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SalixIncendium

अग्निविलोवनन्दः
Staff member
Premium Member
I've come across people here on the forum and elsewhere and have read accounts in which people say that they have heard God, seen God, or experienced God in some other way.

Can God be seen, heard, or experienced in normal waking consciousness? Or must one be in an altered state consciousness in order to have such an experience?

If you answer the latter, can you describe how this altered state is attained?
 

sun rise

The world is on fire
Premium Member
Can God be seen, heard, or experienced in normal waking consciousness? Or must one be in an altered state consciousness in order to have such an experience?

My sense is that the experience in normal consciousness is like feeling the warmth of the sun without being able to see it directly.

If you answer the latter, can you describe how this altered state is attained?

The various spiritual paths are about this. It's about losing one's limited self to live in something broader, wider and deeper.
 

wizanda

One Accepts All Religious Texts
Premium Member
Can God be seen, heard, or experienced in normal waking consciousness?
God is beyond the physical dimensions, and if something is seen, it is a manifestation from it...

Seen God in my NDE at 23, and the magnitude of information from it, means we can not be finite to experience it fully.

When I was 15 was slightly stoned, and heard God where the whole of reality became one voice, with the whole hosts of Heaven behind it; didn't see it, yet could sense what was there from the many voices as one.

We all continually get angels interacting with us, yet most don't realize it isn't only their voice in their head; yet for God (CPU) to speak to us, it has to be something serious.
Or must one be in an altered state consciousness in order to have such an experience?
Psychotropics lower our ego; so we quieten our mind to be able to listen properly...

Plus meditation can do the same thing; yet only when we learn to listen, rather than tell our mind to be quiet...

Once we've created the neural pathways tho, not sure we need anything to hear the Divine.
If you answer the latter, can you describe how this altered state is attained?
Answer all questions; have a blank mind, and then when the thoughts arise, recognize it wasn't from you, that is a start...

Yet personally would say that I've only heard angels that way, and for God (CPU) to speak to us, we have to be of the Divine.

Like why should the Source of reality waste time on beings down near Hell, who refused to listen in the first place.

In my opinion. :innocent:
 
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Unveiled Artist

Veteran Member
I've come across people here on the forum and elsewhere and have read accounts in which people say that they have heard God, seen God, or experienced God in some other way.

Can God be seen, heard, or experienced in normal waking consciousness? Or must one be in an altered state consciousness in order to have such an experience?

If you answer the latter, can you describe how this altered state is attained?

No. I learned you have to be awake, aware, be grateful for things "just happening" in your favor, smile, and be yourself. If you (people) try to shape god from someone else's experiences, you'll get a high from someone else. Superficial. Its not poetic. No mystic language. Just be thankful you're alive and whomever or whatever you attribute or get your gratitude to or from, if not yourself, let that be a guiding force to keep yourself in "that state" of mind.
 
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Ostronomos

Well-Known Member
I've come across people here on the forum and elsewhere and have read accounts in which people say that they have heard God, seen God, or experienced God in some other way.

Can God be seen, heard, or experienced in normal waking consciousness? Or must one be in an altered state consciousness in order to have such an experience?

If you answer the latter, can you describe how this altered state is attained?

It is an exclusive attainment by the genetic code of the individual and how one's DNA interacts on the microscopic level with mind-altering drugs. But this only presents the mainstream and popular means by which an altered state of consciousness is attained. Another means is by meditation, which requires a large amount of effort and the ability to narrow the probability of attaining enlightenment down to a science. By revealing the ambiguity of the process by which an altered state of consciousness can be attained, I have subjected myself to the bias and criticism of others not familiar with mind altering abilities regarding the reality of the experience.
 

Vouthon

Dominus Deus tuus ignis consumens est
Staff member
Premium Member
According to the witness of the New Testament itself, "No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God remains in us, and His love is perfected in us." (1 John 4:12), he dwells "in light unapproachable; whom no man hath seen, nor can see" (1 Timothy 6:16) and we are moreover told how, "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, Nor have entered into the heart of man The things which God has prepared for those who love Him" (1 Corinthians 2:9).

In the Old Testament, the experience of God was actively sought by a wandering school of prophets who induced, or passively fell into, what the Hebrew refers to as an "ecstasy" or trance-like state of mind:


Thereupon the spirit of God gripped him, and he spoke in ecstasy among them. When all who knew him previously saw him speaking in ecstasy together with the prophets, the people said to one another, “What’s happened to the son of Kish? Is Saul too among the prophets?" (1 Samuel 10:9-13)

Back in the New Testament, St. Paul revealed that he was the recipient of a religious ecstasy in which he lost his ordinary conscious state and could not tell if he had, or did not have, a body:


"I know a man in Christ [Paul himself] who fourteen years ago was caught away to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know—God knows. And I know that this man—whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, but God knows— was caught away to paradise. He heard inexpressible things, things that man is not permitted to tell." (2 Corinthians 12:2–4)​


The emphasis upon the "inexpressibility" of the experience in human language is classical, staple evidence of a mystical state.

See this article from the Holman Bible Dictionary:


Ecstasy (in the Bible) - Dictionary definition of Ecstasy (in the Bible) | Encyclopedia.com: FREE online dictionary


Etymologically and literally the word ecstasy (from the Gr. ἔκστασις) indicates a displacement; in the sense here intended it means a psychic displacement and designates a state in which some normal functions are suspended and in which the consciousness is absorbed in emotional or mystic experience.

The noun ἔκστασις is derived from the verb ἐξίστημι, to displace, drive one out of one's senses, lose one's senses. Both the verb and the noun occur in both the Septuagint translation of the OT and in the NT...

It would seem that in many of the OT examples the trancelike state is induced, at least partially, through natural means, such as the rhythm of liturgical dancing and singing. Thus, the group of prophets that Saul met coming down from a high place (where worship was offered in those early days) and in whose company he fell into a trance were carrying several kinds of musical instruments (1 Sm 10.5); it is said quite explicitly that Elisae (Elisha) employed a minstrel to bring on a prophetic trance (2 Kgs 3.15). False prophets are accused of using intoxicants to induce ecstasy (Is 28.7; see also Mi 2.11)...

In the NT, Jesus is depicted as experiencing a kind of ecstasy at key moments such as his baptism (Mk1.9–11) and his transfiguration (Mk 9.2–8). Ecstatic visions or trances befall Zechariah (Lk 1.67–69), Stephen (Acts 7.55), Peter (Acts 10.10; 11.5), and John (Rev1.10). At Pentecost the gathered disciples are dramatically possessed by the Holy Spirit (Acts 2.2–4).

The most important NT ecstatic figure, however, is Paul. Luke clearly presents Paul's conversion and other key events in his life as ecstatic (Acts 9.3–19; 16.9–10; 18.9–10;22.17–21; 26.12–19). Most importantly, Paul's description in 2 Cor 12.1–4 of a man "caught up to the third heaven" where he "heard things that cannot be told" almost certainly refers to himself.

In the latter text and elsewhere, Paul employs imagery and language strongly reminiscent of the depiction of "heavenly journeys" in the Jewish mysticism and apocalypticism of his time. This suggests that he may not have been innocent of training in practices that encouraged ecstasy

So to answer the first part of your question: no, it does not appear that God has ever been experienced during ordinary consciousness by means of sense-awareness or perception.

An altered state of consciousness has been the norm since the first shamans in the Paleolithic, who used red ochre to paint mystical visions they had received while allegedly "out-of-body" in the spirit world or domain of the ancestors and the Bible attests to this.

Basically, we are talking about a mystical state of consciousness here.

Jesus contended that one of the most important pre-conditions for gaining the kingdom of God is the honing of a pure, childlike state of mind (Matt 18:3; Mark 10:15; Luke 18:17; John 1:12; 3:3; Thomas 22). Jesus belabors the point further by stating: "Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it." So we have a very affirmative statement to the effect that if a person doesn't "receive the kingdom of God" as a "little child" then it will be impossible for the individual to attain it, no matter how much they might aspire.

According to the New Testament, the kingdom of God is a "secret hidden wisdom" (1 Corinthians 2:7) or understanding found within people who are living in a state of grace: described as a "treasure" that "surpasses" human knowledge, sense-perceptions and sense-impressions because it is the highest experience of God that believers in Christ are called to experience in this life, in which we still "see through a glass darkly" (1 Corinthians 13:12), as a foretaste of our full beatitude in heaven, where we will "enjoy the same perfect happiness wherewith God is happy, seeing Him in the way which He sees Himself" (St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentes) with perfect clarity.

For this, one must be single-minded and clear focused in their heart, not divided and blurred/distorted by sinful passions/cravings (to use Jesus' words, "choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life" (Luke 8:14) and "having hearts weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life" (Luke 21:34)), which St. Paul refers to as having "the eyes of your heart enlightened" (Ephesians 1:18).

This can only be achieved by people who become like infants in their mindset and attitudes to life, since in Jesus' own words God has "hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and revealed them to infants" (Luke 10:21). It means that we must be born again through a transformative encounter with God in which we "crucify the flesh with its passions and desires” (Galatians 5.24) such that "it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me" (Galatians 2:20) because "we have [attained] the mind of Christ" (1 Corinthians 2:16).

This should (in accordance with Jesus' parable of the hidden treasure) make the person completely re-asses what they used to believe was important in life, such that they'd be willing to "sell everything they have" if necessary and relinquish all their attachments just to attain this treasure.

Ultimately, one discovers through this a "peace" beyond all understanding in which the individual is "filled with all the fullness of God" (Ephesians 3:14-21) described later on by the early desert fathers through the use of the words apatheia (state of imperturbable calm) and theosis (deification/union with God). The person who dies in this state of perfect union with God, attains heaven immediately, without needing to go through purgatory according to Catholic doctrine.

Here is how a later Catholic mystic Blessed Henry Suso described it:


"...Essential reward, however, consists in the contemplative union of the soul with the naked Godhead, because it never rests until it is led beyond all its powers and capacities and is directed into the natural substance of the Persons and into the simple nakedness of Being. Face to face with this it then finds fulfilment and eternal happiness. The more the soul freely goes out of itself in detachment, the freer is its ascent; and the freer its ascent, the farther it enters into the wild wasteland and the deep abyss of the pathless Godhead into which it plummets, where it is swept along, and to which it is so united that it cannot want otherwise than what God wants. And this is the same Being God is: They become blessed by grace as He is blessed by nature..."

- Blessed Henry Suso (1300 – 1366), The Little Book of Eternal Wisdom
 
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Nakosis

Non-Binary Physicalist
Premium Member
I've come across people here on the forum and elsewhere and have read accounts in which people say that they have heard God, seen God, or experienced God in some other way.

Can God be seen, heard, or experienced in normal waking consciousness? Or must one be in an altered state consciousness in order to have such an experience?

If you answer the latter, can you describe how this altered state is attained?

Generally you see "something" If you have a religious proclivity you take it for God.

Much of it is feeling like an overwhelming sense of peace. The world can take on a brighter, almost golden glow. You can hear voices, sometimes it's more an impression of receiving information.

Sometimes you might even see what appears to be a physical object. Like a burning bush or tiny flames, dancing on blades of grass.

There are Gurus that will teach you to see the light of God, hear the music of God. These experiences are hard to describe as you can seen this light but at the same time know it's source is not physical. The teach you to hear the "music" of God. Again it is something you actually can hear but know there is no physical source for.

How you attain these states, a lot of faith/conviction, or in the case of a Guru, they have to endow you with the ability to see the light, hear the music. Maybe there's other ways but I went the Guru way. Maybe that just more faith and conviction though.

Also I wonder if some folks are just wired differently so that some people are more inclined to such experiences.

So they seem like real experiences, though not physical experiences, so "spiritual" experiences. Like seeing light and hearing music. Sometimes they can be or seem to be actual physical experiences for which there could be some non-spiritual cause for, like an optical illusion. SOmething you see but can't explain so may assume an supernatural explanation for.
 

Sunstone

De Diablo Del Fora
Premium Member
Here's what I've been able to put together, although to keep things easy to explain, I'm glossing over a lot. First, there is typically a key difference between someone who hears or who sees god, and someone who "experiences" god. That difference consists in how many senses are involved. In the former cases, only one or two senses are involved, such as both seeing and hearing at once.

In the latter case of experiencing god, all of one's senses are involved, usually including one's sense or awareness of internal states, such as hunger. That is in part why experiencing god can be said to involve the whole or entirety of ones sensory or perceptual fields (a sometimes important distinction can be made between sensory fields and perceptual fields, but it's not necessary to make it here)..

Having said that, it seems to me that all evidence, both from the accounts of mystics themselves, and from PET and fMRI brain scans conducted by neuroscientists, points to there being at least two ways of perceiving -- two basic kinds of awareness. The first is to perceive yourself as discreet from all other things. That kind is our normal, waking consciousness. We see the tree, but we don't perceive the tree as "us".

The second is to perceive all things as in some vital way just one thing. When we see the tree, we and the tree seem in some way to be one. This latter state of perception or awareness (often called a "higher consciousness") is the state in which god is experienced. For various reasons, I think that state is absolutely necessary -- even intrinsic -- to experiencing god.

However, I do not know whether people who hear god or see god enter into that awareness. I've not paid much attention to that subject. Perhaps someone else would be better informed?

So far as I know, there are simply no wholly guaranteed paths to experiencing god. The best guides or teachers will not do it. Right or proper beliefs will not do it. No meditative techniques can assure you of such an experience. Neither can taking any drug that I've heard of. Some mystics will even tell you, "There are no paths to god."

But some drugs, at least, seem much more likely to bring about an experience than some non-drug techniques. However, there's considerable debate about whether drugs bring about exactly the same sort of experience as, say, various Eastern forms of meditation might sometimes do, and even more debate about whether even if they do bring about exactly the same sort of experience, whether drug-induced experiences are as transformative as non-drug induced experiences (can they change you just as much, just as permanently, and in the same ways)

A curious fact in regards to all of this is that even atheists who have never practiced any means of attaining an experience of god, and who are not on any drugs, sometimes have an experience of god.
 

Windwalker

Veteran Member
Premium Member
I've come across people here on the forum and elsewhere and have read accounts in which people say that they have heard God, seen God, or experienced God in some other way.

Can God be seen, heard, or experienced in normal waking consciousness? Or must one be in an altered state consciousness in order to have such an experience?

If you answer the latter, can you describe how this altered state is attained?
Yes, in normal walking states of consciousness. Eventually. I'll see if I can't make this both meaningful and brief, which ends up being usually either one of the other.

Meditation practices help to open one up to their being beyond the normal world of thoughts. It helps expose you to what the world is without us injecting thoughts and words, ideas and concepts, values or meanings, or any other such thing that acts as a judgement of what reality before us is. This is a challenging thing to overcome for most, as it is totally foreign to our "normal" states of being as we exist in our own minds.

Any practice that gets us out of that mode of "thought-reality" will result in us waking up to what just simply is. The experience of this can be stunningly profound, which if you think about it (pun intended), this universe is just that - and far, far more than what the mind can imagination. It can be experienced without these filters of thoughts and ideas colorizing it, putting it as a projection of our own selves; what we think, what we value, what we desire, what we reject, and so on. Some choose to call this "God" (I am one of those) as it is experienced as in and through everything we encounter, including our own minds and bodies.

As with any exercise, the more you practice it, the easier it is to simply be there. Your body just "knows" how to do it, how to switch on whatever you call it to do. But the more you fuss about it with your mind, trying mentally to move a certain way, like focusing on the dance steps, the more "not there" you are. You aren't present in the dance. You aren't flowing with reality. You're merely imitating dance. Same thing with being fully present and Aware. The body already knows how to do it, you just have to step out of the way and let it. Consciousness already knows its Source.

Coming to that place where you are able to just simply step aside and let it just Be, can be a very difficult process. But it's not a process of trying to achieve something. The achievement is to completely not try, and just allow it. It's like reaching out and opening the spigot and letting the water flow out. You didn't produce the water. You simply released it.

So to answer, a practice can help expose to what it is that is your goal. But to experience God, or Reality, is accessible at any time. And experiences that at one time seemed an "altered state", turn out to be what actually is normal. Whereas being so-called normal, what we are in the illusion of the mind as reality, is what is in fact "altered consciousness". But until that is realized, we just live in our heads as home and wonder what life is like beyond our little mental-bubble universes, assuming this is normal.
 
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Quintessence

Consults with Trees
Staff member
Premium Member
Responses to this will necessarily depend on one's particular type of theism, alongside any particular religious tradition or theology they may couple with that. But you've touched upon an idea that cuts across those differences, and that's the question of whether or not experiences of the gods are impacted by one's state of consciousness.

I'd argue our experiences of anything, whether we label the subjects as gods are not, are impacted by our state of consciousness. By "consciousness" I mean one's state of awareness or what we are paying attention to and noticing. It's likely all of us have experienced these different states, but we don't have the cultural vocabulary to articulate these different states very well. Our vocabulary for experiences of the gods is particularly lackluster, perhaps in part because the prevailing norm in Western culture is that only "special" people can experience the gods or that laity are not supposed to seek or have such experiences at all. It's not part of our everyday conversations, at any rate.

Some take it a step further and are adamant that you have to have some sort of special state of consciousness to experience the gods at all. Not only do only certain special people experience the gods, but you have to do certain special rituals to have anything happen at all. It adds another layer of obstacles. Obstacles that are, in my experience, not actually there. While it's true that if you want to reliably have quality ritualistic experiences, taking time to get in a proper frame of mind is important, it isn't necessary. Focusing on the task at hand is important, but I'm not sure I would frame that as an "altered state of consciousness." That phrase evokes sentiments of drug-induced states or meditation, neither of which are necessary to experience the gods. Just paying attention is often sufficient.

Maybe for some folks the paying attention is really hard... so hard that some might need ritual trappings in order to notice the gods. In that sense, maybe it is to some extent a personal thing? A combination of personal aptitudes and theological barriers causing such high limitations that they need an extra catalyst to overcome? I could see it. I'm glad I don't have such limitations.
 

stvdv

Veteran Member: I Share (not Debate) my POV
19 jun 2018 stvdv 012 00
I've come across people here on the forum and elsewhere and have read accounts in which people say that they have heard God, seen God, or experienced God in some other way.
Can God be seen, heard, or experienced in normal waking consciousness? Or must one be in an altered state consciousness in order to have such an experience?
If you answer the latter, can you describe how this altered state is attained?

It's all about Grace and Love and humility is my experience. Letting go of attachment to Ego/world
@Windwalker: It is called mysticism It's beyond this world. So that's why they are so secretive, do not share these mystical experiences. Easy to understand. It's the Love-story between you and God. You don't blab around intimacy you had with your girlfriend/wife. Same and much more so with God-Love. Also it's personal for you, meaning you can handle and appreciate it. Others would lock me up in a mental institution if I told them all I experienced. Just too much to believe. Never ever share on social media [very few can value pearls you share]. Glad I discovered: Know what to share and what not. If I would share, I would maybe tell a story "I met a friend once, he told me this amazing story.......". And 95% of the people you tell it you will find that they don't connect to your story, no real interest, they just continue the conversation with "what a story wow .... I want an ice cream, you too....?"

When I returned from Sai Baba, people asked me "do you meditate". No I said, I am just in Bliss. And when it's gone, I just go back to Sai Baba. So it is a gift you receive in my experience. A real master can grant you. Of course "you have the master within". Only to contact is not so easy [so in the beginning I just went to Sai Baba]. But scriptures describe ways to get there. In the beginning I was a bit lazy, just go to see Sai Baba was easy. Now I am little less lazy, so I don't go to see Sai Baba in India anymore.

Of course there are certain herbs that help you get there. But they are more karmic [meaning you have to follow strict rules; once I didn't follow the strict diet prescribed and had to vomit (relatively mild karma)].

Sacrifice is the key. So the trick that 100% works is stop eating/drinking . Within a reasonable short time you meet God. But can be a 1-time experience of course. Unless it's not your time. So better try other options first.
[but moderate fasting also can reveal God; see all the christian Saints, some could talk with the animals etc.etc. The more we get detached the easier the contact happens]

Using common sense it's very simple (not easy though):
If you are a man and you see a beautiful girl, and you want her. You can fantasize, dream, talk about her etc.etc. All this won't get you any closer. Get her name and call her is the way. Once you established contact, she likes to hear you talk, but don't overdo it. After some time "be silent", and let her talk. And listen. Get married, and she is yours forever [if you keep the conversation going].

That is pretty much the recipe to contact God. If you need a name, pick anyone you like. If you need a form, any form you like. Name can also be "So Hum". Form is "the breath". That is the Buddhist way. But any way will work, I tried so many. It's all about how desperate you need "the divine mother". NEED is the magic key.

The altered state is not the problem. There is just one problem. Attachment to everything except "altered state". When you know this trick, you know what to do [or rather what to stop doing]. You can't have it both ways. That is what is said "God is a jealous God". Meaning if you choose sex and drugs and rock and roll, he will let you roll on for years, until you get fed up with it. He will not judge you. He welcomes us whenever we are ready for it.

* In the above the word "God" is just a word to describe the undescribable. For me no need to know about the word. Just follow the prescription to get "the girl". That is all I need. It's a no-brainer actually.
 
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George-ananda

Advaita Vedanta, Theosophy, Spiritualism
Premium Member
I've come across people here on the forum and elsewhere and have read accounts in which people say that they have heard God, seen God, or experienced God in some other way.
I think these things are often real and they are experiencing finite contact with spirits guides, gods their higher self, etc.

Your post seemed to view things in more of a GOD all or nothing way. People might just use the term ‘God’ for real things beyond their mundane language, understanding and experience.
 

Frater Sisyphus

Contradiction, irrationality and disorder
Can God be seen, heard, or experienced in normal waking consciousness? Or must one be in an altered state consciousness in order to have such an experience?

Both, either one and none.

God is in everything but God is also beyond everything; this means that while we live in the microcosm of God, we live in the subjectivity of our own experience thinking of it isolated due to it's subjectivity but not in constant realization of the connectedness of everything (Chaos, Brahman, Para-Brahman, Syncronicity too).

Altered states (particularly hallucinogens) connect our mind to something beyond the material mind, a consciousnesses-expanding experience which very well appears to connect to the other.

Samadhi, Kundalini, Yoga, ritual and meditation are some of several practices that are non-drug induced which also contain elements which alter the minds consciousness and can connect us with the divine.

I think one of the problems in society is the distinctions between the "Religious/Spiritual" and the "Psychedelic", as they both tap into similar areas but from different philosophical and cultural perspectives.

I believe death is the only way one can ever experience God in it's totality, as death is union with God and the universe. So to clarify, as sentient beings in this life we can only experience small aspects of God (however profound they obviously are).
 

Windwalker

Veteran Member
Premium Member
The second is to perceive all things as in some vital way just one thing. When we see the tree, we and the tree seem in some way to be one. This latter state of perception or awareness (often called a "higher consciousness") is the state in which god is experienced. For various reasons, I think that state is absolutely necessary -- even intrinsic -- to experiencing god.
A metaphor I'm fond of is that of a veil. A veil is not a wall, but a simple non-wall that is pulled back to reveal what was obscured by its presence in front of our faces. In the myth in one of the Gospels, it imagines that after the Christ died, the veil in the temple ripped apart from top to bottom with some "unseen hand". What that veil represents is separation between the Presence of God and mankind. With it gone, there is no more separation. God is experienced in the world directly. To me, at least at some level, they were experiencing a state of oneness, and the "veil of the flesh" or that of the separate mind, is dissolved. The metaphor expresses passing beyond our worlds of separateness into that state of Divine Oneness.

However, I do not know whether people who hear god or see god enter into that awareness. I've not paid much attention to that subject. Perhaps someone else would be better informed?
I'm no expert on this either, but my personal exposure to those who say, "God told me I'm supposed to ______", it is typically not a "Oneness" experience, but rather a nugging of their own subconscious minds they attribute to God. And in a sense, that's not necessarily not their higher awareness speaking to them through these symbolic means, but I've never felt them communicating that they encountered the Presence, which is typical for actual mystical states. There is no profound "I am nothing" sense you are left with in what they are sharing.

With their claims of having God "talk to them", it never seems to convey that. It's usually much more "ooooh. That was spooky", or something akin to a "mysterious encounter" of sorts. The Presence of God, or whatever you wish to call that, typically leaves you a very different person. There is no "think" you may have felt God. You either did, or you did not. It melts you like wax, and when you look at yourself all mushed out all over the place, there is no need to question.

So far as I know, there are simply no wholly guaranteed paths to experiencing god.
I hear death is a guaranteed path. :)

The best guides or teachers will not do it. Right or proper beliefs will not do it. No meditative techniques can assure you of such an experience. Neither can taking any drug that I've heard of. Some mystics will even tell you, "There are no paths to god."
In the sense of asking where is the door, when there is no door, this is true. Many paths will take you to that realization though. At the end, you just simply quit trying. You seek not seek, and find what was already there the whole time. There is no path to what is already there. You just see the veil, and pull it aside. You open your eyes and say, "Oh, here I am!," as you recognize your Self.
 
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Jumi

Well-Known Member
I've come across people here on the forum and elsewhere and have read accounts in which people say that they have heard God, seen God, or experienced God in some other way.
There's a difference between mystical experience of God and something else that comes from psychedelics or things like that.

Can God be seen, heard, or experienced in normal waking consciousness? Or must one be in an altered state consciousness in order to have such an experience?
Depends on how you define altered states. For myself the real mystical experience(s), just ordinary everyday state of mind, you're just sitting there or walking and boom it happens. There is no trick to try, no mountain to climb, no ultramarathon running, no hours of meditating in front of candles, no drugs, no weird sexual postures... you can get something interesting with those but it's not the same.
 

Jumi

Well-Known Member
I'm no expert on this either, but my personal exposure to those who say, "God told me I'm supposed to ______", it is typically not a "Oneness" experience, but rather a nugging of their own subconscious minds they attribute to God. And in a sense, that's not necessarily not their higher awareness speaking to them through these symbolic means, but I've never felt them communicating that they encountered the Presence, which is typical for actual mystical states. There is no profound "I am nothing" sense you are left with in what they are sharing.

With their claims of having God "talk to them", it never seems to convey that. It's usually much more "ooooh. That was spooky", or something akin to a "mysterious encounter" of sorts. The Presence of God, or whatever you wish to call that, typically leaves you a very different person. There is no "think" you may have felt God. You either did, or you did not. It melts you like wax, and when you look at yourself all mushed out all over the place, there is no need to question.
This is a wonderful and accurate description of the two and their differences, that "outsiders" might miss.
 

loverofhumanity

We are all the leaves of one tree
Premium Member
I've come across people here on the forum and elsewhere and have read accounts in which people say that they have heard God, seen God, or experienced God in some other way.

Can God be seen, heard, or experienced in normal waking consciousness? Or must one be in an altered state consciousness in order to have such an experience?

If you answer the latter, can you describe how this altered state is attained?

I’ve been a religious person for 40 years but I can’t say I’ve ever experienced God because for all I know it could have been my own mind or imagination. I believe there is a God that hears and answers prayers but I’ve never known if He listens to mine or has much to do with me at all.

I believe He communicates directly with His Representatives the Prophets such as Jesus, Moses, Krishna, Baha’u’llah and others and that They experience God directly but as for me I don’t know.

There is really no way of knowing God’s Presence or His absence so anyone that says they met God or experienced God can never prove it was God.

Will we ever meet God? It says in the Baha’i Writings that one day we will meet God in the world of eternity but not here.

This is what we understand about experiencing God in Bahaullah’s Words.

He is and hath ever been veiled in the ancient eternity of His Essence, and will remain in His Reality everlastingly hidden from the sight of men. “No vision taketh in Him, but He taketh in all vision; He is the Subtile, the All-Perceiving.

No tie of direct intercourse can possibly bind Him to His creatures. He standeth exalted beyond and above all separation and union, all proximity and remoteness.

No sign can indicate His presence or His absence..

Baha’u’llah
 
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