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I like your wave/water analogy and I have used it in my Synthesis. Tzaph keeps intimating that this Reality is really just a dream, so your lucid dreaming analogy is cogent. I see the water as the consciousness of God. It is the substrate for everything that manifests including our ability to imagine and create. Our ability to direct the content of a lucid dream is probative. That makes it far more complex than can be subsumed under the water wave analogy but no less apt.
Water is Maya, a relative existence. Only Divinity exists. You are trying to mix vedanta with Christian theology. You can only go so far with it before it stops working any more. There is no salvation through Jesus for instance. We ARE Divinity. Shivoham.
I like your wave/water analogy and I have used it in my Synthesis. Tzaph keeps intimating that this Reality is really just a dream, so your lucid dreaming analogy is cogent. I see the water as the consciousness of God. It is the substrate for everything that manifests including our ability to imagine and create. Our ability to direct the content of a lucid dream is probative. That makes it far more complex than can be subsumed under the water wave analogy but no less apt.
Here's the thing about the lucid dreaming/waking analogy/experience. The dreaming/waking cannot be said to be unreal because it appears, however it cannot be said to be real because it's destroyed by knowledge. Destroyed doesn't mean vanish and knowledge doesn't mean mind. It's still there but perceived with an additional sense and from whence it comes I cannot say. Rupert Spira calls it The Shining Light of Pure Knowing.
On the emotional side it was like being a lost amnesiac and suddenly remembering what I am and realizing I'm not lost and also wondering how I never noticed it before because it was so obvious.
I don't know if this is an answer to Freak's question about experiencing God but it's what I have.
Water is Maya, a relative existence. Only Divinity exists. You are trying to mix vedanta with Christian theology. You can only go so far with it before it stops working any more. There is no salvation through Jesus for instance. We ARE Divinity. Shivoham.
Here's the thing about the lucid dreaming/waking analogy/experience. The dreaming/waking cannot be said to be unreal because it appears, however it cannot be said to be real because it's destroyed by knowledge. Destroyed doesn't mean vanish and knowledge doesn't mean mind. It's still there but perceived with an additional sense and from whence it comes I cannot say. Rupert Spira calls it The Shining Light of Pure Knowing.
On the emotional side it was like being a lost amnesiac and suddenly remembering what I am and realizing I'm not lost and also wondering how I never noticed it before because it was so obvious.
I don't know if this is an answer to Freak's question about experiencing God but it's what I have.
I like the small space before the mind. That is exactly how I experience the Self during meditation before it entirely occupies my consciousness.
so in a literal sense,
each person is generating (dreaming) their own world they inhabit.
and the safe place is knowing, remembering "oh! this is just a dream. nothing can hurt me. i am safe and always have been. it's just a dream. " and nothing to get upset about either. who can get mad or upset or distraught about anything that is (a) just a dream, and (b) by own dream.
i remember about 30 years ago a friend i was close with at the time got really upset with me one day and i couldn't figure out why. i racked my brains going over what i might have said or done to upset her or hurt her feelings or cause the rift. And i drew a blank. Finally when the mood did not pass, I asked her why she was so upset with me, what happened. She said she had a dream and in the dream i was really mean to her. My initial response was relief (i hadn't done anything after all) and then outright laughter because you can't be mad at someone for something they did (a) in a dream so it wasn't even real, and (b) it was her own dream.
that has stayed with me and is a touchstone i use to this day.
so in a literal sense,
each person is generating (dreaming) their own world they inhabit.
and the safe place is knowing, remembering "oh! this is just a dream. nothing can hurt me. i am safe and always have been. it's just a dream. "
More like as Rupert Spira says it's all The Shining Light of Pure Knowing, meaning Consciousness. All just appearances of and within Consciousness and the perspective is both sensory (seeing Maya) and something else (Shining Light of Pure Knowing - Grace, I suppose). I don't know how else to explain except to say everything Shined with that Knowing and not to the senses. There was nothing that wasn't That. It was far more real than reality ever could be.
Water is Maya, a relative existence. Only Divinity exists. You are trying to mix vedanta with Christian theology. You can only go so far with it before it stops working anymore. There is no salvation through Jesus for instance. We ARE Divinity. Shivoham.
I get that you believe this and we do not disagree that it is all Oneness. My experience was unmistakable. I respect your views, but your concept of what the Oneness IS doesn't resonate with me as it seems to for you, Tzaph, and SimpleGuy. Namaste.
I get that you believe this and we do not disagree that it is all Oneness. My experience was unmistakable. I respect your views, but your concept of what the Oneness IS doesn't resonate with me as it seems to for you, Tzaph, and SimpleGuy. Namaste.
Sri Ramakrishna explained it something like people experience the Transcendent in a way they have been shaped and prepared themselves, and ultimately it's the same Transcendent. The one obvious aspect is we can only relate it based on how we can wrap our minds around it and verbalize it. I wouldn't except everyone to describe the same subjective experience except for vague concepts like Oneness, Unity, Harmony, Peace, Love, etc...
no.
in response to the question which was asked in the opening post "is there a way to determine the truth"
i replied that the validation and verification of divinity is through your own experience.
so no, divinity is not an experience.
the validation and verification of divinity is through your own experience.
No two people have the same experience of “divinity.” So whose experience is the “right” one?
No two people have the same experience of “divinity.” So whose experience is the “right” one?
other people can not do this for you.
other people can not determine this for you.
anymore than other people can get a college degree for you, or lose 40 pounds for you, or eat a meal for you or take a trip to the Grand Canyon for you.
the only experience that matters is your own,
in terms of verifying and validating divinity.
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