the moment you both laugh at the non-dual paradox of being two and yet one.
Certainly. I put it in these terms. There are many faces to the transcendent. It's not one thing. It really depends on how you translate it at the moment. I always raise a certain cautionary flag when someone defines it as a "oneness" as the ultimate reality, in that that is one face of it. It's more than that, but includes that. Unity is a good word, in that it embraces oneness and multiplicity together. I have a hundred other metaphors I could use. Energy, creativity, light, life, love, being, divinity, knowledge, joy, creation, and so on.
I think that's mostly a matter of experience being filtered through, and interpreted by, a culturally conditioned mind.
I know this place you are describing, this perspective, and see its adoption as an inevitability along the way. However, it's important to point out that just because we consciously cease judging and conceptualizing, that doesn't mean we are able to alter the objective nature of certain experiences, specifically the feelings of pain and pleasure.
you are "absolutely" correct! Pain states are a problem if one has made bad decisions in the past that affects their physical in the present and because I have made alot of bad decisions in the past I am constantly contrasting my connection to the Divine and the pain states that I am experiencing as a physical entity! "Can not alter the objective nature of certain experiences," is an awesome way of putting it ! It is easy to maintain a connection to the Divine when one is not is constant physical pain, but it is very difficult to maintain a connection to the Divine when one "is" in constant physical pain. In fact, being in constant physical pain can and does cause, to some more or less extent, one to loose interest in being connected to the Divine. Especially if one has to participate in life inspite of the physical pain that they are experiencing. If I did not have to participate in life the pain would cause me to just leave (which as a yogi I can do), but because I have to participate in life I do not have that option. From there constantly contrasting the connection becomes the result. But when I am not in constant pain, which happens every once in a while, I then automatically drift into the connection state and contrasting ceases to exist. In theory, my connection to the Divine should heal me, but in my case that has not happened yet . But what has happened is a rare understanding of my physical body from a yogi stand point that most folks never get to experience. And from there the general consensus is, "heal thy self oh yogi one ". From there the contrast between the physical state and the Divine state becomes an interesting exploritory study. Because there should be no difference because the mind in a connection should also create the body in a connection. Sixty years of this stuff with thousands of hours of meditation and I have the mind connection and now I am working on the physical connection. And because I am a mind person that considers the physical a nuisance, if it wasn't for the physical pain I would not be attempting the physical connection as well as the mind connection. Yep Treasure Hunter, "contrasting" definitely comes into the picture at this point in time !