I do not believe Truth from God comes through an inner voice but rather Only through God’s Messengers, but you already know that.
Which of course is something I still find fascinating that people believe, but I do understand its importance to keep the flock together from chasing off any old "prophet". Those who are spiritually vulnerable need to be told to not listen to anyone but the authorities in their religion. It makes sense at that level.
But not beyond that. Not to those who aren't spiritually vulnerable and who can discern the "Master's Voice" and not some fraud. So I see it's value for many, but beyond that it doesn't ring true. Very much the contrary, actually.
I do not believe anyone's beliefs make anything a reality. Reality is whatever it is.
That's actually not true. What we believe the world is, becomes the world we imagine it to be. You are right that Reality is whatever it is, but aside from the rare mystic who has moved beyond the veil of the illusion of the mind who sees Reality as it is, everyone else on the planet lives inside a constructed worlds inside our heads. We are touching Reality, but we see it as something else. We see it, and experience it, as a projection of our own imaginations, individually and collectively.
It is literally like we are dreaming we are seeing reality, but then we wake up and realize it was just an illusion. We were seeing the tree, but it wasn't the tree itself, but our projection of what we imagine a tree is. There was an object there we called a tree, but what that tree is, was not what we saw. We saw a tree. We didn't see TREE. We did not see the Divine. We saw our minds projected on the Divine.
With all due respect, I do not believe that people imagine they are separated from God.
I can tell you from experience, yes they do. Anyone who has ever had any sort of Awakening experience, the one thing they all say is things to the effect of, "It was never anywhere else but right here the whole time". "I have never been separate from God, even though I never saw Him there the whole time," etc.
Speaking from my own experiences, yes, "It only appears God isn't there because we take our eyes away into the worlds inside our heads". The second you step out of that illusion, you see it was never anywhere but fully here. It could be nowhere else. It was only you who step away in your own mind. It wasn't God. It was you. It always was just you. I always is just you.
They are separated from God unless they are connected to God. One cannot be connected to God unless one has knowledge of God.
Everyone has that Knowledge of God already. They just don't see what they already have and are. Because they live in a world of their own imaginations of what Reality is. The God they see is a God of their imaginations. Not God.
Being connected to God is a fact of existence. That we are aware or not of that is the only question.
One cannot obtain knowledge of God except through the Messenger of God. There is no inner source of knowledge one can tap into because God is not living inside of anyone.
Both statements are false.
That is not to say that atheists are unworthy, unlovable, or unloved by God, but that Love is not available to them until they make the connection to God, like plugging in a lamp.
Using your analogy, it's not a matter of plugging the lamp in. The lamp is already plugged in because you are alive. The light bulb doesn't go on however, if you don't pull down on the switch cord. The electricity was there the whole time, you just didn't open up the floodgates and let it flow. You blocked it. We all block it. It's not God holding anything back. It's us.
5: O SON OF BEING! Love Me, that I may love thee. If thou lovestMe not, My love can in no wise reach thee. Know this, O servant. The Hidden Words of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 4
We can live a godly life, but no human can live
as God would live. God is exalted and sanctified from the whole creation. God is single and alone.
God is everything that is. God cannot be "alone".
But yes, God is singular. There is and can be nothing outside God. Including you.
One can be connected to God in heart through prayer and meditation, but one cannot be united with God. God is not accessible directly to humans.
So, God is not infinite? Do you believe God is a finite creature? You must to imagine you can be outside God, and God outside you. Only finite creatures have an "outside" them.
As I said, it's our imagination that separates us - that creates the reality of the experience you think is reality, that you are separate from God. I don't imagine that myself, and I see God everywhere, including myself. There is no separation possible. We only imagine it is so.
The One True God is exalted beyond anything that can ever be recounted or perceived by anyone. Becoming a Partner with God would be to rival His glory and bring God down to a human level.
No one claiming Oneness with God is saying their human ego rivals God. They are saying their human ego is an illusion of the mind. They are not separate from God, nor God from them. Think of it like this. We are God as who I am as a person. We all are. But in order to see that, to Realize that, you have to see that the ego is nothing. So there can be no "partner with God". Absolutely correct. You aren't the ego-self anymore. You do not remain anymore as this separate ego-self. You don't exist. Only God does.
You can believe that if you wish. I believe that only the Messengers of God have direct access to God’s Truth.
That's too bad. It's wonderful to just hear and see God speaking everywhere all the time, rather than isolated on the pages of some book you have to sit down and read words on. It's glorious to see it written on every cloud, every face, every animal, every plant, everything thing that exists in every second of all ages.
If we get that Truth from them we can reflect it and speak that Truth; we are in effect“manifestation” of God because we reflect God’s Light that we receive through the Messenger.
God doesn't reflect off objects. God radiates from within them. If we pull down on the chain on the lamp switch and not block the electricity because of the stubbornness of our egos.
I have no resentment whatsoever. As I tell many of my atheist friends, I have absolutely no interest, in ever seeing God or hearing from God directly. I know I can never gain near access to God because God has barred access to His holy court.
And all of these, are ideas of your mind that you choose to place before you to separate yourself from the Knowledge of God. We all do that, until we no longer chose to do that anymore.
