So then the only difference here is that when you have a spiritual experience, by which I mean experiencing a sense of mystery, awe, gratitude, and connection, you think in terms of gods or go to that word. So what's the benefit of doing that? I leave the god part out and direct my attention to the reality around me. I don't try to guess what the unseen aspects of reality are. What I experience is rich enough without embellishing it based on no information about what more there may be.
This is a really good conversation. It's helping me understand some things for myself that have been difficult for me to unravel and see into with some clarity. I think your questions here are helping me to do that for myself. I'll try to explain it as I'm processing this as I go along. This also ties into what you touch on later in the paragraph about Einstein's use of God, but I'll start here.
I'm not sure if you read that link I shared before:
The Three Faces of Spirit. It's short, but will really help explain what I am about to say, as I'm drawing from it in my explanation. As human beings we experience reality in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd person modes of perception. The subjective, inter-subjective, and objective experiences of reality. All three are equally valid, differing but interrelated aspects of our humanness.
When it comes to experiencing the Absolute, likewise we may experience it through 3rd person perspectives, such as in Nature mysticism, that sense of Mystery, the Universe, something we are "looking at", with that sense of awe, beyond words. Not something we critically analyze, but something that takes our breath away and leave us speechless. That is absolutely valid. Something I regularity connect with in my own experiences.
The experience of the Absolute through 1st person perspective is very much what you find in Buddhist practices of dissolving the separate small egoic 'self', and allowing pure Consciousness to be revealed. I like to think of it like turning off the blasting speakers at a rock concert in your head, and being able to suddenly hear that single bird chirping which you couldn't before because of all that noise pollution.
It's stopping that constant stream of the discursive mind and suddenly seeing and connecting with Reality, pure, unfiltered, unmediated, at it is who you are. It is not other to you. You are All that Is. Your identity merges with it. I also have and do experience the Absolute this way was well.
For me this passage from the Buddhist
Dhammapada, captures the essence of what that is for me in my own personal experiences:
Wanting nothing
With all your heart
Stop the stream.
When the world dissolves
Everything becomes clear.
Go beyond
This way or that way,
To the farther shore
Where the world dissolves
And everything becomes clear.
Beyond this shore
And the farther shore,
Beyond the beyond,
Where there is no beginning,
No end.
Without fear go.
In 1st person experience of the Absolute, or rather 'as' the Absolute, you are one with all that arises. It is not other to you, but in you, through you, to you, from you, is you. Hard to describe.
Now for the experience of the Absolute, through 2nd person perspective, I more than appreciate what that article I linked you to says about how that:
"Second-person spirituality is a difficult sticking-point for many Westerners. One reason is that Western culture was long dominated by Christian second-person religion with a dogmatic mythic conception of God. When Western cultures made their transition into modernity, they (rightly!) rejected mythic religious conceptions of God. But they threw out the baby (second-person spirituality altogether) along with the bathwater (a mythic version of God.)"
I really want to focus right here on this, as I see it as the crux of almost everyone's allergic reaction to the "God" word, and what people see as "theism", which leads to endless debate threads on the forum here. Not to mention, my own person struggles with religion and "God beliefs". Don't forget, I too became an atheist for that same reason.
I apologize that this may be lengthy, but it's not an easy nut to crack. But it's worth dissecting the particulars in order to see the whole more clearly.
I had a profound peak experience when I was 18, and the nature of it took on a 2nd person experience of the Absolute, as Infinite Love and Mind. It was deeply personal. It fits that "Inter-subjectivity" aspect of transcendent awareness perfectly. That became associated in my mind, as "God". It was an "I-Thou" type experience. So that has always been a cornerstone experience of my life.
And shortly afterwards, I had another equally profound cornerstone-type peak, or awakening experience that was both 3rd person observer, and 1st person subjective, the former shifting to the latter in the same experience. The 2nd person perspective of the first experience was not part of that as it had been a few days early. But each was all absolutely of the same, Absolute, Infinite, Transcendent Reality. It was still Infinite, Radiant Love in all things, through all things, to all things, from all things, and likewise within myself. There just was not the perception of "Mind", or "Other" to that. Each could be described as "real reality", or more real than real, or Ultimate Reality.
What has, until very recently been confusing to me is this notion of "well if this is true, than that can't be true too, can it?" sort of dualistic dividing of reality into this vs that, true vs. false statements. Each of these three are equally true, equally valid, and equal experiences of the Absolute. Due to the nature of perception, to say, "I only experienced the Transcendent as
impersonal, therefore it can't be personal, or vice versa, is an error of reason. It is the same Source, just experienced in different ways, 1st person subjective. 2nd person intersubjective, and 3rd person objective.
I can and do experience "Spirit" or that Infinite Realty or Absolute, in each of these ways. Albeit, I struggle with that often times due to the poison of fundamentalism and its fear-based version of God. Nothing whatsoever in my experience had that fear as part of it. The exact opposite is true. But I got sucked into it in my youth trying to understand and return to these states of Absolute Love and Freedom. They taught to only believe their interpretations of scripture, and to "not trust the heart", even if my own experiences were in conflict with their theologies.
As a footnote, I swear, when I hear certain atheists say, "It's only the brain!" or "It's merely subjective experiences. That's not evidence of anything", I hear the same fear and distrust of the heart, and on over reliance on their thinking minds born out of that fear and ignorance. It's the same things, placing ideas and thoughts, be they religious or secular in nature, over knowledge of one's own instincts, intuitions, and outright firsthand experiences. "Stick with what the Bible tells us, son". "Stick with what sciences show us, son". Same thing really,
in this context.
As far as why I like to use the word God? Because seeing Reality in the 2nd person intersubjective sense, creates a sense of communion. It is an exchange of Love. From the Divine to me. From me to the Divine. It is an exchange. Intercourse. Communion. And the effect of that is, as a human being, transformative. It gets us out of our separate isolated egoic self, into loving communion with the world, and with others. It moves us into interactive relationships with the Divine, through relationship with others, with Nature, and with "God within". It brings our own Divine natures into the light, and helps us to overcome the influence of the negative, ego-facing perspective. To see "God" brings all your attention to what is higher of above the small separate ego-self.
1st person experiences tend to tuck the ego into the corner and bypass it. 3rd person just doesn't notice it. But 2nd person exposes it, heals it, transforms it. I could try to explain more, but that at least opens the door of explaining it. So "God" to me, is really all three: My true Self; Reality as the Transcendent Other I have relations with as a separate self; and Reality as living Spirit, Divine energy which is the Foundation and Wellspring of Life Itself. The latter is that impersonal face of the Divine.
Most people who have experiences of Ultimate Reality, that Mystery, will tend to have one perspective as the dominant perspective, but can move between them as well. After all, we are human beings and we use all modes of perspective in living our lives normally.
I'll respond to your other points later in a separate post as I have time to focus on it. I want to attempt to unravel this a bit, as I think it helps me to understand it a little better, and can serve as a foundation for other explanations as we go along.
