http://community.beliefnet.com/go/thread/view/44021/28239205/The_Grand_Allusion.Teachers on the mystical paths have been teaching for many years that all this is an illusion. Because most of them take the negative connotation of the word, it takes on the understanding of fake. I submit it would behoove us to look at all this ashttp://community.beliefnet.com/go/thread/view/44021/28239205/The_Grand_Allusion.?post_id=506218971#506218971I recall, in the Movie Circle of Iron. The Book of Life that contained all the secrets of the world was nothing more then blank pages with a mirror on the back cover. Anyone who wanted to know this great secret had to overcome several challenges bSun, 04 Sep 2011 06:57:54 -0500http://community.beliefnet.com/go/thread/view/44021/28239205/The_Grand_Allusion.?post_id=506211687#506211687Nice sense of humor. Thanks for the chuckle.Sat, 03 Sep 2011 23:55:04 -0500http://community.beliefnet.com/go/thread/view/44021/28239205/The_Grand_Allusion.?post_id=506211589#506211589I personally cannot say even that. "Something is like something to me" talk is just another way of talking about one's feelings. God cannot be imprisoned by a personal feeling. The "heat" of His "light" can be felt. By the mirror of our hearts.[/quotSat, 03 Sep 2011 23:47:31 -0500http://community.beliefnet.com/go/thread/view/44021/28239205/The_Grand_Allusion.?post_id=506211397#506211397I personally cannot say even that. "Something is like something to me" talk is just another way of talking about one's feelings. God cannot be imprisoned by a personal feeling. The "heat" of His "light" can be felt. By the mirror of our hearts.[/quotSat, 03 Sep 2011 23:33:30 -0500http://community.beliefnet.com/go/thread/view/44021/28239205/The_Grand_Allusion.?post_id=506211295#506211295I personally cannot say even that. "Something is like something to me" talk is just another way of talking about one's feelings. God cannot be imprisoned by a personal feeling. The "heat" of His "light" can be felt. By the mirror of our hearts.Good oSat, 03 Sep 2011 23:27:15 -0500http://community.beliefnet.com/go/thread/view/44021/28239205/The_Grand_Allusion.?post_id=506206393#506206393I refer to theological discourse as “Theobabble” and I call my theory of knowledge “Incompleteness” - no matter how much we know, we do not know everything. The most we can say with utmost confidence about -O- is this is whatSat, 03 Sep 2011 19:09:05 -0500http://community.beliefnet.com/go/thread/view/44021/28239205/The_Grand_Allusion.?post_id=506191389#506191389Since man can never know God (Who is described as the Unknowable Essence) nor experience God, Bahá'u'lláh describes a person's honest recognition of his powerlessness to lift his heart to Him and to know God, as the highest life goal, tSat, 03 Sep 2011 12:40:26 -0500http://community.beliefnet.com/go/thread/view/44021/28239205/The_Grand_Allusion.?post_id=506190837#506190837"Minds cannot grasp Me nor hearts contain Me." - Bahá'u'lláhGod is not only beyond the intellect. But also the heart. While I see where you're coming from, to consider God "inside" or "center" is actually just another way of intellectuaSat, 03 Sep 2011 12:29:53 -0500http://community.beliefnet.com/go/thread/view/44021/28239205/The_Grand_Allusion.?post_id=506174077#506174077Thank you for the compliment.The spelling -O- is a visual reminder of my apophatic theological thinking.Rather than “beyond” I prefer to think of -O- as the Source, or as Alan Watts wrote, “The inside-inside”. My term of choicSat, 03 Sep 2011 05:33:30 -0500http://community.beliefnet.com/go/thread/view/44021/28239205/The_Grand_Allusion.?post_id=506172091#506172091Thank you Neomonist for your profound discussion on illusion, and for pointing out that intellectual categories such as 'real' and 'false' are both 'illusory' in a sense. They are mere intellectual categories while God, or what you call -O-, is not iSat, 03 Sep 2011 04:15:11 -0500