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Shop: Myyco.com Isolated Cubensis Liquid Culture For Sale   Unfolding Nature Unfolding Nature: Being in the Implicate Order

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The "God" Experience
    #9986965 -

I was just reading in The Psychedelic Experience forum about the God experience.

You know the one, the moment when you feel connected to everything around you, or in the universe, etc.

In the thread, some dismissed these experiences (sober or under the influence) as mind-tricks, but that doesn't make sense to me.

If that were so, then there must be a neurotransmitter or a combination of neurotransmitters that trigger this feeling, and our brain has to be programmed by evolution to interpret that input as being connected to everything.

This is a foolish way to look at it, though, because there's no evolutionary advantage to feel connected to everything, especially since we have to kill things to survive. It's one thing to feel connected to things you are symbiotic with (like family members), but another to feel somehow connected to a rock.

Okay, so let's look for another explanation.

It could be that it's one of the many false perceptions we have every day. Our brain is telling us one thing, but our consciousness distorts it to become something else.

This is much more reasonable because while hallucinating, or in a state of mind that may be delusional, perception gets completely thrown off and anything could happen, really.

But the person who started the thread, and other people I've known, are complete atheists who believe in nothing supernatural, especially the laughable idea that we're all somehow connected. So why is it that they who are primed to dismiss such things as delusions not reject the idea of being connected even after they've come out of that altered state?

What I'm saying is, where's their motivation to continue to interpret an experience as being connected?

I really don't know what to think about it. I'm a very spiritual person who thinks all things are a part of a greater whole. Therefore, the feeling comes from our innate desire to know that truth.

I just want to see what you all think about it. Not necessarily to argue or debate, but discuss the possibilities.


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Re: The "God" Experience [Re: Synesthetic]
    #9987004 -

What reason would a person have to reject such a "God experience"? Usually it's because they don't want to change things from the way they are, or, his/her culture is so disconnected from such experiences that there's no way to integrate it, so they reject it.

It can be put this way: if a person does not believe in themselves enough to believe their own experiences, how could they ever have the might to believe in a God? Let alone, that he/she is God?

Consciousness distorts nothing. There is only consciousness. There is nothing "true" except when you name a goal. Things are only true and false against an end, and there is no universal end.

These people who deny the "God experience" can do so, I will deny the "porridge experience", which is the taste and texture of warm porridge. We will come to find that we both reject the premise on the same grounds: sheer skepticism. I say there is no porridge experience, it's just oats and milk, they say there is no God experience, it's just drugs and brain. See how it's just common sense to accept both? Why is this God experience so different?


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Wherever the hero may wander, whatever he may do, he is ever in the presence of his own essence — for he has the perfected eye to see. There is no separateness. Thus, just as the way of social participation may lead in the end to a realization of the All in the individual, so that of exile brings the hero to the Self in all.

joseph campbell


For, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.

jesus

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Re: The "God" Experience [Re: burgatory]
    #9987548 -

Who could deny the experience? The question is, is it really God we are experiencing or something quite different having to do completely with how are brains work?


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"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

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Re: The "God" Experience [Re: Synesthetic]
    #9987870 -

Many folks see cartoon characters whilst tripping. Now interpret that the same way you just did about God.


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Re: The "God" Experience [Re: OrgoneConclusion]
    #9988238 -

Yeah what about that!:lol: I've never seen god but I've seen just about every Disney character and a few gingerbread men. Lot's of Aztec cartooney guys on salvia too. Once saw the Mad Hatter on DMT and Acid.


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

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Re: The "God" Experience [Re: Icelander]
    #9988287 -

OK, now translate your experience into mystic-speak so that we can all get excited about the cosmic possibilities.


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Edited by OrgoneConclusion (03/17/09 12:36 PM)

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Re: The "God" Experience [Re: OrgoneConclusion]
    #9988289 -

OrgoneConclusion said:
Many folks see cartoon characters whilst tripping. Now interpret that the same way you just did about God.


:congrats:


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On the scale of wibble to wobble...

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Re: The "God" Experience [Re: OrgoneConclusion]
    #9988332 -

Icelander said:
Who could deny the experience? The question is, is it really God we are experiencing or something quite different having to do completely with how are brains work?


There's no difference.
My proposition is basically that there's nothing going on 'outside' your brain, that your brain is synonymous with what's happening. Before you state the obvious problem of other brains, I like to think we're all in individual universes that are woven together (and which can influence eachother). So, when that experience occurs, it must be credible and true. Yes, it also has something to do with how our brains work, in a different context, at a different level of interpretation. Yes, it is just physics and/or chemistry and/or biology, but it is also a psychological event which surpasses those levels of interpretation. I like the "Great Chain of Being" idea, in which physics and biology are credible but lower than the psychological interpretation. It draws 5 concentric circles with 'matter' interpretations at the center. This is a really simple and clean way to see it. See, even physicists will admit their science is a conceptual structure on its own having nothing to do with nature, but that doesn't make it any less valid for the PURPOSES of science.

OrgoneConclusion said:
Many folks see cartoon characters whilst tripping. Now interpret that the same way you just did about God.


Well that's a tough one. I'm going to slap you with more of my assumptions: everything you perceive is real, because there is no objective 'real'. So, for all purposes of that trip, those cartoon characters are real. They don't have lives and they don't have a house, necessarily (lol), but if you're perceiving it for the time being and interpreting it directly, there's nothing to say it isn't happening. Of course you might instantly think "then I can just say I have a green dog from space which is going to kill me if I leave my house and it's real", and that is perfectly true. Now though, you have the GOAL of survival, or the GOAL of social contact, which overrides that proposition. You MIGHT have such a dog, but you REALLY need to survive, or REALLY need to have contact. So reality is a matter of priorities.


--------------------

Wherever the hero may wander, whatever he may do, he is ever in the presence of his own essence — for he has the perfected eye to see. There is no separateness. Thus, just as the way of social participation may lead in the end to a realization of the All in the individual, so that of exile brings the hero to the Self in all.

joseph campbell


For, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.

jesus

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Re: The "God" Experience [Re: burgatory]
    #9988343 -

that your brain is synonymous with what's happening.

Oh I agree completely. I'm convinced that god is a made up character to help us deal with the death anxiety our brains create.


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

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Re: The "God" Experience [Re: burgatory]
    #9988353 -

Sorry I better clear this up - when I said "God" I definitely wasn't referring to a personal god or the god of Abraham or the Bible, or whatever that god is.

"God" for me is just an experience, or state, or unifying principle, or "Home", beyond which nothing else exists.


--------------------

Wherever the hero may wander, whatever he may do, he is ever in the presence of his own essence — for he has the perfected eye to see. There is no separateness. Thus, just as the way of social participation may lead in the end to a realization of the All in the individual, so that of exile brings the hero to the Self in all.

joseph campbell


For, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.

jesus

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Re: The "God" Experience [Re: burgatory]
    #9988358 -

I hate it when people use the word God. It's very confusing. Why not just say what you mean?


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

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Re: The "God" Experience [Re: burgatory]
    #9988365 -

God is a ham and cheese sammich on grilled rye.


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Re: The "God" Experience [Re: OrgoneConclusion]
    #9988375 -

See and I thought it was white bread.:monkeydance:


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

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Re: The "God" Experience [Re: Icelander]
    #9988387 -

Well I guess I was inclined to use it because the thread is about the "God" experience (though maybe I should have paid attention to the parentheses). It's also an exciting word to use that rouses people to listen because it says "ultimate" or "the end-all" and often it's exactly the ultimate or end-all I exactly mean, but, actually, I am starting to see it as a really convuluting word and probably won't use it in the future. People have looked at me silly when I've jokingly but sort of seriously said "we are God" or "I am God"... but somehow there's no other word which captures that importance. *shruggs*


--------------------

Wherever the hero may wander, whatever he may do, he is ever in the presence of his own essence — for he has the perfected eye to see. There is no separateness. Thus, just as the way of social participation may lead in the end to a realization of the All in the individual, so that of exile brings the hero to the Self in all.

joseph campbell


For, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.

jesus

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: The "God" Experience [Re: burgatory]
    #9988404 -

captures that importance.

Maybe because in reality it ain't all that important. Outside your mind I mean.


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: The "God" Experience [Re: OrgoneConclusion]
    #9988518 -

OrgoneConclusion said:
Many folks see cartoon characters whilst tripping. Now interpret that the same way you just did about God.


I saw a raven that told me to get a hold of myself and stop walking through life like a zombie.

Could be that it was something in my subconscious that came out while tripping, or it could have been my spirit guide/animal.


What's wrong with me interpreting it as spiritual based on my experience with the world?


--------------------


My blog, please support by giving it a look whenever you can, even if it's not interesting to you.

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Re: The "God" Experience [Re: Synesthetic]
    #9988534 -

Nothing is wrong with you interpreting any thing any way you want to. Just don't do it for others.:shrug:


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: The "God" Experience [Re: Synesthetic]
    #9988601 -

Was the raven on your left side or your right side? If it was your left, you had better get your worldy affairs in order.


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Re: The "God" Experience [Re: OrgoneConclusion]
    #9990836 -

It was behind me until I turned to face it, so neither.


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My blog, please support by giving it a look whenever you can, even if it's not interesting to you.

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Re: The "God" Experience [Re: Synesthetic]
    #9990904 -

I call God Spirit because God is a tainted and extremely distorted word.

I think whoever believes that the whole God experience is fake has never actually had the entire God experience before.


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