Silk Road forums
Discussion => Philosophy, Economics and Justice => Topic started by: polyphemusperception on April 18, 2013, 12:58 pm
-
Has anyone else experienced this phenomenon?
I have been an atheist for 25 years... but experienced a crossover on a heroic does of mushrooms.
It felt like I was communicating with the god head. Even though I have no frame of reference to what this god like being was or if was a vast in mind hallucination.
If you have had this experience, what did it mean to you and can you explain it?
-
To answer your questions in order:
1 - To me, it meant that I had to suddenly be prepared to accept that I and the established scientific authorities of our world are being as dogmatic about our experience of reality as the most fundamentalist of christians.
2 - If anyone can truly explain this experience, I'm not sure that they have truly had it at all.
All IMHO and all that. :-)
-
This experience has occurred to me a few times on various drugs. I certainly think there's something to it, but we have to drop all of out preconceptions of knowledge entirely before attempting to understand it. I also think that language lacks an awful lot when discussing these matters.
-
This experience has occurred to me a few times on various drugs. I certainly think there's something to it, but we have to drop all of out preconceptions of knowledge entirely before attempting to understand it. I also think that language lacks an awful lot when discussing these matters.
I agree that it's a very difficult thing to put into words....
I felt as though parts of my mind that are usually sedentary woke up and saw for the first time...
Like a bindi, a third eye.... Alex Grey has an amazing painting that depicts this.
-
Yes :) On DMT and many other psychedelics. It is a very humbling experience, one that I have been fortunate enough to have felt while I am still quite young. I wish I could share this feeling of enlightenment and understanding of my place in our universe from my experiences with all my family members, but if I were to even mention that I've taken many psychedelic drugs, they would all take it the wrong way...
-
Yes :) On DMT and many other psychedelics. It is a very humbling experience, one that I have been fortunate enough to have felt while I am still quite young. I wish I could share this feeling of enlightenment and understanding of my place in our universe from my experiences with all my family members, but if I were to even mention that I've taken many psychedelic drugs, they would all take it the wrong way...
I try to stay away from the term drugs.....
Mental Medicne :D
-
I once drank a quart of potent shroom tea. I saw GOD, or nothingness, or something amazing. I'll never forget that. :)
-
Must try DMT ASAP!!
-
i have experienced this a few times... cosmic consciousness. it's just absolute bliss. your identity with the "self" is severed and you experience reality in its purest form, as the interconnectedness of all things. the buddhist metaphor of indra's net is a great example of this experience.
-
I'm an atheist too but wasn't until after I had some meaningful psychedelic experiences that I was able to explore other modes of thought and put them into a context that made sense of Quantum Mechanics and String Theory. I believe in an energy of sorts since that's the only "word" I can use to adequately describe it. If String Theory is correct it would help explain the Law of Thermodynamics and since energy cannot be created or destroyed we are connected in a way to everything. This helps explain the idea of collective consciousness and multiple dimensions a little easier. You can start with fractals and work your way backwards using mathematical theory it might help to get what I mean. This isn't described very well and it's only my perception of the big picture but it makes more sense than anything else to me. =)
-
Karma for everyone, thank you for sharing.
-
I get "communion" feelings on either large doses of LSD or shrooms, but they follow a regular pattern: with shrooms its like an alien intelligence (not necessarily not part of me, perhaps an unconscious part) visiting, while on LSD its a complete merging with the universe, like my body and mind are just wrinkles in the fabric that make up everything and everyone. Never do I take one of these two substances and have the other experience, though that could be the result of now-ingrained expectations.
What has it meant to me? Well, once upon a time I used to (gently) laugh at the idea of entheogens, of spiritual experiences on drugs. I don't laugh anymore. It's also caused me to take a much dimmer view of legal restrictions on these things.
-
Has anyone else experienced this phenomenon?
I have been an atheist for 25 years... but experienced a crossover on a heroic does of mushrooms.
It felt like I was communicating with the god head. Even though I have no frame of reference to what this god like being was or if was a vast in mind hallucination.
If you have had this experience, what did it mean to you and can you explain it?
Your experience was most like not much different from this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y02UlkYjSi0
With the right stimulation some people see angels and so forth.
-
Your experience was most like not much different from this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y02UlkYjSi0
With the right stimulation some people see angels and so forth.
[/quote]
I had seen that episode of through the wormhole when it aired.
I think the experience that they speak of is inherently different than my experience.
This experience for me was an internal vivid breakthrough, not a presence "like someone was watching me".
I agree that the mind is capable of some extraordinary things such as in the segment the ability to rid the person of deaths anxiety by creating a godhead or god presence.
But what I have experienced does not jive with your conjecture.
To me it was almost like crossing to a 5th dimension... hyperspace to another true reality.
-
To answer your questions in order:
1 - To me, it meant that I had to suddenly be prepared to accept that I and the established scientific authorities of our world are being as dogmatic about our experience of reality as the most fundamentalist of christians.
2 - If anyone can truly explain this experience, I'm not sure that they have truly had it at all.
All IMHO and all that. :-)
Same feelings on this subject and I also want to add to this!
After my experience like this I came back to the material world and found that words were lacking, in an enormous amount, the ability to communicate everything! I had never felt this way about words before, I think words have incredible power, of good and evil. However they lack the ability to share the experiences one goes through when on psychedelics, and even when not on these types of drugs. This made me consider other forms of communication that are higher than the human ability to create words and communicate and it fascinated me because I believe now that there is such a form of communication.
-
Are there similarities between a high dose of Mushrooms and a breakthrough DMT experience?
-
Are there similarities between a high dose of Mushrooms and a breakthrough DMT experience?
Although I've never personally tried DMT, I believe there are similarities.
(clearweb) http://youtu.be/OLWfQxqiydc check this out.
-
Interesting, I'm not a believer of anything, never have been. I was in the woods on one of the most intense shroom trips I've ever had, and this is where I first thought a god was possible. I thought, how the fuck does that work, that I eat this mushroom that just GREW out of a pile of shit, and it goes all up in my brain and unlocks this whole new fucking area that is fucking incredible. I couldn't comprehend how that just happened to happen. Though that was just a blip as now I just think I'm an incredibly lucky person to be living in this time. Damn I need to get some mushrooms.
-
What I always experience is the interconnectedness of everything down to the molecular level.
We are photons and sound waves, we are the particles of the stars. We are electrical pulses that are alive down to the smallest atom.
Time usually stops for me and I find myself experiencing these microscopic changes through visual and auditory hallucinations.
The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle states that atoms behave the same when observed....what happens to our atoms when not observed? Do they become erratic and change unexpectedly?
Is this how some knowledge is transferred? Do we share atoms during dream states or psychedelic episodes?
-
Interesting, I'm not a believer of anything, never have been. I was in the woods on one of the most intense shroom trips I've ever had, and this is where I first thought a god was possible. I thought, how the fuck does that work, that I eat this mushroom that just GREW out of a pile of shit, and it goes all up in my brain and unlocks this whole new fucking area that is fucking incredible. I couldn't comprehend how that just happened to happen. Though that was just a blip as now I just think I'm an incredibly lucky person to be living in this time. Damn I need to get some mushrooms.
That's it though!
We all need to get some mushrooms!
You had it right the first time. You only feel that way now because this material world does its best in an infinite number of ways to domesticate you like a house broken animal. Find some shrooms and get your mind right. I'll be doing the same!
-
I've experienced this with LSD. To me it is like waking up from a dream. Universal Mind always seems more real than my finite mind. This experience has convinced that I am nothing but a thought-image inside the mind of an entity that is greater than myself. It could even be a computer, but I shudder at that possibility. If it's a computer, then we're all doomed. We are utterly trapped inside of the machine. I'd much rather it be a loving being, and life more akin to a dream than a computer simulation. But whatever it is, there can be no doubt that it exists! It's aware of us. It is us. And it is controlling and directing everything. You can call it God if you want, but whatever we call it is just a symbol for THAT! It cannot be named or spoken of. Even to say what it is is to falsify it. It is beyond human understanding...
With LSD, I experience Universal Mind as my own higher self. With mushrooms, I experience it as Other. There is a dualism with mushrooms.
-
You people don't even realize it, but the fact that your thoughts feel strange to you - like something or someone is controlling you - is likely a full-blown psychosis!
I've had the same experience on 'Shrooms (Norwegian Psilocybe Semilanceata) and LSD, though mostly when mixed with Cannabis or Hashish. You better be aware- and take care!
-
You people don't even realize it, but the fact that your thoughts feel strange to you - like something or someone is controlling you - is likely a full-blown psychosis!
I've had the same experience on 'Shrooms (Norwegian Psilocybe Semilanceata) and LSD, though mostly when mixed with Cannabis or Hashish. You better be aware- and take care!
Elaborate you're meaning!
Because
I have this experience everyday all day. No lie. Whats wrong (right) with me?
-
yep ^
If you believe certain words, you believe their hidden arguments. When you believe something is right or wrong, true or false, you believe the assumptions in the words which express the arguments. Such assumptions are often full of holes, but remain most precious to the convinced.
8)
Yep basically how I have always understood it is that words only mean something if you make it mean something! In fact I believe that can be said about anything! Crazy!
-
I would seek advice from professionals if that's the case. Not to say there is something wrong with you - but I would at least have someone give it a closer examination.
For example; if I'm psychotic when a friend is over and he starts looking for something of his that he can't find, I immediately start thinking that he thinks that I have taken it, even though I have absolutely no reason believing so. That's not healthy!
It is important to know that hallucinations and psychosis are almost indistinguishable, if not entirely. People with psychosis may have one or more of the following: hallucinations, delusions, catatonia, or a thought disorder, as described below. Impairments in social cognition also occur.
DELUSIONS: Psychosis may involve delusional beliefs, some of which are paranoid in nature. Put simply, delusions are false beliefs which a person holds on to, without adequate evidence. It may be difficult to change the belief even with evidence to the contrary. Common themes of delusions are persecutory (person believes that others are out to harm him), grandiose (person believing that he or she has special powers or skills) etc. Depressed persons may have delusions consistent with their low mood e.g: delusions that they have sinned, or have contracted serious illness etc. Karl Jaspers has classified psychotic delusions into primary and secondary types. Primary delusions are defined as arising suddenly and not being comprehensible in terms of normal mental processes, whereas secondary delusions may be understood as being influenced by the person's background or current situation (e.g., ethnicity, religious beliefs, superstitious belief).
-
It felt like I was communicating with the god head. Even though I have no frame of reference to what this god like being was or if was a vast in mind hallucination.
If you have had this experience, what did it mean to you and can you explain it?
Indigenous tribes throughout the world would use hallucinogenic plants in various forms in a ceremonial for those who wished to enter altered states of consciousness, either for healing, discovery, rite of passage, etc. Although cultures change from place to the other along with their rituals and cosmologies, one of the constant themes is union with whatever higher powers are believed in. Altered states of consciousness would be accessed in part, to come into a space of communion with the divine, thus creating as of the many side effects a sense of deep unity within. These states would be reached most often through the ingestion of plant substances by whatever means, combined with meditation, and guidance from a or multiple shamans.
I don't know if it resonates with you, but that's how I'd explain it.
-
I would seek advice from professionals if that's the case. Not to say there is something wrong with you - but I would at least have someone give it a closer examination.
For example; if I'm psychotic when a friend is over and he starts looking for something of his that he can't find, I immediately start thinking that he thinks that I have taken it, even though I have absolutely no reason believing so. That's not healthy!
It is important to know that hallucinations and psychosis are almost indistinguishable, if not entirely. People with psychosis may have one or more of the following: hallucinations, delusions, catatonia, or a thought disorder, as described below. Impairments in social cognition also occur.
DELUSIONS: Psychosis may involve delusional beliefs, some of which are paranoid in nature. Put simply, delusions are false beliefs which a person holds on to, without adequate evidence. It may be difficult to change the belief even with evidence to the contrary. Common themes of delusions are persecutory (person believes that others are out to harm him), grandiose (person believing that he or she has special powers or skills) etc. Depressed persons may have delusions consistent with their low mood e.g: delusions that they have sinned, or have contracted serious illness etc. Karl Jaspers has classified psychotic delusions into primary and secondary types. Primary delusions are defined as arising suddenly and not being comprehensible in terms of normal mental processes, whereas secondary delusions may be understood as being influenced by the person's background or current situation (e.g., ethnicity, religious beliefs, superstitious belief).
Lmao
-
I've experienced this with LSD. To me it is like waking up from a dream. Universal Mind always seems more real than my finite mind. This experience has convinced that I am nothing but a thought-image inside the mind of an entity that is greater than myself. It could even be a computer, but I shudder at that possibility. If it's a computer, then we're all doomed. We are utterly trapped inside of the machine. I'd much rather it be a loving being, and life more akin to a dream than a computer simulation. But whatever it is, there can be no doubt that it exists! It's aware of us. It is us. And it is controlling and directing everything. You can call it God if you want, but whatever we call it is just a symbol for THAT! It cannot be named or spoken of. Even to say what it is is to falsify it. It is beyond human understanding...
With LSD, I experience Universal Mind as my own higher self. With mushrooms, I experience it as Other. There is a dualism with mushrooms.
Great interpretation. Thank you. :D
-
bump!
-
How can you be curtain that is was God you felt? Just curious.
Please dont start harassing me
-
How can you be curtain that is was God you felt? Just curious.
Please dont start harassing me
Whom were you referring to?
I mentioned the god head...
It was like I was jacked into something that transmitted information directly to the conscience and sub conscience... knowing everything and having the answers to all
Alex Grey has a painting that sums up how I felt during this "encounter"
<clearweb> http://alexgrey.com/art/paintings/soul/dying/
The Painting is named Dying, but to me it expresses how I felt at the time.....maybe it was a symbolic death.
-
I looked it about and looked to me like the soul leaving the body and going to the Eternal Light of God.
Its a nice piece of art only I find those eyes quite disturbing in some way
Do you still remember any of the answers?
-
Serotonin is magical.
All matter is made up of the same stuff....
When you do really good matter, life... matters.
There was nothing special about your trip, unless you are willing to pursue neuroscience and physics;--not the watered down women-dominated field of psychology, but actual science with numbers and maths and stuff. When you open the door, there is more outside the human realm than one mind can ever digest...
-
How can you be curtain that is was God you felt? Just curious.
Please dont start harassing me
jundullahi, as a believer, you should know that such communions are possible and that if someone is expressing a communion with God, then they have had a communion with an a being not of this world. Now how can you ask if he was certain that is was God?
I think if someone goes through such experiences, there is no doubt left that a supreme being, or Universal Mind, exists and that we can actually commune with such an abstract entity.
Maybe I should not answer for our OP, but if I got asked that question directly after such an experience, that would be my answer.
These are common experiences. Just unheard of/brushed aside in today's over-regulated societies. The knowledge of a supreme being is the beginning. Then can you begin to form a relationship with this being.
And I truly believe that hallucinogenic substances can aid such a process in beginning, however, they are not adequate to sustain it.
polyphemusperception, I think that this is an excellent experience, explore it!! However, be mindful that such communions can be attained without the help of "mental medicine".
Since that phrase got mentioned, think of it like this.
If you are sick, you take medicine to get better, but soon you will no longer need that medicine for your body will be healed.
I believe the same for our current topic.
-
Well I ask this question. Because we Muslims believe that God before He created man He created the djinn creatures from smokeless fire. And we cannot see them yet the are able to communicate with us.
Please do not misunderstand me I do not deny that polyphemusperception experienced the God head.
That why I asked how polyphemusperception could be certain that I was God.
I did no way ment disrespect of any such thing.
-
Has anyone else experienced this phenomenon?
I have been an atheist for 25 years... but experienced a crossover on a heroic does of mushrooms.
It felt like I was communicating with the god head. Even though I have no frame of reference to what this god like being was or if was a vast in mind hallucination.
If you have had this experience, what did it mean to you and can you explain it?
I have had this experience, and I continue to not assume the existence of "god". My explanation for the experience is that I became aware of the fact of my existence. I exist within the universe, I am part of the universe, I am the universe, and so are you. This realization generally sends the human mind reeling in attempts to explain what this means, how could this be, why are we here, because that's the nature of our minds. The questions are non-sensical, though. Existence begets purpose, and purpose informs the experienced quality of existence. Who do you want to be today?
-
Has anyone else experienced this phenomenon?
I have been an atheist for 25 years... but experienced a crossover on a heroic does of mushrooms.
It felt like I was communicating with the god head. Even though I have no frame of reference to what this god like being was or if was a vast in mind hallucination.
If you have had this experience, what did it mean to you and can you explain it?
I have had this experience, and I continue to not assume the existence of "god". My explanation for the experience is that I became aware of the fact of my existence. I exist within the universe, I am part of the universe, I am the universe, and so are you. This realization generally sends the human mind reeling in attempts to explain what this means, how could this be, why are we here, because that's the nature of our minds. The questions are non-sensical, though. Existence begets purpose, and purpose informs the experienced quality of existence. Who do you want to be today?
Etiher you never experienced it (but perhaps something leading up to it), or you simply choose not to apply the word 'God' to it due to your own religious preconceptions as to what you think God should be. Whatever you call it, it is real, and the experience of it throughout history is the source of all doctrines concerning the existence of God, and since it possesses the properties of awareness and creation, it may be called God without any abuse of language. You can call it the 'universe' if you want, or 'mind' or whatever, but its existence is undeniable, and it is more real than anything else.
Saying, "I've seen it, but I don't call it God" is just semantic obscurantism. It's not a substantive objection to the existence of God. It's like saying, "I've seen water, but I don't call it water, so water doesn't exist".
I say call it whatever you want. Buddhists call it emptiness. Christians and Hindus call it God or brahman. The Chinese call it the Unameable, or the Eternal Tao that cannot be spoken of. It doesn't matter what it is called. They're all referring to the same thing. A word is nothing but a symbol for that Reality.
This realization generally sends the human mind reeling in attempts to explain what this means, how could this be, why are we here, because that's the nature of our minds
This suggests to me that you didn't really experience what we are talking about. There's no attempt to 'explain' it. Once you've experienced it, you realise that it cannot be spoken or thought of -- it is isntantly recognised as being beyond human explanation.
-
Etiher you never experienced it (but perhaps something leading up to it), or you simply choose not to apply the word 'God' to it due to your own religious preconceptions as to what you think God should be. Whatever you call it, it is real, and the experience of it throughout history is the source of all doctrines concerning the existence of God, and since it possesses the properties of awareness and creation, it may be called God without any abuse of language. You can call it the 'universe' if you want, or 'mind' or whatever, but its existence is undeniable, and it is more real than anything else.
Your tone reads as disagreement, and yet you have said nothing that disagrees with what I said. The problem with the word "God" lies within its cultural attachments. When you say "God", the vast majority of our species understands you to mean a specific, and specifically human-like personality. I'm skeptical about our ability to communicate what *you're* talking about to these people while using the same word, and I'm pessimistic that we will ever be able to do so without choosing different, less connotatively-encumbered words. The god of pantheism is no different than the non-gods of atheism, in practice, because these are just abstract opinions. You conclude a singular, canonical consciousness from your experience of ego-death/emptiness/self-transcendence/universality/singularity/oneness/etc. I do not. This is perfectly acceptable.
Saying, "I've seen it, but I don't call it God" is just semantic obscurantism. It's not a substantive objection to the existence of God. It's like saying, "I've seen water, but I don't call it water, so water doesn't exist".
All human thought and therefore discussion ends up here, when taken past the point of mutual understanding. Our words are an emergent phenomenon of our biology, they are simply symbols purposed toward successful and higher-fidelity communication of thoughts from one human consciousness to another. They simply cannot provide us with a conclusive understanding of existence. They CAN be used to help light the way, but they must be used judiciously.
I say call it whatever you want. Buddhists call it emptiness. Christians and Hindus call it God or brahman. The Chinese call it the Unameable, or the Eternal Tao that cannot be spoken of. It doesn't matter what it is called. They're all referring to the same thing. A word is nothing but a symbol for that Reality.
That's fine for you, but I am compelled to point out: Calling it "whatever you want" when communicating with others is to knowingly have the deepest meaning of what you're talking about misconstrued.
This realization generally sends the human mind reeling in attempts to explain what this means, how could this be, why are we here, because that's the nature of our minds
This suggests to me that you didn't really experience what we are talking about. There's no attempt to 'explain' it. Once you've experienced it, you realise that it cannot be spoken or thought of -- it is isntantly recognised as being beyond human explanation.
Again your tone reads of disagreement, yet your language does not disagree with what I said. The very next sentence I wrote absolutely agrees with what you just said here, in apparent disagreement.
-
I feel like I've been trying to get my head round this kind of experience for 20 years and it's difficult. The word 'God' is so laced with prejudice, due to it's perversion through organised religion, but still, I would call it God. What I mean by 'God' is Truth, The ultimate reality that the universe and everything in it including all of us is one interconnected conscious living being. Of course, this experience and this interpretation is very common. and has been written about by many others. This kind of experience is the original insight behind metaphors of God and Gods in all the different religions, even Christianity. The original story of Jesus was meant to illustrate the message that man (Jesus) and the universe (God) are one. The popular interpretation of this story is the result of 2000 years of manipulation and control by those whose power is threatened by it's original meaning, which is now, largely forgotten.
Understandably, people have a hard time coming to terms with the idea that the percepion of their place in the universe, as a self-contained individual human being, separate from other human beings and the rest of the physical universe is an illusion. But really, every person is a creation of, and is sustained by the universe around them, physically, mentally, socially, in every way, so we are not separate from the universe. Everything is connected to everything else, through time and space and nothing exists in isolation. We are all one. For that eternal and infinite being, time and space don't even exist.
Psychedelics dissolve our individual ego, built up our whole lives from our sense perceptions of time and space, so we see ourselves as we really are and see that we are one with the universe. By way of analogy at a microcosmic scale, I always think of our place in the universe like the individual cell in the human body. Is the individual cell conscious of it's own existence? and if so, would it see itself as a separate entity from all the other cells around it, competing for resources of oxygen and food it needs to survive for it's brief lifespan of a few years, or would it understand that it is a temporary but necessary component of the greater complete human being? releasing carbon dioxide back into the blood, which is breathed out by the human being and then used by the tree, with energy from the sun to create food via photosynthesis. So we are with the universe, just part of the one interconnected being.
This is not just a physical connection, but our minds, emotions, dreams, aspirations, memories, personalities and everything that goes to make up our sense of 'me' is the result of connections with other parts of our true self, the whole universe, outside the individual body of the human being. To go back to the op's question, as our individual minds are connected to the rest of the universe, the universe has universal mind. The universe therefore, is not just an inanimate collection of rocks floating around stars, but has consciousness. Current science observes that the state of existence of subatomic particles is actually determined by the consciousness which observes them, so we go full circle and can concieve that in the beginning, as we usually percieve it, consciousness was first and brought into being the physical universe. Sounds familiar?
A new idea I'm working with is that the scientists who concieved of the big bang actually created it and the universe just by thinking about it. Sounds impossible seeing as the big bang was billions of years ago and scientists only thought of it in the 20th century. However, Life, as far as we know, has only come into being as a unique event on the Earth. Life forms, such as ourselves, may be the centre of the universal consciousness responsible for creating the universe, simply by dreaming it into existence. If time and space do not exist for the universal mind then there is no reason why we could not cause something in our 'past'. Actually it would seem that time was running backwards from our usual perspective. Could that be true, or have I just taken too many drugs?
-
I feel like I've been trying to get my head round this kind of experience for 20 years and it's difficult. The word 'God' is so laced with prejudice, due to it's perversion through organised religion, but still, I would call it God. What I mean by 'God' is Truth, The ultimate reality that the universe and everything in it including all of us is one interconnected conscious living being.
I may be a hard atheist (as an opinion, not a conclusion), but I can definitely get behind this conceptually. It seems to me that we can all do it without requiring supernatural beliefs. We have come to know that existence is more surprising, strange, and intricate than we can possibly fathom. I just think we have to call it truth (Lowercase t) if we're going to call it anything at all, and then we pursue it in as truth-oriented (reasonable) a manner as we can manage.
While I cannot reasonably object to your *personal* preference for using the word "God" or capitalized "Truth", I will point out: doing so means that the very deepest meanings of what you're trying to communicate will be misunderstood by the *majority* of fellow humans as validation of (or offense against) specific beliefs about the specific nature of the specific deities their specific culture has collectively imagined. To use these words in today's world is to be either incorrect or unavoidably misunderstood.
-
In Islam on of the 99 most beautiful name of Allah is. Al-Haq translate as The Truth.
-
In Islam on of the 99 most beautiful name of Allah is. Al-Haq translate as The Truth.
Therein lies the problem: Truth is what you believe, and beliefs are fluid and turbid like the wind, rivers, and oceans--a concoction of animal desires and conflicting experiences and random life events.
-
In Islam on of the 99 most beautiful name of Allah is. Al-Haq translate as The Truth.
Therein lies the problem: Truth is what you believe, and beliefs are fluid and turbid like the wind, rivers, and oceans--a concoction of animal desires and conflicting experiences and random life events.
We cannot define truth as "what you believe" without stripping the word of its meaning. Truths (as in facts) exist, regardless of what we choose to believe. This of course does not mean that Islam/Christianity/Hinduism/Judaism/etc are true, as we clearly understand enough about our environment to know that they are not.
-
Capitalization of 'Truth' was not intentional. I'm not literate enough to separate the meaning of truth and Truth, but I mean objective truth, regardless of believed truth. However, I believe that objective truth is the same as subjective truth if that subjective truth is appreciated as a metaphor for the objective truth. All religions have different names for god, but these can all be understood as the same god. Even within a polytheistic belief system such as Hinduism, many different Gods, eg. Ganesha, Krishna, Shiva, can be understood to be aspects of the greater Brahman. In Islam, the 99 different names of Allah, all describe the same Allah, even though many of the names appear contradictory. God is so great that it encompasses all possibilities. Misunderstanding will occur when these metaphors are interpreted literally, as they are, probably by the majority of religious believers, which causes religious conflict, but I hope that as the integration of races and cultures continues, we can move toward greater understanding that our individual conceptualizations of God describe the same objective truth. The global society has only just begun. It would take some time.
-
abitpeckish
I just wanted to inform what Islam says about God. And after that you can believe, disbelieve. What ever you chose.
And if you do understand the environment. Then you must know to the question that has plagued mankind for ages.
What is the meaning and purpose of life?
PerPETualMOtion
And what I believe is not as fluid as you assume of like to think.
There are quite stable and constant.
-
Tobias.
How do you know that you are not literate enough to you truth. The Truth should be easy so and any one can understand. If the truth has to hide behind eloquent speech and difficult words that may make sense but most cannot grasp or understand fully. It is a form of deception in my opinion. So the truth should be easy so that you can explain it to a child.
About religions not all religion are the same so make sense other do not. So worship one God some worship
many.
I do not know if you believe in God. But if you do how would you define God? If you have never meet him or seen Him. The only way we would no about God if He would inform us about Himself and His nature. Would you agree?
-
I just wanted to inform what Islam says about God. And after that you can believe, disbelieve. What ever you chose.
And if you do understand the environment. Then you must know to the question that has plagued mankind for ages.
What is the meaning and purpose of life?
This question has indeed bewitched us for ages, but not because Yahweh/Allah/Thor/Odin/Zeus/Superman/Green Lantern/Ra/Krishna/Ahura Mazda/etc exist. The question bewitches us because it is poorly posed. The "question" can only be a declaration, and to pose it as a question to be directly answered by the cosmos is meaningless. We can only supply our purpose, and it is readily apparent that some of our "answers" are worse than others.
-
So you admitted that you do not have the answer?
Or the answer is the meaning of existence is meaningless?
Tell me does you heart find peace with that?
Do you have some answers that are so bad?
Is it not reasonable to assume that the answer should be meaningful.
And be easy so that every one should understand it from the most intelligent the most stupid person. An answers that would satisfy a the inquisitive mind of a child. The answer should be easy. Would you agree?
-
So you admitted that you do not have the answer?
Of course. Not only do I not have "the answer", I CANNOT have it because I am incapable of having it. And so are you.
Or the answer is the meaning of existence is meaningless?
Tell me does you heart find peace with that?
The answer is that we cannot fully answer it. I do in fact find peace with this, because it's true. Furthermore I have found that it is here, precisely within this apparent meaninglessness, that the purpose of my life can truly begin. A purpose that I give myself, in which I attempt to orient myself as deeply as possible toward truth. As in "fact".
Do you have some answers that are so bad?
I'm sure some of my answers will be worse than other available answers. I seek better understanding, or better ways to communicate what I already understand, and will force myself to modify the beliefs that result from my imperfect understanding if indeed the facts require me to do so. My only commitment is to reason, and this commitment can only go so far as I am capable of understanding. Beyond that, I cannot speak with reasonable confidence, so I simply stop asking the question. At this point I can either try asking it in a different way, or find a different question altogether on which to spend my attention. I don't need to know everything. I cannot know everything. But I do know enough, and WE know enough, to know that Islam (and all other religion) is not true in any deep or universally meaningful sense. We know this because better methods of answering (or un-asking) the questions that concern religion are readily available to us.
Is it not reasonable to assume that the answer should be meaningful.
And be easy so that every one should understand it from the most intelligent the most stupid person. An answers that would satisfy a the inquisitive mind of a child. The answer should be easy. Would you agree?
No, the answer is not easy. It is difficult to contemplate, and it requires a herculean commitment to a terrifying, but unshakeable truth: you are not who you think you are, because "you" don't exist. "You" are just witnessing thoughts and events passing through your consciousness, you have only a very small amount of control over those thoughts, even less control over the events, and your purpose can be visualized as a reverberation of how you decide to use your attention in the series of intermittent moments that you are both alive and self-aware.
-
Well you claim that I do not have the answer. I assume that you do not know the answer that I would give.
And you did not answers my question. Does the idea that whole existence is meaningless bring peace to your heart?
And that the answer for existence is easy. Yet indeed it is easy.
You may not like it but I will quote from the Quran.
The meaning for the existence of life and death.
Chapter 23
1. Blessed is He in Whose Hand is the dominion, and He is Able to do all things.
2. Who has created death and life, that He may test you which of you is best in deed. And He is the All-Mighty, the Oft-Forgiving;
The purpose of life.
Chapter 56 verse 56
And I did not create the jinn and mankind except to worship Me.
You may not accept this answers. But you cannot contradict that these answers are very easy and are easy to understand.
And those answers put my heart at peace. And give my life a clear purpose.
-
Does the idea that whole existence is meaningless bring peace to your heart?
No. Silencing my mind and existing in the moment brings me peace.
You may not accept this answers. But you cannot contradict that these answers are very easy and are easy to understand.
These answers are indeed easy and easy to understand, which is one way I can know that they are insufficient. In the year 650 CE, perhaps humanity still needed religions to communicate the importance of human cooperation, love, compassion, etc, and perhaps religions were even the best way to teach this. But here we stand in the year 2013, still peering into the darkness of mystery, with the light of all of the knowledge of truth we have accumulated thus far, illuminating the simple fact that none of our religions turned out to be true. So we take the true things from those religions and we integrate them into our understanding of the cosmos, leaving what remains of religion as mythology. A glorious tapestry of human creativity, but not to be understood as non-fiction.
(P.S. Couldn't resist the imagery. Thanks HappySmoke420 !)
-
The human nature does not change with the advent of technology and science. It may shed a light on the human nature and the world we life in but science will never be able to answer the question why are we here
what is the purpose of our existence. And will not give any guarantee for success in the after life. And science and the scientific perspective changes with every new discovery it a very whimsical mistress.
And your last statement is just not true. Other religions are proven to be untrue. But Islam stood and will stand the test of time. Because that is what Allah has promised in the Quran.
9-31
They have taken their scholars and monks as lords besides Allah , and [also] the Messiah, the son of Mary. And they were not commanded except to worship one God; there is no deity except Him. Exalted is He above whatever they associate with Him.
9-32
They want to extinguish the light of Allah with their mouths, but Allah refuses except to perfect His light, although the disbelievers dislike it.
9-33
It is He who has sent His Messenger with guidance and the religion of truth to manifest it over all religion, although they who associate others with Allah dislike it.
And if you look good to what is happening in the world you will see that, that is happening.
And I will end my post with this verse
67-23
Say, "He is the Most Merciful; we have believed in Him, and upon Him we have relied. And you will [come to] know who it is that is in clear error."
May Allah open you heart to the truth and guide you to His light.
I wish you the best and.
-
And your last statement is just not true. Other religions are proven to be untrue. But Islam stood and will stand the test of time. Because that is what Allah has promised in the Quran.
Hmmm...where have I seen this argument before? Can't quite put my finger on it...
-
Yes in an other tread we had the same debate.
I just knew that the promise of Allah is true. And who can be more true in promise then Him.
We are all willing or on willing waiting.
I just hope you see the light before its to late.
Wish you the best.
-
To answer your questions in order:
1 - To me, it meant that I had to suddenly be prepared to accept that I and the established scientific authorities of our world are being as dogmatic about our experience of reality as the most fundamentalist of christians.
2 - If anyone can truly explain this experience, I'm not sure that they have truly had it at all.
All IMHO and all that. :-)
I have been there many times and know it well. However, #2 is not true. See my answer to the next one
The Truth should be easy so and any one can understand.
In order to explain and understand it, you have to have a frame of reference. With out that the explanation makes no sense.
For example, If i began by explaining that a potential crosses the planck layer as a waveform, would you even have a clue as to what I was talking about?
The truth is not always so easy that anyone can understand it. It is like trying to explain a jet engine to a neanderthal. Just the basics of flight are beyond him and without that frame of reference it becomes exceedingly difficult to get the concepts across.
So, May I suggest that you go find and download the movie "What the Bleep Do We Know!?"
-
And your last statement is just not true. Other religions are proven to be untrue. But Islam stood and will stand the test of time. Because that is what Allah has promised in the Quran.
9-31
They have taken their scholars and monks as lords besides Allah , and [also] the Messiah, the son of Mary. And they were not commanded except to worship one God; there is no deity except Him. Exalted is He above whatever they associate with Him.
Ill see your quote and raise you
Romans 13:8-10
8 Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another; for he who loves [a]his neighbor has fulfilled the law.
9 For this, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and if there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this saying, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
10 Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.
Leviticus 19:14
“Do not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block in front of the blind, but fear your God. I am the Lord."
And, my personal favorite from the Gospel of Thomas (Excluded from the bible by the council of Nicea)
Jesus said, "If those who lead you say to you, 'See, the kingdom is in the sky,' then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, 'It is in the sea,' then the fish will precede you. Rather, the kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you. When you come to know yourselves, then you will become known, and you will realize that it is you who are the sons of the living father. But if you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty and it is you who are that poverty."
-
Hmmm...where have I seen this argument before? Can't quite put my finger on it...
Ahh yes, now I remember. My favorite formulation of this tired argument, used by seemingly every religion ever.
(clearnet) http://i.imgur.com/pBNHV2b.jpg
-
Well this napkin does not prove any thing about its on validity.
There is much more the Quran then you try making a point with this napkin.
Thank you very much for your time I hope I was not wasted.
I know mine was not.
Wish you the best.
-
I have seen what the bleep do we know.
-
why are we here
what is the purpose of our existence.
You only look for a purpose to your existence because you were told by a book/person that one existed. Make up your own mind what life is all about instead of blindly believing words spoken by faceless names (bibles etc.).
I believe we are here to live, procreate & die, to evolve our species. Not unlike every other living organism on this particular planet, what we do during the 75 average years of life we live is really irrelevant and unnecessary to life itself. The last couple of thousand years in particular.
Humans have existed on this planet for a split-second compared to how old we know the planet and solar system really is - and what we know about the rest of "whats out there" is not much at all.
For that reason - I'd love to be able to live for eternity as a 'fly-on-the-wall' just to see how humans fair over vast amounts of time. Alas, i'll just have to settle for bitter-sweet mortality - and if my beliefs are correct - as soon as I'm dead, I'll start a new life in some random living organism somewhere in the galaxy, over & over again, for eternity :)
-
I feel like I've been trying to get my head round this kind of experience for 20 years and it's difficult. The word 'God' is so laced with prejudice, due to it's perversion through organised religion, but still, I would call it God. What I mean by 'God' is Truth, The ultimate reality that the universe and everything in it including all of us is one interconnected conscious living being. Of course, this experience and this interpretation is very common. and has been written about by many others. This kind of experience is the original insight behind metaphors of God and Gods in all the different religions, even Christianity. The original story of Jesus was meant to illustrate the message that man (Jesus) and the universe (God) are one. The popular interpretation of this story is the result of 2000 years of manipulation and control by those whose power is threatened by it's original meaning, which is now, largely forgotten.
Understandably, people have a hard time coming to terms with the idea that the percepion of their place in the universe, as a self-contained individual human being, separate from other human beings and the rest of the physical universe is an illusion. But really, every person is a creation of, and is sustained by the universe around them, physically, mentally, socially, in every way, so we are not separate from the universe. Everything is connected to everything else, through time and space and nothing exists in isolation. We are all one. For that eternal and infinite being, time and space don't even exist.
Psychedelics dissolve our individual ego, built up our whole lives from our sense perceptions of time and space, so we see ourselves as we really are and see that we are one with the universe. By way of analogy at a microcosmic scale, I always think of our place in the universe like the individual cell in the human body. Is the individual cell conscious of it's own existence? and if so, would it see itself as a separate entity from all the other cells around it, competing for resources of oxygen and food it needs to survive for it's brief lifespan of a few years, or would it understand that it is a temporary but necessary component of the greater complete human being? releasing carbon dioxide back into the blood, which is breathed out by the human being and then used by the tree, with energy from the sun to create food via photosynthesis. So we are with the universe, just part of the one interconnected being.
This is not just a physical connection, but our minds, emotions, dreams, aspirations, memories, personalities and everything that goes to make up our sense of 'me' is the result of connections with other parts of our true self, the whole universe, outside the individual body of the human being. To go back to the op's question, as our individual minds are connected to the rest of the universe, the universe has universal mind. The universe therefore, is not just an inanimate collection of rocks floating around stars, but has consciousness. Current science observes that the state of existence of subatomic particles is actually determined by the consciousness which observes them, so we go full circle and can concieve that in the beginning, as we usually percieve it, consciousness was first and brought into being the physical universe. Sounds familiar?
A new idea I'm working with is that the scientists who concieved of the big bang actually created it and the universe just by thinking about it. Sounds impossible seeing as the big bang was billions of years ago and scientists only thought of it in the 20th century. However, Life, as far as we know, has only come into being as a unique event on the Earth. Life forms, such as ourselves, may be the centre of the universal consciousness responsible for creating the universe, simply by dreaming it into existence. If time and space do not exist for the universal mind then there is no reason why we could not cause something in our 'past'. Actually it would seem that time was running backwards from our usual perspective. Could that be true, or have I just taken too many drugs?
This is a beautiful post mate. I think it comes down to what you said "We are all one. For that eternal and infinite being, time and space don't even exist."
For us to try to explain (in finite human terms and words) something so abstract, huge and beautiful is impossible. It doesn't mean it's wrong to try and do so though, just that we have to be conscious of our positions as humans in the shadow/light of God (or whatever one wishes to call Him). It's the intentions that count!
All IMHO of course :)
Love to you
-
hi all,
ive also had this experience. i know ive seen god, the infinite, the all in all, everything. there is no question in my mind about that part.
its all connected and its all the same. its us!
everything i see and learn points to this fact- we are one.
these things are beyond words (i think this aspect is important to remember)
i hope that makes sense.
peace:)
-
hi all,
ive also had this experience. i know ive seen god, the infinite, the all in all, everything. there is no question in my mind about that part.
its all connected and its all the same. its us!
everything i see and learn points to this fact- we are one.
these things are beyond words (i think this aspect is important to remember)
i hope that makes sense.
peace[/quote
So if god ever where and everyplace? So you is all so in you ractum
The universe began big bang will sowly fade away. Ever beginning as an end. make sense.
Well is the universe fade all away. So the god also would depespire.
God most be out side of the universe.
-
hi all,
ive also had this experience. i know ive seen god, the infinite, the all in all, everything. there is no question in my mind about that part.
its all connected and its all the same. its us!
everything i see and learn points to this fact- we are one.
these things are beyond words (i think this aspect is important to remember)
i hope that makes sense.
peace
So if god ever where and everyplace? So you is all so in you ractum
Yep, this "god" is in your rectum. As it is all existence, and your rectum exists...
The universe began big bang will sowly fade away. Ever beginning as an end. make sense.
Well is the universe fade all away. So the god also would depespire.
God most be out side of the universe.
The god you are talking about isn't enough. It's just a character in a story humans made up to try and figure out what we're supposed to do with our lives. The only "god" that can possibly exist is what wheres wally is talking about –the entirety of all existence, ever[1]- and I think we have to stop calling it god (at least for a few decades). It does not have a personality, or a directed will, or desires, or any other such obviously human trait. It is simply everything as it is, and it is always changing.
[1] I try to use "cosmos" for this concept instead, although sometimes I slip and say "universe"
-
yes muslim, rectum and every fucking word you can imagine!
anyway, cosmic consciousness has more than 7 billion personalities at this moment. it includes all of us and all of history. it is every subject and every observer. every thought. everything.
the word god may no longer be suitable, due to years of abuse by religion, as a figure for control.
-
Great thread, a lot of great posts here.
You guys have pretty much covered all the bases.
I think it's funny how these kind of experiences play out in the 'scientific world'. The God Helmet video is a good example ... the way scientists will sit around probing and prodding into someones psychedelic experience with their notebooks out the whole time, and then look at brainwaves, chemical reactions, brain activity etc., and say "Look! See? It's just the brain! It's all in your head!"
::) This is exactly the moment when somebody needs to stuff a bunch of shrooms into Mr. Scientists face and sit him down with his notebook for a few hours .. if ya catch my drift. Lol. Only somebody who hasn't had the experience would say something so silly ;D
-
Great thread, a lot of great posts here.
You guys have pretty much covered all the bases.
I think it's funny how these kind of experiences play out in the 'scientific world'. The God Helmet video is a good example ... the way scientists will sit around probing and prodding into someones psychedelic experience with their notebooks out the whole time, and then look at brainwaves, chemical reactions, brain activity etc., and say "Look! See? It's just the brain! It's all in your head!"
::) This is exactly the moment when somebody needs to stuff a bunch of shrooms into Mr. Scientists face and sit him down with his notebook for a few hours .. if ya catch my drift. Lol. Only somebody who hasn't had the experience would say something so silly ;D
Thing is, it's fairly clear that it *is* just the brain in a very real sense. This is a piece of knowledge we should take with us when voyaging into the vast expanse of inner space, so that we can take what we learn through direct experience and fit it within the framework of the external world in which we exist. Our transcendent experiences are experienced within the biology of the brain -they simply must be- and this doesn't have to take away from what we learn.
-
Great thread, a lot of great posts here.
You guys have pretty much covered all the bases.
I think it's funny how these kind of experiences play out in the 'scientific world'. The God Helmet video is a good example ... the way scientists will sit around probing and prodding into someones psychedelic experience with their notebooks out the whole time, and then look at brainwaves, chemical reactions, brain activity etc., and say "Look! See? It's just the brain! It's all in your head!"
::) This is exactly the moment when somebody needs to stuff a bunch of shrooms into Mr. Scientists face and sit him down with his notebook for a few hours .. if ya catch my drift. Lol. Only somebody who hasn't had the experience would say something so silly ;D
Thing is, it's fairly clear that it *is* just the brain in a very real sense. This is a piece of knowledge we should take with us when voyaging into the vast expanse of inner space, so that we can take what we learn through direct experience and fit it within the framework of the external world in which we exist. Our transcendent experiences are experienced within the biology of the brain -they simply must be- and this doesn't have to take away from what we learn.
The brain is within the mind, you fool.
Again, you're starting from false philosophical assumptions. You're starting from the premise, "materialism/physicalism is true". Therefore, it HAS to be all in the brain. You see, from false premises, you draw unsound conclusions. Examine your presuppositions about reality. If you want to debate the validity of mystical experiences, we have to first debate the validity of your philosophical presuppositions -- whether the universe is fundamentally matter or consciousness. Like most atheists, you simply don't examine your basic premisses. You simply take them for granted.
-
I think it's funny how these kind of experiences play out in the 'scientific world'. The God Helmet video is a good example ... the way scientists will sit around probing and prodding into someones psychedelic experience with their notebooks out the whole time, and then look at brainwaves, chemical reactions, brain activity etc., and say "Look! See? It's just the brain! It's all in your head!"
Yes, and your brain activity changes when you look at a tree, too. Doesn't mean the tree exists only within the brain. All of our thoughts, even our scientific beliefs, are influenced by brain activity. So to regard the mystical experience as invalid because it is related to brain activity is quite arbitrary and illogical -- all of our thoughts are related to brain activity. If I look through a telescope and see that Jupiter has a moon, that perception is conditioned by brain activity; just as if I experience God (Brahman).
-
Science has indeed played too fast and loose with declaring mystical experience as wholly invalid. To claim, however, that seeing the moons of Jupiter and experiencing "God" both involve neuroscientific phenomena and are therefore categorically equivalent is clearly horseshit. Your experience is valid, but your naming of it isn't. At least not without reproducible data that reliably occurs outside of your own head.
-
The problem with the word "God" lies within its cultural attachments.
For you maybe, only because you are hostile to those cultural attachments. You've got an anti-Christian bias, so you don't like the idea of people experiencing God, because of its associations with the Christian religion. I'm not a Christian, but I don't have that bias, so it doesn't bother me if the experience of the unity of the self with the divine ground of being (Samadhi) is used to reinforce one's belief in the truth of Christianity. At the transcendental and mystical level, all religions are one.
When you say "God", the vast majority of our species understands you to mean a specific, and specifically human-like personality.
God is a human-like personality because it possesses an "I" -- it is "I", the most anthropocentric conception of all. Actually, it's not so much God that is anthromorphic, but Man who is theomorphic. At a higher level God is pure nondual awareness, beyond good and evil, beyond the dichotomy of subject and object, mind and matter, etc. God is everything and nothing. It all depends on your perspective. There are different levels of awareness of God, all of which are valid. To call it God is perfectly valid because it's what the founders of all major religions meant by God. It may be that its deeper meaning cannot be communicated by human language, so the exoteric FOLLOWERS of those religions developed cultural attachments surrounding the God-conception, but when Jesus spoke of God, he meant precisely what Hindus meant by Brahman, Buddhists by emptiness, Neoplatonic philosophers by the One, etc., etc.
Moreover it possesses the properties traditionally ascribed to God -- the property of creating phenomena, awareness, sacredness, etc. So it may be called God without any abuse of language -- to insist against its use is to engage in semanticism.
I'm skeptical about our ability to communicate what *you're* talking about to these people while using the same word, and I'm pessimistic that we will ever be able to do so without choosing different, less connotatively-encumbered words.
All concepts of God are anthropocentric, whether you conceive of God as an old gentleman with a long white beard who sits on a golden throne, or think of him as pure awareness, or pure being, or universe itself . It doesn't matter if you think of God as "necessary being", as Thomas Aquinas thought of God, or as an undifferentiated void, or as the infinite essence -- however rarefied those concepts sound, they are just as anthropomorphic, that is to say, JUST AS HUMAN AND IN THE FORM OF THE HUMAN MIND, as the picture of God as the old gentleman with the white beard. All concepts are anthropomorhphic.
The god of pantheism is no different than the non-gods of atheism, in practice, because these are just abstract opinions.
While there is an underlying unity, the divine is transcendent in relation to its productions. To qualify the underlying unity as 'pantheistic' is to deny the relativity of things and attribute an autonomous reality to dependent being. In such a worldview, there would be nothing beyond manifestation -- an idea that is quite foreign to the thought of Vedanta, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, Platonism, and all other major religions and spiritual philosophies.
You conclude a singular, canonical consciousness from your experience of ego-death/emptiness/self-transcendence/universality/singularity/oneness/etc.
God doesn't fit into any of your convenient categories.
I do not. This is perfectly acceptable.
That's because you haven't experienced what we are referring to. You say you have, but you are obviously lying.
All human thought and therefore discussion ends up here, when taken past the point of mutual understanding. Our words are an emergent phenomenon of our biology, they are simply symbols purposed toward successful and higher-fidelity communication of thoughts from one human consciousness to another. They simply cannot provide us with a conclusive understanding of existence. They CAN be used to help light the way, but they must be used judiciously.
Then stop engaging in semanticism.
That's fine for you, but I am compelled to point out: Calling it "whatever you want" when communicating with others is to knowingly have the deepest meaning of what you're talking about misconstrued.
There is nothing but harmonious unity between the God of Christianity and the Emptiness of Buddhism, the Tao of Taoism, etc. Division exist only on the level of surface symbol and myth-image. At the transcendental and experiential level, all religions are the same.
-
Science has indeed played too fast and loose with declaring mystical experience as wholly invalid. To claim, however, that seeing the moons of Jupiter and experiencing "God" both involve neuroscientific phenomena and are therefore categorically equivalent is clearly horseshit. Your experience is valid, but your naming of it isn't.
Your insistence that it should not be called God is invalid and motivated by your anti-religious bias. It possesses all the properties ascribed to God in religion, so it may be called God without any abuse of language.
- it is aware
- it creates everything
- it is not dependent on anything else
- it is transcendental and thus experienced as sacred, divine, etc
- it is a unity
Read Plato, read Plotinus, read Thomas Aquinas, read Ekchart -- this is precisely what they meant by God. That's simply what the word means. You just don't like religion, so you don't want anyone experiencing God.
At least not without reproducible data that reliably occurs outside of your own head.
Data for what? That "I" exists? That "I" is greater than the empirical ego? That "I" is timeless and transcendent? That "I" has become aware of itself? This is just more proof that you have not experienced what we are referring to.
-
very interesting topic, and something close to my heart.
In my mind I have absolutely NO doubt we ARE ALL 'connected' in the ways folks have mentioned here and more!
When I was very young, maybe 3-4yo I remember being able to "know" what people were thinking without being told. I clearly recall playing with my sisters when our mother would come home.
Mum was an alcoholic and rather moody, so we would be 'careful' when approaching her!
However, we could 'tell' her 'mood' from a distance without speaking to her! We would gather at the back door, just AS SOON AS she entered the front door we would "know" how she was!!
We would say to each other (as it seemed we never disagreed on this) either "mums in a good mood" and run up to see her OR "mums not happy/angry" and then we would run off back into the yard to avoid her! Take of this what you will...
However imo Tobias HAS nailed it with this comment ..."A new idea I'm working with is that the scientists who concieved of the big bang actually created it and the universe just by thinking about it."
This idea is often called "The hundredth monkey phenomena"
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"100th Monkey Syndrome - How change happens?
The Japanese monkey, Macaca fuscata, had been observed in the wild for a period of over 30 years. In 1952, on the island of Koshima, scientists were providing monkeys with sweet potatoes dropped in the sand. The monkey liked the taste of the raw sweet potatoes, but they found the dirt unpleasant.
An 18-month-old female named Imo found she could solve the problem by washing the potatoes in a nearby stream. She taught this trick to her mother. Her playmates also learned this new way and they taught their mothers too.
This cultural innovation was gradually picked up by various monkeys before the eyes of the scientists. Between 1952 and 1958 all the young monkeys learned to wash the sandy sweet potatoes to make them more palatable. Only the adults who imitated their children learned this social improvement. Other adults kept eating the dirty sweet potatoes.
Then something startling took place. In the autumn of 1958, a certain number of Koshima monkeys were washing sweet potatoes -- the exact number is not known. Let us suppose that when the sun rose one morning there were 99 monkeys on Koshima Island who had learned to wash their sweet potatoes. Let's further suppose that later that morning, the hundredth monkey learned to wash potatoes.
THEN IT HAPPENED! By that evening almost everyone in the tribe was washing sweet potatoes before eating them. The added energy of this hundredth monkey somehow created an ideological breakthrough!
But notice: A most surprising thing observed by these scientists was that the habit of washing sweet potatoes then jumped over the sea...Colonies of monkeys on other islands and the mainland troop of monkeys at Takasakiyama began washing their sweet potatoes. Thus, when a certain critical number achieves an awareness, this new awareness may be communicated from mind to mind."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now I totally believe we are ALL 'capable' of 'sharing our thoughts' in an unspoken way (aka 'telepathy' etc) which I hhave experienced many many times, at first with a few particular people and later, at times, almost at will. I would HAVE TO 'check' my thinking in some situations.
Almost everone HAS experienced this stuff HOWEVER most dismiss it as "co-incidence!" which it aint!
This stuff fascinated me from way back, so when I heard the story about groups of humans experiencing the same thing, well shit!!!
Finally I had a great 'example' of something I had KNOWN about most of my life!
I have experienced many many examples of this and made a conscious decision to ALWAYS re-assess any "coincidental" situations, and in doing this I noticed a number of similarities whenever these 'co-incidences' occured. You will to IF you make an effort to.
And here's some 'independent proof' of this occuring IRL!!....
Back in the 1990's there were three INDEPENDENT research groups who were all working on these super cooled gasses called "Bose_Einstein Condensates" aka BEC's
(**clearnet warning**) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bose%E2%80%93Einstein_condensate
To actually create these hypothetical substances in the lab was Nobel Prizewinning material!
well, 3 INDEPENDENT research groups actually handed their 'papers' in SO close in time to each other (IIRC it was within 24hrs!) that they ALL WON THE PRIZE TOGETHER!!!
(**clearnet warning**) http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2001/
http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2001/oct/09/nobel-prize-for-bose-condensates
This was the first of a number of these events in science and other disciplines etc
I hope someone finds this as interesting as I do
regards m m m motek :o :)
-
Now I totally believe we are ALL 'capable' of 'sharing our thoughts' in an unspoken way (aka 'telepathy' etc) which I hhave experienced many many times, at first with a few particular people and later, at times, almost at will. I would HAVE TO 'check' my thinking in some situations.
I'll go ahead and point out the obvious: this is what we're doing right fucking now. Except it's way better than telepathic phenomena in just about any way I can think of. Instantaneous, high-fidelity, distance eliminating...technology is grand.
-
I'm not totally sure what the responses to my post are trying to argue.
What I was trying to say, is that yes, OBVIOUSLY, there is a physical aspect taking place in our "brains", but the experience itself is no less transcendent due to that realization. It can still be more real and powerful than anything else. Just because there is a chemical floating around in my head doesn't mean that my perception isn't halfway to heaven, either, and anyone who disagrees speaks from ignorance since consciousness, our existence, and the true nature of reality are things we fail to comprehend.
Despite what you want to believe, we understand the psychedelic state about as much as we understand our own consciousness.
Not very well.
-
The problem with the word "God" lies within its cultural attachments.
For you maybe, only because you are hostile to those cultural attachments. You've got an anti-Christian bias, so you don't like the idea of people experiencing God, because of its associations with the Christian religion. I'm not a Christian, but I don't have that bias, so it doesn't bother me if the experience of the unity of the self with the divine ground of being (Samadhi) is used to reinforce one's belief in the truth of Christianity. At the transcendental and mystical level, all religions are one.
You're just flat-out ignoring that common understanding word "God" is wildly different than what you mean when you say it. I would love for everyone to experience what you're calling "God", but to call all religions "one" is patently disengenous. Religions differ, and because of their overreaching claims of universality, that they do so is both a direct and indirect cause of fear, anger, violence, and many other kinds of suffering. You're just conveniently glossing over this, as it destroys your kumbaya all is perfect and all is one bullshit. At the "transcendental and mystical level" that may be true, but all humans must spend their lives existing in the here and now. Even when you're experiencing transcendence, you are still here now. Which means that your solipsistic BS has dire consequences.
When you say "God", the vast majority of our species understands you to mean a specific, and specifically human-like personality.
God is a human-like personality because it possesses an "I" -- it is "I", the most anthropocentric conception of all. Actually, it's not so much God that is anthromorphic, but Man who is theomorphic. At a higher level God is pure nondual awareness, beyond good and evil, beyond the dichotomy of subject and object, mind and matter, etc. God is everything and nothing. It all depends on your perspective. There are different levels of awareness of God, all of which are valid. To call it God is perfectly valid because it's what the founders of all major religions meant by God. It may be that its deeper meaning cannot be communicated by human language, so the exoteric FOLLOWERS of those religions developed cultural attachments surrounding the God-conception, but when Jesus spoke of God, he meant precisely what Hindus meant by Brahman, Buddhists by emptiness, Neoplatonic philosophers by the One, etc., etc.
Moreover it possesses the properties traditionally ascribed to God -- the property of creating phenomena, awareness, sacredness, etc. So it may be called God without any abuse of language -- to insist against its use is to engage in semanticism.
Given your premise "God is a human-like personality because it possesses an "I" -- it is "I", everything you have said here also applies to any other conscious being. Such as my cat. So yeah, your argument for an anthropocentric god falls flat.
I'm skeptical about our ability to communicate what *you're* talking about to these people while using the same word, and I'm pessimistic that we will ever be able to do so without choosing different, less connotatively-encumbered words.
All concepts of God are anthropocentric, whether you conceive of God as an old gentleman with a long white beard who sits on a golden throne, or think of him as pure awareness, or pure being, or universe itself . It doesn't matter if you think of God as "necessary being", as Thomas Aquinas thought of God, or as an undifferentiated void, or as the infinite essence -- however rarefied those concepts sound, they are just as anthropomorphic, that is to say, JUST AS HUMAN AND IN THE FORM OF THE HUMAN MIND, as the picture of God as the old gentleman with the white beard. All concepts are anthropomorhphic.
I agree that all *linguistic* concepts are anthropocentric, by the very nature of language. Therefore all linguistic forms of the concept you are talking about are insufficient and ultimately false on myriad levels. In other words, stop fucking naming it.
The god of pantheism is no different than the non-gods of atheism, in practice, because these are just abstract opinions.
While there is an underlying unity, the divine is transcendent in relation to its productions. To qualify the underlying unity as 'pantheistic' is to deny the relativity of things and attribute an autonomous reality to dependent being. In such a worldview, there would be nothing beyond manifestation -- an idea that is quite foreign to the thought of Vedanta, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, Platonism, and all other major religions and spiritual philosophies.
You have thus far presented no good reason to posit anything beyond "nothingness" and manifestation. Neither of those things require or even imply a singular "God" consciousness. It is we humans that try to attach that singular god, in an effort to understand what we cannot understand. In doing so, understanding is necessarily precluded. This can have, does have, and has throughout history had the most horrific of consequences.
You conclude a singular, canonical consciousness from your experience of ego-death/emptiness/self-transcendence/universality/singularity/oneness/etc.
God doesn't fit into any of your convenient categories.
You're the one categorizing, in that you give the concept a name and defend it as such. So yeah, the concept doesn't fit into YOUR categories. I resign myself to talking ABOUT the concept without attaching the hubris of understanding to it. You continue to make gnostic claims you cannot support, and then you build more claims upon those claims. That doesn't work.
I do not. This is perfectly acceptable.
That's because you haven't experienced what we are referring to. You say you have, but you are obviously lying.
So let me get this straight. Since I refuse to claim definitive knowledge of the existence of a singularly conscious god, I am lying about having experienced that phenomenon? In other words, no one can possibly have this category of experience and come to different conclusions than you. This is an irrational starting position, specifically reeking of No True Scotsman.
All human thought and therefore discussion ends up here, when taken past the point of mutual understanding. Our words are an emergent phenomenon of our biology, they are simply symbols purposed toward successful and higher-fidelity communication of thoughts from one human consciousness to another. They simply cannot provide us with a conclusive understanding of existence. They CAN be used to help light the way, but they must be used judiciously.
Then stop engaging in semanticism.
As soon as you quit making exclusive and authoritative claims that you cannot support.
- it is aware
In a very narrow way, sure I can agree. As I am aware, and you are aware, and we both exist within the cosmos, the cosmos is also aware. You say it's singularly aware? Support that claim.
- it creates everything
I submit that it is more supportable to claim "it is all of creation", with the addition that we must include nothingness within that claim in order to remain reasonable.
- it is not dependent on anything else
We're approaching the void, here. This is technically true, but not really all that meaningful. In that "it" is "everything", it is not dependent upon anything else. BUT, in that "joywind" is also "it", it IS dependent upon things.
- it is transcendental and thus experienced as sacred, divine, etc
- it is a unity
Poetic, but neither broadly useful nor deeply meaningful.
Read Plato, read Plotinus, read Thomas Aquinas, read Ekchart -- this is precisely what they meant by God. That's simply what the word means. You just don't like religion, so you don't want anyone experiencing God.
I get it, a platonic ideal of God[1]. I've gotten it from the beginning of our discussions, and this should be clear to you. I want everyone to experience what we're talking about, as it is so sublime as to be indescribable. I'm just done tolerating when people claim they can describe it in any authoritative way, because it leads directly to a dogmatic approach to life and others based upon a nonsensical and unprovable universal claim. That truth exists is enough to derive purpose/morality/etc,. We don't need to posit anything more, and doing so has *always* spiraled into chaos.
At least not without reproducible data that reliably occurs outside of your own head.
Data for what? That "I" exists? That "I" is greater than the empirical ego? That "I" is timeless and transcendent? That "I" has become aware of itself? This is just more proof that you have not experienced what we are referring to.
That you know definitively what your experience (data) actually means (information). You clearly don't, and that's to be expected because in all likelihood none of us truly can.
---
[1] this means not Jesus, not Ram, not An, not Odin, not YHWH, not Allah, not Zeus, not FSM, not *insert manmade god here*. That is the unavoidable cost of the idealistic god proposition.
-
That's why i think psychedelic drugs also occur in nature to help us understanding those mind boggling things.
My perception of 'God' is probably someone who can create life and environment , posses immortality , and is beyond the concept of 'time' as we know it. but hes wisdom is not infinite but rather extremely intelligent. And such knowledge in my opinion is obtainable and possible for the human race to achieve in matter of time , I do believe that humans have the potential and the capabilities to understand those things you describe and some theories are already catching up with the idea (quantum mechanics & string theories) what you experienced in my opinion has nothing to do with 'God' but rather some of the powers that govern the universe and make it tick! I spouse those things will become more clear in the future it's just a matter of time.
I would also like to share a unique experience i had in one of my trips that helped me realise that minds are connected.
I remember that for like few seconds i was actually able to connect to some one else mind and see things through her eyes , I received a clear image of her petting a kitten who was sitting in a cradle in some sort of a garden and it felt so realistic but ofcourse i was aware of me taking drugs and things like that may occur but i wasn't sure that it had anything to do with reality , After few seconds the connection was lost and immediately i typed the exact time and day that the event took place . A week later i had a conversation with the girl i thought i connected with (Which we're really close to me in many ways) and i asked her that is it possible that on Thursday noon she went outside the garden and pet one of her cats , She immediately responded in what i describe some sort of a shock! she told me that she felt really strange in that particular moment and she didn't know why ! I immediately told her that on the exact same time i felt some sort of a connection with her and i couldn't really understand what happened and why i was seeing this but it was so real .. i was tripping and she wasn't but the event i described seeing really took place and it made me understand several things that really changed my perception of life! As people described here in the post.. we are all connected !
We should cherish our life and what we have because we're experiencing something incredible ! :)
-
hey @abitpeckish, fwiw, imo, joywind is a troll bro, I wouldn't waste my time
As they say "the best thing about banging your head against the wall, is stopping!"
Interesting stuff, seems like a lot of us esp those who have tripped on various substances, share similar pov's ...
hmmmmm motek ;)
-
hey @abitpeckish, fwiw, imo, joywind is a troll bro, I wouldn't waste my time
Oh, I figured that out pretty quickly. The conversation, however, is useful. Perhaps some might read it, perhaps some of that some will wake up, perhaps others might even decide to stand up and try to wake up the people in their real lives.
As they say "the best thing about banging your head against the wall, is stopping!"
I'm fairly sure all that's left for him to do is dogmatically return to his starting position. Hell, he may yet surprise me. I like new information.
Interesting stuff, seems like a lot of us esp those who have tripped on various substances, share similar pov's ...
hmmmmm motek ;)
I never realized how much it had changed me until I started tripping again. Suddenly I knew the answer to the most common question I get from those who've known me most of my life. The answer had defied me for years :)
-
Haven't read the whole thread, but....
While on/meditating on large doses of mushrooms, I've often slipped away into the reality typically encountered during DMT use. (not nearly as clear/vivid as when using DMT though).
I wonder if my consciousness is actually traveling into the DMT reality, or the mushrooms just make it easier to remember that reality, or if those two ideas are one in the same.
Maybe not a universal mind, but still a different universe inhabited by the DMT people, reached through mushroom use and meditation.
-
I experienced something similar to this however it was not a positive experience but a very negative one.
It was as if I was seeing from the viewpoint of that one universal mind, and it was a horrible viewpoint.
-
I experienced something similar to this however it was not a positive experience but a very negative one.
It was as if I was seeing from the viewpoint of that one universal mind, and it was a horrible viewpoint.
The brain is a strange and finicky thing, even when we're sober (whatever that means). In your future psychonautic travels, perhaps it might help for you to remind yourself that everything you experience is the product of your brain interpreting the constant data stream of existence. Your brain (or possibly CNS) is constantly working to make sense of the data firehose of the cosmos, interpreting it as "files and folders" that are recognizable and usable. I know that's esoteric as hell, but recognizing this can help us achieve a level of skepticism appropriate for gleaning true meaning from our experiences.
-
I experienced something similar to this however it was not a positive experience but a very negative one.
It was as if I was seeing from the viewpoint of that one universal mind, and it was a horrible viewpoint.
that's reality
-
very interesting topic, and something close to my heart.
In my mind I have absolutely NO doubt we ARE ALL 'connected' in the ways folks have mentioned here and more!
When I was very young, maybe 3-4yo I remember being able to "know" what people were thinking without being told. I clearly recall playing with my sisters when our mother would come home.
Mum was an alcoholic and rather moody, so we would be 'careful' when approaching her!
However, we could 'tell' her 'mood' from a distance without speaking to her! We would gather at the back door, just AS SOON AS she entered the front door we would "know" how she was!!
We would say to each other (as it seemed we never disagreed on this) either "mums in a good mood" and run up to see her OR "mums not happy/angry" and then we would run off back into the yard to avoid her! Take of this what you will...
However imo Tobias HAS nailed it with this comment ..."A new idea I'm working with is that the scientists who concieved of the big bang actually created it and the universe just by thinking about it."
This idea is often called "The hundredth monkey phenomena"
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"100th Monkey Syndrome - How change happens?
The Japanese monkey, Macaca fuscata, had been observed in the wild for a period of over 30 years. In 1952, on the island of Koshima, scientists were providing monkeys with sweet potatoes dropped in the sand. The monkey liked the taste of the raw sweet potatoes, but they found the dirt unpleasant.
An 18-month-old female named Imo found she could solve the problem by washing the potatoes in a nearby stream. She taught this trick to her mother. Her playmates also learned this new way and they taught their mothers too.
This cultural innovation was gradually picked up by various monkeys before the eyes of the scientists. Between 1952 and 1958 all the young monkeys learned to wash the sandy sweet potatoes to make them more palatable. Only the adults who imitated their children learned this social improvement. Other adults kept eating the dirty sweet potatoes.
Then something startling took place. In the autumn of 1958, a certain number of Koshima monkeys were washing sweet potatoes -- the exact number is not known. Let us suppose that when the sun rose one morning there were 99 monkeys on Koshima Island who had learned to wash their sweet potatoes. Let's further suppose that later that morning, the hundredth monkey learned to wash potatoes.
THEN IT HAPPENED! By that evening almost everyone in the tribe was washing sweet potatoes before eating them. The added energy of this hundredth monkey somehow created an ideological breakthrough!
But notice: A most surprising thing observed by these scientists was that the habit of washing sweet potatoes then jumped over the sea...Colonies of monkeys on other islands and the mainland troop of monkeys at Takasakiyama began washing their sweet potatoes. Thus, when a certain critical number achieves an awareness, this new awareness may be communicated from mind to mind."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now I totally believe we are ALL 'capable' of 'sharing our thoughts' in an unspoken way (aka 'telepathy' etc) which I hhave experienced many many times, at first with a few particular people and later, at times, almost at will. I would HAVE TO 'check' my thinking in some situations.
Almost everone HAS experienced this stuff HOWEVER most dismiss it as "co-incidence!" which it aint!
This stuff fascinated me from way back, so when I heard the story about groups of humans experiencing the same thing, well shit!!!
Finally I had a great 'example' of something I had KNOWN about most of my life!
I have experienced many many examples of this and made a conscious decision to ALWAYS re-assess any "coincidental" situations, and in doing this I noticed a number of similarities whenever these 'co-incidences' occured. You will to IF you make an effort to.
And here's some 'independent proof' of this occuring IRL!!....
Back in the 1990's there were three INDEPENDENT research groups who were all working on these super cooled gasses called "Bose_Einstein Condensates" aka BEC's
(**clearnet warning**) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bose%E2%80%93Einstein_condensate
To actually create these hypothetical substances in the lab was Nobel Prizewinning material!
well, 3 INDEPENDENT research groups actually handed their 'papers' in SO close in time to each other (IIRC it was within 24hrs!) that they ALL WON THE PRIZE TOGETHER!!!
(**clearnet warning**) http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2001/
http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2001/oct/09/nobel-prize-for-bose-condensates
This was the first of a number of these events in science and other disciplines etc
I hope someone finds this as interesting as I do
regards m m m motek :o :)
I feel like I've been trying to get my head round this kind of experience for 20 years and it's difficult. The word 'God' is so laced with prejudice, due to it's perversion through organised religion, but still, I would call it God. What I mean by 'God' is Truth, The ultimate reality that the universe and everything in it including all of us is one interconnected conscious living being. Of course, this experience and this interpretation is very common. and has been written about by many others. This kind of experience is the original insight behind metaphors of God and Gods in all the different religions, even Christianity. The original story of Jesus was meant to illustrate the message that man (Jesus) and the universe (God) are one. The popular interpretation of this story is the result of 2000 years of manipulation and control by those whose power is threatened by it's original meaning, which is now, largely forgotten.
Understandably, people have a hard time coming to terms with the idea that the percepion of their place in the universe, as a self-contained individual human being, separate from other human beings and the rest of the physical universe is an illusion. But really, every person is a creation of, and is sustained by the universe around them, physically, mentally, socially, in every way, so we are not separate from the universe. Everything is connected to everything else, through time and space and nothing exists in isolation. We are all one. For that eternal and infinite being, time and space don't even exist.
Psychedelics dissolve our individual ego, built up our whole lives from our sense perceptions of time and space, so we see ourselves as we really are and see that we are one with the universe. By way of analogy at a microcosmic scale, I always think of our place in the universe like the individual cell in the human body. Is the individual cell conscious of it's own existence? and if so, would it see itself as a separate entity from all the other cells around it, competing for resources of oxygen and food it needs to survive for it's brief lifespan of a few years, or would it understand that it is a temporary but necessary component of the greater complete human being? releasing carbon dioxide back into the blood, which is breathed out by the human being and then used by the tree, with energy from the sun to create food via photosynthesis. So we are with the universe, just part of the one interconnected being.
This is not just a physical connection, but our minds, emotions, dreams, aspirations, memories, personalities and everything that goes to make up our sense of 'me' is the result of connections with other parts of our true self, the whole universe, outside the individual body of the human being. To go back to the op's question, as our individual minds are connected to the rest of the universe, the universe has universal mind. The universe therefore, is not just an inanimate collection of rocks floating around stars, but has consciousness. Current science observes that the state of existence of subatomic particles is actually determined by the consciousness which observes them, so we go full circle and can concieve that in the beginning, as we usually percieve it, consciousness was first and brought into being the physical universe. Sounds familiar?
A new idea I'm working with is that the scientists who concieved of the big bang actually created it and the universe just by thinking about it. Sounds impossible seeing as the big bang was billions of years ago and scientists only thought of it in the 20th century. However, Life, as far as we know, has only come into being as a unique event on the Earth. Life forms, such as ourselves, may be the centre of the universal consciousness responsible for creating the universe, simply by dreaming it into existence. If time and space do not exist for the universal mind then there is no reason why we could not cause something in our 'past'. Actually it would seem that time was running backwards from our usual perspective. Could that be true, or have I just taken too many drugs?
loved it.
-
I love the different perspectives on this unique topic. :)