Experience . . .

[Celia]

A number of years back, I had an experience(?) that I sometimes refer to as "noticing God".  Actually, I refer to it by a lot of things, and all references are quite inadequate.  I come up with metaphor after metaphor for it, usually rejecting each after a time.

I refer to the current metaphor as "the last gate".  In it, basically I've been unconsciously grasping a piece of wire all of my life, while elsewhere someone has been closing gates.  When this someone closes the last gate, an electrical current surges through me, and I drop the wire that I'd been unaware of holding.  The shock wasn't unpleasant - just very mysterious and unexpected.  In fact, I'd like nothing more than to find the wire and grasp it again (for the feeling of the current), though I have great difficulty coming even close.

I suppose one might wonder what this has to do with issues of gender.  I guess I'd have to say "as little as possible".  I hope people find that to be a relief.

Is this sort of thing what some might refer to as a mystical experience?  A religious experience?  Has anyone else had something like this happen?  I'd be very happy to find someone (anyone) who can relate.

Yours,
Celia

[4years]

The harder you try the harder it is.

Do not reach for the wire, open your hand for the wire to come to you.


You could label such an experience either (or both) mystical or religious depending on your frame of reference.

[Rose Dawson]

Hello Celia,

I am certainly not a dream doctor nor am I otherwise in any position to define your experiences. However, two things hit me right off the bat:

1. You didn't state that this was a reoccurring experience. If it was, I personally would take this symbolically and attempt to decipher the symbolism and the current events in your life to create meaning.

2. How did it actually

feel to you? What were your initial impressions? My reaction has always been to go with your gut instinct. Did you immediately feel it to be a spiritual experience rather than a mystical? Or vice versa? The point here is to go with what your intuition tells you.[/list]

I have had one dream in particular that will always stick with me as a spiritual experience because when I awoke from a dead sleep in a cold sweat, shivering, I immediately knew it was a message from the Goddess (as I identify as Pagan):

In the dream, I remember there being a circle of candles which encompassed me. The blinds to the window I was facing were open and outside was a pink colored sky and black clouds. It was rather calming - almost as if the sun was setting behind black clouds and thus, making the sky pink. Suddenly, the sky turned pitch black, the wind whipped up to such a force that it broke my windows, blew out my candles and knocked me to the ground.

From that point, I remember opening my eyes and the room looking like a tornado had blown through. I distinctly recall a voice calling to me, "Do not be afraid. I am your mother and will protect you." I immediately awoke, scared to death but I could only focus on the words that were uttered to me in my dream - "Do not be afraid. I am your mother and will protect you."

I can still recall how real the dream was and it's intensity. In any event, I hope this helps you and has been more than me rambling on.

[Svetlana]

i've had some messages "from above", as it were; whatever actually is "up there", clearly steered my decisions at a couple of points previously... i don't count it as such a big thing... nice to know there's something up there.  and i've absolutely no care in the world whatsoever whether i know what the hell that something is or isn't, or anything about it.  it's there and that's all that counts.

you see, that's the beef & onion with all these religion deelies: they say god is a "this gender", a "this physical form", is all "this thing", all "that thing", requires we attend "this place" on "these days" and don't do "this" and "that" and "the other", and is "this colour skin", and has "these features", and has "this family" who did "this" and "that" and "the other", and doesn't like "X", and does like "Y", and "Z" doesn't exist, and created "this much" of the universe "in this way".  and has "this hair style".  and has "this many arms".  and has "this history".  etc.  etc.  etc.

... not one of those things, important to know in any way shape or form whatsoever.  people often go for the "gambling man" theorey in trying to champion religion - that if you are a gambling person, then you'd bet on god, because if it's wrong, then *shrug* you're ok, and if it's right, then you're ok.  well, apply that in another way - if your god is up there, and it's all good, and it's all powerful, and it has a plan which will always happen tell the future), then whatever you happen to do, god will steer you right, and whatever you end up doing, it's all part of his/her plan and was meant to happen anyway... and you're ok.  and if your god isn't up there... then you're ok.

so i say, take these things that happen and just run with them.

[4years]

That is quite interesting Rose, thank you for sharing.

Sadly such experiences are to scarcely shared, I think for fear of retribution.

With that thought, get your rocks ready...


Note that mystical/spiritual (which I consider two faces of the same coin, so to speak) are not relegated to our sleeping hours, of course.

Here is a waking experience:
My Grandfather is religious, and I understand his reasons to be, however I am not. I'm sure this could be described and attributed to a trillion different things, but as far as I know I've personally been visited by who I took to be Christ, bid visit me by my grandfather as we were driving home one day, to whom I shunned. Not that Christ is a bad guy mind you, regardless and whatever the reasons or the logic, that happened and was over just as fast, with nary a word spoken but plenty of meaning.  I should probably note that I have nothing against any of the Bodhisattva, in fact I've a great love and respect for them, to put it mildly, as words do not convey. *shrugs* I walk a different path.


Normally I choose not to dream as my dreams have never been all that fun. When I do dream, my dreams are oft tests, situations, or occasionally symbolic messages, or every once in a while loss tears me apart and someone I care about returns to soothe me.


I have many memories that do not match this existence, and life hurts considerably more than is reasonable. I am pretty certain there is a lot more than what the various factions want you to believe. Which really is my point in this post.


Of course I could just be two hairs short of totally out of my mind too, so take it with a grain of salt

Blessed are the Bodhisattva.

[Celia]

You make a good point, 4y.  I wasn't making a grab for it when it happened, and so there isn't really any good reason to start.



Sadly, Rose, it doesn't seem to be recurrent, though I would certainly like it to be.

As far as what the feeling was, what my gut told me, it was . . . very strange.  My initial way of describing it was this: it was like a figure in a drawing suddenly becoming sentient - and aware that it was a figure in a drawing.  Afterwards it seemed to me that reality was so vastly beyond anything I'd imagined, that my previous view of the world seemed like a trite bedtime story.  The sensation, I suppose, was like suddenly becoming aware that one is a creation - not in the Biblical sense, but in the artistic one.   I guess I'm distorting the experience in the very act of describing it, but, as a human being, I'm a creature of language and don't see a lot of choice, save remaining silent and forgetting about it.  And I don't think I'll have much luck burying something that has seemed so remarkable to me.



Well, Svetlana, I suppose I'd do well to rephrase things a bit.  Though I did refer to the experience as "noticing God", I should emphasize that this is just another failed attempt to get a quick handle on it.  Though I do associate this experience with God (what couldn't one associate with God?), I realize that trying to connect the dots - whether for myself or anyone else - is in all likelyhood impossible.  And, when I hear people talk about God, I mostly just stifle the urge to laugh like Hell (and I'm not proud of the urge).  So that "noticing God" expression feel free to take with a big grain of salt - along with any of my other descriptions.



And thank you all for talking with me about this.  Some things are much better shared.  I hope this conversation can continue.

Yours,
Celia

[Terri-Gene]

"Noticing God" ..... I recognize the picture language, converting a scene or situation into an emotional picture to be viewed by yourself and then trying to use words to convy that emotional image to another.  Right idea, but sometimes lost in translation.  I see that phrase as meaning to be confronted with a higher meaning then yourself rather then any religious intent.  You see that a lot in the Natives, but then a common bond standardizes the picture more.

[Celia]

I'm intrigued, Terri-Gene, but could you elaborate?

-Celia

[Terri-Gene]

It's really nothing Celia, just a tendancy of some people to form ideas into images for thier own ability to view and understand it, and then to attempt to translate the image back into words in order to convey what it means to them to others.  This is not only prevailent among some people, but among some cultures.

Consider the old "Till the sun does not rise, the grass does not grow and the wind does not blow" type of phrase attributed to native americans in relation to drawing treaties in the late 1800s.  it is simply a picture view meaning to the end of existance, or till forever has ended.  Not understood or complied with by the european white culture sadly.

By the way, I'm a half white, half Apache mix with my fathers side being of the white race and being raised for the most part in white culture but with significant native bonds, some of which I only half understand, but which do affect many of my outlooks and perceptions.

[Celia]

Hmm . . . I'm guessing the problems I'd have relating to this in more visual terms would be analogous to those I have verbalizing it, Terri-Gene.  The experience was far stranger than a Moebius strip or any M. C. Escher imagery I've ever encountered.

Have you ever had a lucid dream?  It's a little like that, I suppose (a little: the corresponding "waking world" of the experience is vastly mysterious to me).  A sort of reality-isn't-real experience.  I hope I'm not giving you the wrong idea (I probably am; but, then, I did decide to talk about this stuff ).

Yours,
Celia

[VeryGnawty]

A sort of reality-isn't-real experience.

I'm not entirely certain that reality even is real.

[Terri-Gene]

Dreams Celia?  I have a habit of sleeping in a simi councious state and rarely if ever make it to a REM state.  There are reasons for this I'm not inclined to go into at this time, but basically I don't even sleep that much as I am afraid I might dream and don't want to, as there are to many things in my subcouncious that I don't want brought forward and refuse to even address with my most trusted therapyst, though they are well aware of the internal conflict.

For your own dreams, I only hope they are not to distressful and that you can interpet their message to your concious level.

And Gnawly, all it amounts to is a persons own perception of reality, flawed or not and it is as real to individuals as anything can be.  the old "perception is reality" type of thinking.

[4years]

I'm not entirely certain that reality even is real.

You may find the book "Holographic Universe" by Michael Talbot interesting with that thought in mind.
I thought it a good book anyway.

[Svetlana]

well, reality obviously is real, otherwise it wouldn't be reality.  whatever reality is...

[Celia]

Terri-Gene:

Sorry about that. :-[  Chalk it up to tunnel vision on my part.



Svetlana & VeryGnawty:

The assertion that reality is real is like the assertion that existence exists: unpleasantly circular.  I have a feeling that such statements are a misuse of language, though I haven't considered them enough to really know.  The Russel Paradox springs to mind, though I can tell it isn't entirely similar.  Just a gut feeling - though my gut's been wrong before.



Yours,
Celia

[Terri-Gene]

"well, reality obviously is real, otherwise it wouldn't be reality.  whatever reality is"

Reality is what things actually are without any preconceived ideas or opinions on it and having access to all existing facts.  Perception, as in Perception is reality, is how we see the circumstances, with our own point of view applied to it, which affects our interpetation of Reality. 

Unfortunately, A persons own Perception of any situation generally becomes their own Reality, despite how that may conflict with actual fact and makes for multible "realities" for any given situation.

Often enough  Reality as Perceived by multiple persons of the same mind set becomes the true "Reality" to that group, even though it may be intirely false according to the actual non subjective facts as viewed with pure impariality.  An extreamly hard thing for Humans to do, almost impossible in fact.

TG

[VeryGnawty]

My point was that, assuming that reality is real, this fact becomes irrelevent when you consider the fact that humans will never be able to separate themselves from their own senses and perceptions, and thus will never be able to define reality.

[Celia]

Hmm . . . kind of a gray area - reality isn't a matter of practical concern.  Maybe.  When someone makes a blanket there is no reality, only perception statement, however, my response tends to be "Really?".

-Celia



Posted at: June 01, 2005, 06:02:09 PMI suppose I don't subscribe to the idea of God intervening, as such.  To me, that's just an old, bad metaphor that should have been tossed out long ago.  This sense that God is a somehow independent or separate entity that created a universe out of nothing and retreated to some sort of divine vacation home, returning on rare occasion to put on a supernatural dog-and-pony show, is nothing but another wall meant to alienate us.  And people still fall for this snipehunt.

Though a lot of people who've rightly disposed of this junk tend to feel an absence of God (or a vastly increased separation, at least), I kind of turn that on its head.  To me, God encompasses everything we know and everything we don't.  The world is chock full of God - we just take this for granted.  There's nothing that God isn't and nothing God doesn't do.  We don't really notice because it's not as though there were anything else to judge by.  God doesn't intervene any more than I'm intervening in the functioning of my body when my heart beats.  But when my heart beats, that's me.

Yours,
Celia

[Terri-Gene]

"The harder you try the harder it is.
Do not reach for the wire, open your hand for the wire to come to you."

Excellent 4years.  Myself, I forgot that for a while and know all to well that you can't reach for more then you can give back at a given time. Some things have to come to you, not you to it.  Thats just the way it is in order to be realistic, uncompromised and at peace with yourself and the world.

Thank you for a reinforcement of a wise piece of half forgotten knowledge.

Terri 

[Terri-Gene]

 "whatever you end up doing, it's all part of his/her plan and was meant to happen anyway"

I can't buy into that one.  It would presume I have no control over my own actions or future.  I know for a fact that regardless of what I do, good or bad, I do have control over what I do and I can't just pass it off as any master plan by any great spirit.  To me, that is a copout and is one of the relidgious themes that cause people to justify what shouldn't be justified in the name of a relidgious belief.

As to things happening that can be for the better in the future, I have seen many examples of that.  Catastrophic injuries or events that would at the time seem to cripple me or make my life and feelings worse, but in the end, most of these have changed my life in ways that have made it better and myself better once I got over the immediate results.  To live is to learn and all knowledge is useful, small and great and I learn more from the bad I do then from the right things and therefore solidifies my future actions more toward doing what I know is right rather then justifying the wrong.

I do believe in a higher counciousness, but not in anyway that can be intelligently discussed, by myself anyway, as I see the spirit in every living thing and even things that would seem to be lifeless, The world itself is a living being.  But I believe that each of us is here to discover themselves and that the spirit may guide them, but not predetermine thier actions.  That is for each of us to resolve in themselves.

Terri