I’ve recently gotten to know God. This particular story is interesting because my previous outlook on life was that of Objectivism—a mainly atheist movement believing that man should logically look at all ideas that he runs into, analyze them, and then subsequently make a judgment upon them in all aspects to their validity. This is a wonderful idea in theory, but in reality, man runs into but two things: his Ego and extravagant propaganda.

The problem is that the ego knows not its limits. It is 100% infallible. It consumed me and led me to its end: egotistical misery. It knows not compassion, and it knows not that sometimes we just DON’T know and we’re not seeing the whole picture and that each person is only a product of all his or her experience and decisions. How can we pass judgment upon that which we do not understand? We will scream and yell at the car in front of us only to later pass it and realize that the driver is a sweet looking old man in his 90’s. Immediately we take back our insults and only wish to help him. Where does the ego exist in this structure? “He’s old! He should get off the road!” “I don’t care if you have to go to the grocery store and your children won’t take you…. You should have raised them better!” Is this humanistic thinking?

Hardly, and it’s time that we move past all this nonsense.

A while back, I decided to take the proverbial red pill and began researching everything I ran across. No matter how harebrained the idea I decided to at least give it an honest look. I’ve met plenty of craziness and I’ve also found a lot of truth in things that I never would have thought.  I've only gone further down the rabbit hole in the last 5 years and it seems to only continue.

One of the first things I started out with was hypnosis and the ways that the mind works. Upon realizing that hypnosis is a powerful tool that we can utilize with a little practice and know how, I delved into self-hypnosis tapes. Running hand and hand with hypnosis is meditation, with only a slight difference—with meditation you’re the guide, and with hypnosis someone else is the guide and you’re the subject. Basically what happens is that when you relax your body and focus your mind in one direction is that you enter an altered state of consciousness. Your brain starts to emit Theta waves instead of the wide awake Beta waves, the slightly relaxed alpha waves, and the much lower delta waves which would be REM sleep. Naturally, you can't go to Delta without going through Alpha and Theta at least momentarily, so Theta would be that place where we have all our dreams and vivid visions of scenes and what have you. The mind is multi-layered just as you have what people commonly refer to as the conscious and sub conscious, and then what some call the super-subconscious. I believe it's a little bit more complex than that, by I don't know the specifics yet.

 

So as we relax from Beta down to Theta in either meditation or hypnosis are body goes asleep yet with training we can keep our mind awake. With hypnosis it's easy because someone is guiding your thoughts and you can kind of just "sit back", but with meditation it's harder. We have a sort of cheating way today to reach Theta very quickly that the ancient Buddhists never had, and that's called Binaural Beats. Basically by listening to tones in headphones that are slightly offset and coordinated they force your brain down to Theta with minimal effort on your part. These tones are easily places in the background of any relaxing music or guided meditation, and are the latest "thing" with self-hypnosis tapes.

 

As it turns out, meditation is like "listening to God". It's like clearing your mind of all your worries and fears and just listening. You can ask yourself questions while doing this and intuitively, the correct answers come to your mind. Of course you can't educate yourself about quantum physics in this regard, but if you study the prerequisite things for a concept and ask yourself in meditation "how does this all work?" the light bulb will go off almost immediately.

 

The Eastern Buddhists and Hindus  have something call "awakening the Kundalini"; the Western Occultists have something called Alchemy, meaning the changing of one substance to that of another through a process and then through consciousness, and the true Occultists believe that this is something that man must do with his mind; and also, the Sufi Arabs take a much more naturalistic interpretation of the Koran and the definition of Jihad is not so much a war against the non-believer, but more of a struggle that one must continually work at within their mind. Achieving perfection. Striving to be more like God, because God is perfect and infallible. So here we have three different paths, and many paths within the three, but all three describing the process of ascension.

 

So here I was, doing all this self hypnosis and doing these guided meditations on my Chakras and reading all this mystical material just trying to determine what was what within my reality and all kinds of other crazy concepts that are out there. I arrive at the acceptance that a few basic ideas are real. Telepathy is very real. It's right in front of our eyes and we don't even know it. Do you know anyone that hasn't had one of those experiences where someone from way back in their past calls them out of the blue and they're like "wow, that's so strange... I was just thinking about you the other day." It works  like every skill we have or just the same as  a muscle. You have to develop it and use it or else it will atrophy and perish.

 

The Law of Attraction is very real. Anything we want in this world will come to us if we maintain positive thoughts and work in this direction. There are a couple smaller rules to this, but it is all best explained by "The Secret"-- a movie and book that went huge a couple years ago.

 

The Law of Oneness shows how we are all linked together and so feats like telepathy are possible. There is some universal element in each and every one of us that our senses do not perceive, but yet it is still there. We are all interconnected in a particular way.

 

Karma and reincarnation exist. I know this is very hard to prove objectively, but the overall structure fits in exactly with the plan of the universe. The progression of a soul takes many reincarnations before it finally learns all the lessons that it needs to learn here on earth before it progresses. When you do bad things, you will have to repay your debt. Steal a dollar? Somewhere down the line someone might steal a dollar from you, or something comparative. I think the system works on emotional suffering as a scale of severity. In this way, all debts are repaid whether in this lifetime or not. The system is perfect and exacting, just as God is. In some ways like this, the universe tests us to see if we’ve learned our lesson. A young boy can steal something from one of us that is trivial but perhaps of material value. Or maybe insurance will repay us and equal out the debt. Are you going to strike vengeance upon this young boy knowing good and well that we all have done things that we shouldn’t have done when we were young? Or perhaps you did learn your lesson and you’ll open up your loving heart to this boy, EVEN THOUGH you know it was he; and you also very well understand that the more love you give him when you encounter him the more he will regret his actions of the past. In this way, he will learn his lesson in that your potential best friend might be right next door to you and you don’t even know it. Understanding opens the doors to forgiveness and compassion. The moment we understand, the door is opened, and life will teach you this lesson no matter how much you resist it.

 

 

As above, so below. The Occultists hold this as a universal law and it's a little tricky to understand. I'll draw a couple analogies here. The clearest being the planets in comparison to the atom. A central dense mass has smaller bodies orbiting around it in both of them. If we look smaller into the atom we see various subatomic structures doing the same thing, and if we look larger into the anatomy of the galaxy, we also see the same thing. Well the same thing holds true in the scale of evolution. From rocks, to crystals, to plants, to animals, to humans, to christed beings, to ascended masters, all the way to god. The meaning of this hit home to me one day when I was pruning the tree in the back yard. After snipping off all the branches that were growing every which way and that I looked at the tree and it clicked! Just as I pruned these odd branches off and taught the tree how grow into something beautiful and "more perfect", just the same how our spiritual guides prune us and teach us to grow more perfect and in the ways of God. The beings of higher consciousness guide the beings of lower consciousness whether from man to plant or from angel to man. In this way, tied in with the law of oneness we must realize and one thing is no better than the other. Not a one of us is better than a plant or animal, nor is any one of us better than our fellow man. We are one with existence and within existence there is love.

 

Through all of this searching and researching it was a happy day for me when after using the word “The Universe” for about 6 months to describe laws and concepts I decided to replace it with the word I truly meant-- God. And I didn't need church or dogmatic beliefs to find him. I didn't need sacrifice and eternal faith in something that was not defined to me. Most of all, I didn't need organized structured worship to TELL me what I needed to do in order to worship God. I don't think I've ever WORSHIPED anything in my life and I'm sure not about to start. Rather, I'll "maintain my beliefs" and stand by them. I would WORSHIP if I was scared of going to some place of eternal damnation, but I'm not, and never will be; therefore I think I'll stick with my own rational interpretation of things, just as everyone in this world should do.

 

All my life I've known hypocrisy when I see it. Subconsciously, I already had the nature of reality defined to myself and all I needed to do was listen. All I needed to do was relax, trust my intuition, and try to do what's right. And look. Look inside myself. If we are honest with ourselves we can find the teachings of Christ in our feelings and trusting our conscience. It IS there. Deep down, you KNOW it's true, and you can feel it! Listen to those feelings and you will see the manifestation before your eyes!

GOD is all that I find that I have.Everytime I try to reach out to find love in a human being I find it more productive to embrace my garden or cats or even my empty home which has no family.Though I have been very angry with GOD because of my great lonliness I can NOT deny his presence.Thank GOD someone loves me.

I don't like the word GOD. To me there is no GOD, we are what we are. If there is a thing name GOD its us, for we have the potential to do GOD like actions. This poem sums it up for me.
*random life is*
color life like crayon drawings
everything is art
in this realm of controlled chaos
freefalling into flight
so pretty in white
when your faithful
just knowing we exist
sparks electric light within me
we are everything
nothing is excluded
light seekers unite
everyones included
admire and observe
we are the combined senses of the universe
clouds sail across the sky in real-time
massive and distant
water vapour floats
we are made of the same thing
I've looked at the sun in admiration
and wondered...
are we so different?
we were once connected!!!
physically and consciously...
everything was compressed into a single chunk
then there was a big bang!!!!
particles became seperate
from the center of the universe
we are just particles
arranged into something beautiful

That sums up why I was angry with GOG. If I wanted my prayers answered I had to do it myself.My greatest example was flight.So after 42 years I finally threw out my ex wife and created a workable invirornment to save money.Only one month after she was gone I sat upon the greatest day of my life.II beame a licensed pilot with my own hanglider.And since I have 2 great wishes I am my own GOD in the pursuit of my second need that we all take for granted,A family.I never had children and I want that to change.So to make this miracle happen I must continue on the same course that got me to flight.I must be GOD within myself.I therefore am pursueing LOVE.

Wow... pretty heavy stuff. Thanks for sharing all of you. Chris, your story or reflection read like a younger version of my own pursuits, not sure when that much passion for knowledge diminished, perhaps just took a differ venture, whatever.... but thanks for the reminder.

As far as sharing my own limited concepts re: god.... holy crap, would not know where to start, the mystery of it all has become the light from my lantern, the 'search' sorta put on hold. Instead, and I believe you implied similar Steff, I choose to be more witness of the exploration, simply sit with the way things are rather than continue an attempt to 'figure it out' more often recently, than in years past.

I did recently cut and paste an article, the type of 'spiritual discourse' I enjoy reading in the Stories section under the heading MAYA. Would be interested to know your take on it.
Curious what any of you get from that post... it is from vendantic philosophy or could possibly be referred to as Hinduism....
I find it pleasant to contemplate upon, leading me to quiet mind.  The subject matter, or method of approach, is familiar to me after years of study, which could make a big difference in how it is absorbed.

I also explored hypnosis for similar reasons. interesting experiences never to be forgotten, and those that were forgotten still carry influence. I have also had strong desire to hang glide for same reasons, scary enough prospect to keep me from following through, hypnosis is much easier, safer, costs less money and accessible to learn, share, do or receive...
I live very near ski resort (Deer Valley, Park City) and in that way (skiing with fluent effortlessness) can only relate.

From my experience there is a significant difference, which is hard to describe in words, between hypnosis and meditation. 
I enjoy them both, one can support the other. Fascinating to either 'guide' or be guided, both feel sacred to me.... however self-hypnosis and meditation may be from the same sea but in my perspective, not the same boat.  The way all things are similar feels more constructive than picking apart the differences, leaning away from being judgmental, yet still remaining curious and explorative.  Things change.  For instance, I no longer agree that meditation is "not what you think"  (more meant to be a joke on words) but feel that it is, All That Stuff, as well.

Cheers on you all for even considering a realm of which, sorry to say, I still find most  I encounter to be lacking in imagination, experience or open-mindedness.
Sensitive subject..... hard to prevent 'words' from messing it all up.  Which is why we have poets, philosophers, musicians, masseures, healers, prophets  and such.

I never wanted to search for GOD, but I do want to hang glide. And when I gave birth to my children I suppose I felt a little like GOD in my creations. There is a place my mine when giving birth, a realm of pain and euphoria all at the same time. Talking about GOD shouldn't be a sensitive subject, that is what makes us human, I don;t think other animal talk of GOD. I always say and have said on other post, that we are GOD , so Arnold you are mad at your self in my books.

Nice to see you sai.Sounds like great conversation but I do not have the material to read.Ya!I get heavy when I am upset.And I am ferious with myself.Upbringing did not help.I hope you are not afraid of heights Ant Bee.I even need a recovery driver when I fly.GOD has become differant to me now and the nice thing about being human is to be able to be angry.That is why I am unashamed to ask for what I want.And sai,the hardest thing there is for me is being openminded.Sometimes it invites insult.However I find a GOD or god of such I have to rely on my own inner strenght and determination to find a complete happiness.Lets go hangliding Bee.You never know what youl find in heaven.

You show your true colors, Ant Bee, and how others differ when you share "feeling a little bit like God in My Creations". Therein lies the question, or significant difference to be explored when considering your relationship (or not), with God.
Are they truly "Your Creations" or are they God's... you simply being a vessel from which God creates?

I am not passing judgment on your skills or labor as a Mom, just bringing out a point which splits the view on how one feels or regards the existence and/or importance... the significance of God.
Maybe the Father of your children actually 'created' the children, again, you being the vessel (test tube if you will) for the seed to grow. Or maybe it is 100% God's doing, nothing all that much to do with either human, mother or father...
All of it God's work.... easy way out, we are all in on this adventure together.  We need God, God needs Us.
.... We all need each other.  (Takes a Village to raise a Child).  But does it require a God?

My personal belief is that we are highly pretentious to believe we could possibly know even the smallest proportion of what God may be, or not. Give it up (thinking you know) and live a little, go hang gliding, get hypnotized (on something useful), grow a garden, go skiing, ride a motorcycle down the california coastline, have Divine Sex.... whatever, but stop thinking you can Know God.
Experience God? Now that is another thing altogether... and we all do, in an amazing variety of beautiful ways.

How does any of this apply to surviving or preparing for 2012?
I believe it will become ever more important as we 'round the turn'.

I posted a Story in this forum some time back which reflects a bit on this subject. 
Something about an old man in the desert, titled Creation.
Always interested in reading all of your points of view.

Peace, Ant Bee, Happy Mother's Day.... Every Day.

You are very wise sai.I want to find GOD again.I do not want to be alone any more.Like Ant Bee I want a family I can be proud of.And as I turn the corner I will be openminded to GOD and not be afraid of being hurt by GOD.I wear my vail in tribute to him to show how clean I have become.I only have less than 29 days left to prove my worthyness to recieve such devine gifts of life.I WILL find GOD again.

Good point Sai, and I also think your very wise. I guess a baby doesn't need me to grow, just my egg and Dads sperm. And I'm afraid I'm not making my self very clear, its hard in typed words. But all give it a go.

I always show my true colours, and many time have offended, but in real life I'm pretty nice, so much so its best to hang out in the forest so as not to become contaminated with others egos.
Its a bit like the chicken and the egg, but I do feel like we are the gods, be it in human form. perhaps a test on our part..
You also have to consider that there has been no formal religion imposed on me or my parents. So that said, my fee will and imagination is at work here, along with what ever I have learn in my 49 years on Earth.

It seem to me that when ever there is something that cannot be explained like the universe , they say GOD made it, but who made GOD. and so on.Your point is a good one " regards the existence and/or importance... the significance of God"
If I think we are the GOD, then I wouldn't give that much significance to GOD aka me because then that would be me having a big ego, that would rule over being sensible, I would think. That leads me to believe that we are god or part of us, because of our ego. And as far as I know, is I know nothing, and the older I get the less I know. And what I believe to day could change tomorrow, and who knows maybe ET will come down and tell us they created us in a test tub on planet X , but in my heart we are Earth bound GODS, perhaps being pushed or trying out our legs, or just having fun in human form. I;m open to any thing.

In my thinking Arnold would just have to look in the mirror to find GOD, and I don't know about this Vail to be clean but if it take you to happiness then good. I had to go through a bad first marriage before I found happiness, but of course we are not always happy after all so many factors come into day to day life. I don't know what a divine gift is, and I'm not sure if I would want one, my motto is keep it simple. its the little things in life that make me happy, like today a dragon fly was swooping on me to eat the deer fly's that were trying to get me when I was weeding the garden. the smell of a rose, the sun set, the big moon cumming up last night and the clouds were patches across the sky. I also give thanks to the mother earth for being here in this time at this place even if things are not always the way I want them, life is wonderful.

"squash?" (interesting that you admitted to not caring for squash)...or fry you
with a bolt of lightning? intentional or no, is my question.
does the universal higher power truly care about any of us?
universe may be mathematically sound, to the point of perfection...
but does it care? Does God have emotions, invested interest, or what... and why?
these are sort of things I like to question.

As you said, "with higher form of consciousness and probably emotions and feelings". It is the Probable emotions and feelings upon which I contemplate.
Also, just like the cells of my body, I believe it is very complicated and not all that simple.
We, as a human race, continue to learn more and more about physics, time/space rltshp. and,
yes, even the cells in our body.
Gotta disagree with you on this one Steff, I believe IT is WAY beyond our conceptual ability.
Thinking otherwise is just a lot of egotistic human smugness, that's all.
No big deal, everyone does it, me too. It is only human nature to shun awareness of ignorance.

"we are highly pretentious to believe we could possibly know even the smallest proportion of what God may be, or not"--------well said Sai Richard Scott!

Thanks Steve! I think Steff has missed what Ant Bee was saying, we are all God or put it, God is IN us all is how I believe it is. Just what he wants us to do or be is missed as sooo many are not listening as Chris started!! If God didn't have emotions Sai then we wouldn't be here because he HAS to have a sense of humor as his children right now are running around just like spoiled brats arguing and then making up just to argue again!!!

I like that post Steff, that we are cells of GOD, GOD not being a he or she, but and what?. I believe we have only one life and thats it, back to soil. but I don't think it scary. It just IS to me. and the fact we are highly pretentious makes me think we are earth bound gods. perhaps even the other living things on earth are gods , all trying out different forms. the great thing about being human is the fact we can use our imagination to think up stuff like this.
What if GOD said I am tired of being a gaseous cloud with infinite boundary's and would like to run around eat food, love, I will make a blue planet were I can do theses things.

We think more alike than you may think, Steff. I know I can share any opinion with you and not have it be taken as an attack on yourself.... same here. Your view is valid in my mind, just not always in my heart.
And once again I agree, "Truth is often scarier than the Lie".... not always, but sometimes.

This statement implies that many (including ourselves) may choose to believe in the Lie,
rather than face the Truth as it could be more gratifying, less 'scary', even pleasurable, to
hold Fallacy close to our Hearts. That is what I was referring to as chosen Ignorance.

Searching for Truth feels for me, worth the effort (so long as I don't get all stressed out over it).

See I look at it as you get what you put into it is also what you get, but believe there is something after we leave here. No I know it, but that doesn't mean that we aren't just what Bee and Steff just said and God is in us all, or we are our God. I feel just the opposite of Steff though as it's what you do in this life that directs where you go in the next. That is the part that people fear and are unwilling to accept!!!

Did that make ANY sense? Like Bee said earlier, this is a topic that one has their own feelings about it and it is difficult to put into words.

Here are two descriptions of God that I like most:

The first from The Great White Lodge:

Benevolent creator of the Omniverse and everything in it. Infinitely creative. Infinitely intelligent. Infinitely wise. Infinitely kind. Infinitely compassionate. Infinitely powerful. Infinitely just. Infinitely personal. Infinitely impersonal. Infinitely concrete. Infinitely abstract. Infinitely mysterious and paradoxical. A being completely beyond human comprehension.

And the second from the Book of Urantia:
The eternal God is infinitely more than reality idealized or the universe personalized. God is not simply the supreme desire of man, the mortal quest objectified. Neither is God merely a concept, the power-potential of righteousness. The Universal Father is not a synonym for nature, neither is he natural law personified. God is a transcendent reality, not merely man's traditional concept of supreme values. God is not a psychological focalization of spiritual meanings, neither is he "the noblest work of man." God may be any or all of these concepts in the minds of men, but he is more. He is a saving person and a loving Father to all who enjoy spiritual peace on earth, and who crave to experience personality survival in death.


My apologies on the confusion of me saying "I've gotten to KNOW God." I thought the context (in my life and from my experience) would be self-evident.

Who cares! this has nothing to do with survival in 2012! all you hippie, meditating, earth, wind and fire garbage! you can believe in a higher power as I do also,..but if you think you can sit on rock and pray or meditate when things start to go bad and you will be saved,..lol GOOD LUCK!,.... spiritual meanings,.blah blah blah, just a bunch of really lonely *** people.

For sure Bret, but the subject is about god, I really hate it when people are in danger or something and say god help me. Help your self, the power is with in.

Excellent article, Chris! Keep it up! Smiles to all!

Becky, that is a very sweet pic of you and your dad!

Not 'Xmas yet, but just wanted to share one of my favorite songs by this little angel...

Thanks Laroque and it's good seeing you check back in!!!
The thing I think some are missing on here is we all have the right given by God to believe in Him (or Her or It) how we wish. Whether it's from within or outside ourselves! The supposed written bible is just that, SUPPOSED!!! It is fact that many prophets scriptures were purposely left out of it. And of course all of these were the ones that went against the Catholic beliefs, of course!!! The bible as it is now is pure fiction to me because the balance of the facts were left out. The mysticism was eradicated because to the "elite" or whatever you want to call them didn't fit their agenda! And therefor us "hippies" that feel God is within all of us and there are many mystical powers that we are soon to see and feel are "crazy"!! I have been tested beyond belief about my true convictions and have stood my ground, most of the time things that to any conventional church would be a sin or considered devilish and still I feel my God loves me and wants me to continue on the path I have chosen for myself as He does for all.
Bret you may have already posted your side of your search for God somewhere on here but I think it would be a good time for you to post your search instead of ridiculing others for their beliefs. I know from previous posts your insight is very valuable and maybe how you found GOD might HELP someone else believe as you do......no worries however if you don't want to, was just a suggestion.......
PEACE AND LOVE ALL that is my personal search for God.........................................

When I say we are the GOD, its with this idea we try and control ego, something not easily done as a human. No need to search for anything, in my mind. I think its a great idea for all to have there opinions on GOD or any other subject for that matter. that way if you think one way and have never even though to think another way, it could bring you new insights, something in my books that is always good. How could you know what the sky looks like if you always live in a hold in the ground. I've learn some very interesting thing on the face2012, and some pretty cool web sight brought to my attention, had I not join I may have never seen them.
Nice to see you on Laroque, hope you summer is going great.

Check out lectures by Leonard Shlain on google video :)

Below is the link to one titled "The Alphabet vs. The Goddess" based on his book of the same name...

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-65173645159783472#

"It was beyond blissful, I can think of no words to adequately describe...
...... not only do I wish to return, but know I will."

---- anonymous quote describing god experience from somewhere deep
in the recesses of my mind on a warm windy afternoon.
peace

It's definetely a mad world, Steff! Nice lyrics.
Howdy dear AntBee! Yeah, it has been a busy summer, very, very hot summer around here in the Northeast. What's happening in your area? Who is showing in your avatar pic? It reminds me of the 70's, the hippies, peace&love, wild living...It's cute!
Becky, thanks! Will try to check in as often as I can. Smiles to all!

That video by Leonard Schlain was very intriguing. Interesting how the written word interacts with humans in a negative way and affects the lives of the females so harshly. Totally has me rethinking my spiritual thoughts, athough I haven't considered God as being male or female for a long time now. Thanks for the link D