QuakerInfo.com Forum

[Kiahanie]

I reach that place of awareness by passing through Quiet, setting aside conscious thought, stilling random mental processes, ceasing trying to shape the formless. In that deep Quiet, connection is more easily felt and the Light that comes with that connectedness begins to illuminate that interior space. It's kind of like a lantern and compass combined. Shielded from the shadow and pull of my own ego and transient concerns, I can see with a different perspective, a landscape centered on that essential Connection with all others.

Sometimes in that centered oriented Quiet I feel a harmony, that things are in the right place, and that I have direction in how I should be when I return to the world and the clamor of my own being. Sometimes the Quiet disappears into discord, revealing what is present that needs to be left out, or what is absent that needs to be added, the notes that need to be changed, that its time to move into another key. In all cases the Light is in that network of human being, revealing where I'm throwing shadows, where my path(s) may lie, often revealing the harmonics of my footsteps as I make my way along that path.

Sometimes that sense of harmony extends beyond people, toward the living planet and all life on it. But I don't hear voices. I am led by that sense of shadow and light, harmony and discord resonating to that fundamental tone of That Which Resides In Us All.

That's when it all Works. Sometimes it doesn't Work. But I wait expectantly.
_________________
"There is a field out beyond right and wrong. I'll meet you there." --Jellaludin Rumi

[Hope]

Wow, Friend Kiahanie, you describe your experience beautifully! Thank you!
_________________
Light & Love
Hope
xx

[Anthony]

[Hope]

[Anthony]

[Anthony]

[Hope]

[Kiahanie]

Thank you for your two long posts there, Anthony. They both spoke to me, and spoke of some essential aspects of life in the Spirit.

I don't share your Christian outlook either, and the words and symbols themselves are often meaningless to me, so I try to look behind the words and symbols to the Experience being described, and to express to myself in my own way about that which we may share in common. I really wouldn't expect most Christians to find my expressions meaningful to them, either. But as you point out, we are all speaking fo the same Divinity, so we can begin to understand that which is foreign to us by working outward from the center we share.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
_________________
"There is a field out beyond right and wrong. I'll meet you there." --Jellaludin Rumi

[Anthony]

Thank you Kiahanie and Hope, your words help me realise that I may not be completely off track.

[Hope]

[CelticNorth]

From the "Portable Atheist", the following: "The Atheist generally says that the existence of a Diety cannot be "dis"proved; it can only be found to be entirely lacking in evidence, or proof. The Theist can opt to be a mere Deist, and say that the magnificance of the natural order strongly implies and ordering force. But the religious person must go futher and and say that this creative force is also an intervening one; one that cares for our human affairs and is interested in what we eat and with whom we have sexual relations, as well as the outcomes of battles and wars. To assert this is quite simply to assert more than any human can possiby claim to know, and thus it fails, and should be discarded, and should have been discarded long ago". Liberal Quaker Rufus Jones once remarked, " I assume that the major business we are here for in this world is to be a rightly fashioned person as a organ of devine purpose". What untility and purpose has mankind is really the question, and if it the answer is to improve the human condition, that alone would justify many a Quaker.

[Bazza]

I'm going to try not to get into the discussion of whether there is or isn't a personal god. I am convinced that our perception of god is very much influenced by the environment we live in. When listening to religious discussion I try to avoid attending to the "facts" being presented. Instead I attempt to understand the (religious) experience that underlies the speaker's/writers statements. I am still surprised how much commonality there is between apparently widely divergent points of view.

As a small child, I accepted the reality of god just as I did father christmas, the tooth fairy, the easter bunny, Walt Disney characters, and stories from Greek, Roman, Norse and Maori mythology. I was an avid reader and enjoyed reading children's bible stories just as much as any other book. These books often portrayed god as a wise benevolent man dressed in long white robes walking on clouds or seated on a throne, surrounded by angels in a utopian heave. So it's hardly surprising that that is how I perceived him.

At primary school we had an hour each week given over to religious studies. I reality it was no more protestant indoctrination by religious zealots (but that's another story). On one occasion we were told a story about an atheist husband accompanying his Christian wife to church. After service, the couple got into a conversation with the minister where the husband professed his disbelief in god. The minister asked if there was any way he could prove the existence of god. The husband replied "sure, if he could strike me down in this spot". At that moment he fell down dead. The story was supposed to illustrate the all-powerful nature of god - god can do anything he chooses. It was then that I got what can only be described as a revelation.

I was shocked by the story and can remember thinking "you would NEVER do that, would you god?" Immediately I had a vision. I could hear a "heavenly chorus" and I saw god looking very much like the illustration in the bible stories. He was surrounded by a bright whiteness. I anticipated hearing a loud booming voice proclaiming a great wisdom, but instead all heard was a gentle voice asking "what do you believe?" The whole episode probably lasted no more than five seconds, but it has had a profound effect on me ever since. I was 7 or 8 at the time and I can remember trying to describe the experience at the next Sunday school. I was firmly told that god might have talked to people in the bible like that, but doesn't to it now. No one can see the face of god. What's more, the fate of the husband was quite reasonable under the circumstances. What I described was either a lie or the work of the devil.

That vision/insight/experience was certainly personal - no one else saw it. So yes, god can be personal. My perception of what god is now is radically different. I don't believe god is a being or a spirit. In fact I find it easier to describe what god is not, which is no help in describing what god is. What I am prepared to say is that god is beyond my ability to comprehend.

What I experienced in that classroom 55 years ago is just a vivid today as it was then. I no longer believe that God literally spoke to me. It may have just been a flash of insight. Perhaps a firing of a few million neurons. What ever it was I am grateful it happened.

Interestingly, I described the experience to my brother a few years ago. He looked at me for a few seconds and then exclaimed "Ah! a road to Damascus experience!" He understood completely. And he's a committed atheist!

To the question "is god personal?" I would say that experience of god is personal.

[Patrocles]

Hello Hope,

Philosophicaly, I'm not a "theist" at all, and I'm not even a pantheist. A non-personal "the eternal" doesn't mean anything to me. But ...

1. I've used meetings in the way that I "presented" my dark feelings (things that were done to me and things I'd done) to someone and "gave them away" to him (to whom?). Someone who wasn't one of the members of the meeting but who was seemingly present.

2. Quietness of heart is important to me, and quietness of heart means often that I say to myself: "What you've chosen for me (who?), I am happy to chose as well" and "Nothing what outwardly happens to me can separate me from you" (whom?) and "I'm going to the places you have prepared for me" and "We all are destined (by whom?) to live a happy life together in our afterlife - so why make those unnecessary digressions from the happy community we are designed for".

3. I even have the feeling that I've nothing to forgive to my neighbour - and that my Christian neighbour has nothing to forgive to me -, because all retributions have already been paid before (by someone's vicarious suffering? So I'd better suppose that Jesus was a kind of god, don't you think?)

I never felt that a personal god answered to me or fulfilled a prayer (but then, I'm not used to pray for things).

[FarthestManFromHome]

Hello Hope,

I've very much enjoyed seeing some of the personal stories being shared in this thread, and I certainly hope that in sharing mine, it's clear that this is just the way I see things, and I don't consider it any better or worse than how anyone else sees things. It's been shaped by my particular experiences and personality.

I should mention that I work as a scientist, so my outlook might be... a little more calculating than is common? Anyway, my experience with God has been much like my experience with the afterlife - I haven't had any, but that doesn't mean it's not there, that doesn't mean other people haven't had any such experiences, and with so many things wrong in the world, I'm not sure that it's something I want to spend a lot of time thinking about. Whether or not there is a God, either in the sense of a single being or a vast cosmic intelligence, doesn't change that I should love my neighbor, that I should live simply, etc.

At any rate, I have always suspected that regardless of whether or not there is a God who speaks to others, there is not a God that speaks to me. The closest I have come is in silent worship, when thoughts or understandings suddenly pop into my head - it suddenly occurs to me that one course of action is right, or that I am treating someone wrong, etc. But that could be many other things. I have also seen things of such beauty in life that I wonder if God has led me to them... but at the same time, I have also seen terrible things. It does sometimes make me... sad? (that's not the right word) to believe in my heart that I will never be spoken to, but I feel that if I busy myself with earthly things while on earth, God will understand that it is not out of malice.

On the other hand, maybe God works in my life every day, and it's just so subtle that it's not easily recognized. But I suppose my feeling is that I would bring little value to the world if I spent great energy trying to recognize such things.

I want to be very clear, though, that I don't consider myself an Atheist - I believe that there is a God, if for no reason other than the existence of self-awareness, but I do believe that I his hand has not been present in my life and that spending a great deal of time trying to understand God's existence does not make best use of the time of someone as analytical and theologically inept as myself.
_________________
"...But after we have made the just Reckonings which Retirement will help us to, we shall begin to think the World in great measure Mad, and that we have been in a sort of Bedlam all this while."

[Anthony]