Sure I am all for further discussion of this important topic.
Great. I am seeing that much of the challenge is simply a different language set to describe the same things.
The first thing for me to say is that God exists in our living reality, but the enlightenment comes from being unattached to even that God and regard it as manifestation of Brahman which is Nirguna and so only satchitananda (Truth/Existence/Reality-Consciousness/Awareness-Bliss).
The first order of business is to clarify the use of the term God. I know it is a loaded term laden with connotations. But furthermore, and most importantly, any language whatsoever to try to talk about Ultimate Reality is bound to fail. Words put a boundary around experience and separates it out from the Infinite, into a dualistic perception of reality. It takes the Infinite and makes it a finite object.
The best that any language can do at that level, where language breaks apart into paradoxes, is to see the words more on the level of grunts and pointings, in feeble attempts to describe the indescribable. They are at best metaphors. It's not the definitions of words, but the context, the intent, and the sense of what is being pointed to in these words that conveys the meaning, and hopefully connect each other in shared experience, or at least inspire what is within someone, what they intuit from within towards the realization of that inner Truth.
As far as God goes, I personally do not use it to mean a particular deity form. I do not use it in the sense of an anthropomorphic deity, an entity, a person, or some other dualistic view. When I say God, it is also not "other" to these forms. If it were, that would be dualistic too. I use it in the sense of Godhead, in that both the manifest and unmanifest are all God. To say for instance "The world is illusion. Brahman alone is real." and stop there, is itself a dualistic statement. It says one is real the other is not. That is separation. That is what Monisim does. It is subtle dualism.
What doesn't do that is to complete that thought and end that in a necessary paradox. "Bhraman is the world". The world is illusion, and the world is real, is a paradox. So "God" is not "a god", but God is also not "not a god". Everything that is divided is divided by the mind thinking and conceiving in terms of language, words. True nonduality transcends language. And to me "God", is of its nature of pointing to Ultimate Reality, is inherently paradoxical. That is also conveyed in the Buddhist saying from the Heart Sutra, "Form is emptiness; emptiness is form. Form is not different than emptiness; emptiness is not different than form" The dualistic mind cannot hold these apparent opposites, yet it is Truth. Nonduality is paradoxical. It is both One and Many. This can be apprehended by ones being, but not comprehended by the mind.
So, I do very much agree that attachment to concepts, such as one that sees God as a "form", an "entity" or some other object outside of one's self, has to be let go of in order to transcend dualistic thinking. You can find this realization in the paradoxical statement of the Christian Mystic Meister Eckhart when he said, "I pray God make me free of God, that I may know God in his unconditioned being". The last thing it seems for most, is to abandon all their religious ideas in order to truly realize God.
Bliss is not the same as joy with a capital J or even happiness.
That really depends how deeply one wants to limit what the word entails. While I do hear bliss as complete, uninterrupted stillness, Joy is the highest expression of that state of Bliss, which to mean is that really imperceptible line between God's being, and Creation. Nirguna Brahman is not truly "different" or "other to" Saguna Brahman. The light from the sun can be spoken of as different than nuclear fusion, but the sun without both is not the sun.
That Joy is what manifests from God's being. It is not other to God. It is "God manifesting".
Is God that is manifested by Brahman in terms of Saguna God to be called 'Divine' and whether this Divine is Love', that is your question.
I see it as different realization of the same Reality. There are "depths of the Divine", which includes the formless unmanifest and the manifest. Everything is the Divine Reality, which is both Nirguna and Saguna.
In vyvaharika (living reality) anything like that is duality and is possible depending on the witness and observer and the stage of mental development towards becoming an advaitin.
To exclude duality from Reality, is itself a duality. It is says "this, and not that" is real. It divides God. It divides Reality. While this is truth spoken to the dualistic mind, to see beyond duality, once one has Realized Truth, or Reality, to then say, all that is not real, is an illusion, is itself a form of subtle dualism. Naraguna pointed this out. Nonduality cannot exclude and deny duality and be truly nondual. What the denial of duality is then is not nonduality, but monsim, which is another dualistic division of the world say "One and not two". Reality is neither one nor two, and both one and two. It cannot be defined in terms of divisions, or non-divisions. It' both and neither. Impossible for words.
To me the term Divine simply denotes something that out of this material world, and it is not Love in the sense that God is doing things for me out of great Love and Compassion for me.
And that is an image of God that is not operational for me. God doesn't "do things". God IS. Perhaps a better descriptor for me is God is "Is'ing". Being and becoming. Manifesting. Creating. I do not see God as "other" to me, where this entity or being outside myself "does things", as if it is an independent agent. That is too much of an anthropomorphic, dualistic perception of the Divine Reality to adequate work for me. "Creator" is valid, but in the sense of continuous unfolding. And I am both part of that, and That itself.
This is because in the absolute truth existence is beyond such dualities and Brahman dispassionately carries out its task of preserving the universe without so much as a flicker of love or compassion for anyone.
Like was pointed out, I think we may be finding we're not saying things opposite each other here. Yes, Absolute Truth is beyond duality, but I'm adding it does not exclude them either. It transcends and includes. Now as far as dispassionateness, yes in a sense that is is beyond human emotional desires and attachments, but again I do not understand this as being indifferent. I make a valid point on the difference between detachment and non-attachment. Absolute Truth is not devoid of Absolute Love. They are the same. Truth is Love. Love is Truth.
You know, I'm having the funny thought that this paradoxical problem is much the same here as one finds in how Christians take the Trinity formulation to speak of the Divine Reality, as "persons". Three but one. One but three. It's the taking of dualistic concepts and trying to define the undefinable. These are metaphors, not descriptors.
And since I am Brahman I acquire the same attributes of equanimity and dispassionate motivation in order to conduct my dharma,
And that equanimity and dispassionate motivation is the result of apprehending that Divine Reality, or Love. That Love is not a feeling. It is a state of Being that holds all that is, with Utter, and Pure Compassion, Awareness, and non-judgement. It is the Condition upon which all conditions arise.
