Reaction & Commentary
So-called mystical experiences of incredible beauty or power or love which seem to confirm the presence or existence of something that I don’t have a word for other than God [Music] something unknowable and there are experiences which I might call ordinary human experience
Which the the knowing or the tasting or the experiencing of those confirm my experience as consciousness and so I can I feel I can say I feel like I can say I know God exists and I know I exist and there’s a separation there which I’m open to questioning given
That it doesn’t really make sense to me that there would be two existences it seems that there would have to be one existence one reality but there’s also a resistance to questioning or attempting to collapse that duality why a resistance you’re
Asking a question about it so you must also be interested in yes glory I I guess I feel I can say that I am one with God but that I can’t say I am God and I think this is coming up in the
Wake of the question about language or terminology this morning when I think you mentioned you know you use the word consciousness as a synonym and awareness and and God was sort of also at that
Level and so I think there’s a part of me that’s assuming that God or the absolute or source is that which consciousness is a part of but not consciousness itself or okay there’s also a fear of spiritual arrogance I think are just seeing I
Totally understand that to say I am God doesn’t sit well with us yes so that that we we don’t say that so it’s difficult to explore what God is because it depends on what we think God is so but what
We can explore is ourself that that’s something we know he can do because our surface is present so start with exploring yourself the question is is is what is the relationship between yourself that you know very well and God which you have strong feeling for a strong intuition of but you
Feel you don’t know it quite as well as you know yourself you can speak with confidence about yourself from your own experience but you don’t feel you can speak with confidence abandon go and sort of start with yourself and and without referring to all annunzio literature
To you’ve read in our previous conversation to tell us what you know about yourself I am aware yes so I I am so I I am present I am being mm-hmm but I’m not an inert being I’m an
Aware being that’s what you mean when you say I am aware so to tell us more about about that I exist well if we’re going to be really scrupulous about language something that exists exists from the Latin ex sister a means to stand out from ex meaning out of ancestry meaning
To stand so something that exists is something that stands out and something that stands out has a form so a thought exists a table exists a feeling exists a room exists something that exists is always something something with a form it stands out from its background so your thoughts
Exist your feelings exist your sensations exist your perceptions exist you don’t exist you are you don’t stand out from the background of yourself all your thoughts sensations and perceptions stand out from the background of you you are the background they stand out from so you don’t exist
You are this is a fine distinction most people use the verdicts being and existence synonymously and it’s okay to do that in casual parlance but we’re going more deeply into things here so
When you say I exist what you I think you really mean is I am okay so I am and I am aware what else that that’s not much else I can say okay the distinction between being and existence will
Come clear will its relevance will become clearer when we start exploring what God is but let’s stay with yourself for the moment there’s not much else you can say okay why is there not me you’re right but why why can’t you any qualification I make on that is just not
True it moves it’s a time bound it’s so now now it’s a time band phenomenally it must have a form yeah and if it has a form it has a limit and if it has a limit it comes and goes mm-hmm but you
Are you you’re your being is ever-present have you ever experienced the absence of yourself no no so in your own experience of yourself you are ever-present not everlasting in time because as you say yourself has no objective qualities that could exist in time you are ever present now so
If you’ve never experienced the disappearance of yourself have you ever experienced the appearance of yourself was there a time when you appeared did you ever have the experience of appearing no only something that exists appears like a thought appears and then it disappears but
You have never had the experience of your own appearance or disappearance you never experienced your own birth you will never experience your own death so in your own in your own knowledge of yourself you are eternal ever-present you are without birth
Birth is not your experience appearance is not your experience you are without death you’ve never experienced your own disappearance so if you stay very close I’m just formulating that what what you’ve said of yourself if you stay close to your
Experience of yourself you could say I am I am aware I am eternal I wasn’t born I don’t die I find the limits in myself a common way of saying that is I am infinite I am
NOT finite I have no finite qualities so I am infinite I am eternal i am deathless this is your experience it’s not some marvelous mystical experience it’s just our experience of ourself so now tell us what you imagine God to be what would be the first quality
Eternal nobody even before that very first thing you can say about God God him I was gonna say God exists but now you’re but are you not going and now you’re not going to say that but instead
You’re going to say it God is God is perfect good God is God doesn’t exist everything exists in God or emerges out of context Astari stands out from but God itself doesn’t exist God is what else
God is eternal yes but before before okay let’s let me ask you the question in whose experience is God the eternal who is it that can say God is eternal whoever that is must be the one that knows
God something that doesn’t know God cannot say that cannot know that God is eternal so in whose knowledge is God eternal no in in God’s knowledge only God could know for God is eternal yeah yeah
At the moment we’re not sure that you’re the same as God or not we don’t know that yet so we you can’t you this possible entity that is separate from God cannot say anything about God only correct only God could know yes the nature of God just like only you can
Know the nature of yourself yeah so before God knows that God is eternal or ever-present God must have another quality apart from simply being God is not inert being God must be aware I think this is where I get stuck okay because it seems like I’m projecting my
What I know about myself on to whatever this is that we’re calling God yes but we’re exploring what God might be okay yeah so whatever God might be God must first be okay yes and must not God also be aware otherwise God would not know anything
God would have no would not be aware of itself or indeed of anything else okay okay I can see you’re not not convinced by that so that that’s fine that that’s let’s post that but let’s just discuss the statement that God is but the God is being so what would be the dip
And you also okay she asked you this question if God had to give itself a name what would God call itself what is the name that anything knows itself gives to itself what is the name
Of you you know yourself and what is the name you give to yourself the ordinary name you give to yourself being know that the name that the Criseyde I yeah you anything that knows itself
Calls itself I mm-hmm anything that is known by itself cause it South I effort if a if a Cree could know itself it would refer to itself as I if a cat in order to call ourselves I we have to both
Know ourselves and have the ability to name our self a cat knows itself but it doesn’t have the ability to call itself i but a cat knows its alpha if a tree could know itself it would call itself I
Said if God knows itself what would it call itself I I so so God would say I am and you also say I am when you refer to I am you refer to your knowledge of yourself when God says I am God refers to the
Knowledge it’s not a Java itself so at the moment we have these two beings you have the being that you know as I am and we have the being that God knows as I am what’s the difference between
Them given that you’ve already said from your own experience that your own being has no limits that it’s ever-present birthless Dethlefs and without limits what would be the difference between your being and God’s being I I guess what’s coming up is I didn’t do this I didn’t make the something
That is here or I’m not its originator I’m not a source so it’s something about creation and how that works how do you know that the being which is the essence of yourself didn’t create
All of this or isn’t creating all of this I’m not having the experience of creating it when you have a dream at night do you have the experience of creating your dream not unless I’m lucid usually not but even if your lucid dreaming do you still have the experience that you’re do you
Experience that you’re witnessing your dream or that you’re actually creating it usually witnessing unless unless I’m able to create a scene yeah okay but but normally you have a dream and you you don’t feel you’re creating it rainbow your mind is creating the dream all right
That’s interesting let’s take a slightly different pathway ooh would you would you agree that whatever whatever is perceived or witnessed or unknown it exists for instance when a thought is present it exists when a vitreous present it exists if a feeling
Is present it exists if a person is present they exist whatever whatever appears it exists yeah so existence is shared by absolutely everything it’s the it is common it’s the common factor of everything yes atoms black holes galaxies feelings whatever existence
Is common to all of them and therefore cannot be limited to any of them yes so consider the possibility that there is a there is a common a shared existence that the existence of everything is shared it’s not
Limited to a particular an object doesn’t come with its own package of existence consider the possibility that there is a a single being a single infinite indivisible being out of which emerges or every everything that exists when it went when something emerges out of being
It stands out from being and it exists as an object so all objects whether they’re galaxies or atoms or they all exist but they they emerge out of the same being in other words being lends itself so to speak to everything that exists including yourself but whatever
Whatever this little package of you of yourself is it it borrows its existence its its temporary existence this little package of thoughts and feelings and sensations it borrows its temporary existence from a single being could that single being be what God is yes I could
The knowledge I am be God’s being shining in your mind because when you refer to the pure I am before it is qualified by thoughts and feelings as you rightly said that I am has no
Has no form nor limits no in other words they when you refer to the pure I am the pure I am doesn’t actually share any of the limited qualities of your thoughts feelings sensations and perceptions
It is unlimited being infinite being but how many infinite beings can there be just one yes so the knowledge that shines in each of our minds the knowledge I am that shines in each of our minds it
Cannot be a different being because the being that each of us knows that we are is unlimited you’ve already discovered when you refer to I am it’s unlimited being so the I am that shines in each of
Our minds must be God’s presence shining in this limited vessel it’s like the space in this room how many spaces are there in the universe that’s fine there’s one space in the universe there isn’t one space for every building in the world there is a single space that is temporarily housed by every
Building I would say it was exactly the same with God’s presence infinite being there is one being that is temporarily housed in our body mind and shines in that body mind as the knowledge I am thank you no I haven’t finished
If it’s true that that the being the sense of being that shines in each of our minds is the only being there is let’s call it God’s infinite being we know the experience I am yes you know the experience I am now what is it that
Knows the experience I am I do and is the I that knows that I am the same I that I am or different I it’s the I that I am the I that I am knows that I am I think you’ve got the answer
You see it’s to say I am God does indeed sound arrogant no one would ever no one in their right mind would ever say such a thing it does doesn’t feel right to say it it feels it feels like blasphemy
But in fact what is blasphemy is not to say I am God what is really blasphemous is to say I am a person that is blasphemous because in saying I am a person what we’re saying is that I am a being with my own independent existence
We’re saying that my being must be separate from God’s being and if my being is separate from God’s being then God’s being must be limited in other words to say I am a person is to deny the presence of God that is blasphemy
Is to set oneself up as a self apart from God’s infinite being or rather let’s not call it Gordon it is to set oneself up as a being apart from infinite being it is to set oneself up as a
Finite being and if each of us are finite beings then they cannot be anything called infinite being because if infinite being is infinite being it must be the nature of all being but if we are setting ourselves up as a separate temporary finite being we aren’t denying
The possibility of infinite being we are denying God’s presence it is not arrogant to say I am God although we shouldn’t say it what is arrogant is to say I am a person that is Erica
