Jan 24, 2010 -- 9:45PM, Jcarlinbn wrote:

Jan 24, 2010 -- 9:02PM, Wendyness wrote:

I didn't come to God in a church. 

Did you read my link to God's Door? If so I don't understand your response.  

 

Yes, I read your post. You are asking why you have never had an experience of God, well, you are not dead yet! You must have a hunger to know God.  If you are asking for a major revelation, a lightening bolt to come upon you and reveal the truth, that doesn't happen often.  It is a journey that begins with a leap of faith, prayer, meditation, contemplation on scripture and the ability to deeply understand symbolism, and live your life with as much love for others as you have for yourself.  Feeling immense gratitude for your life.  Each journey is very different.  There has to be a burning desire to know God.  That was the most important part of my existence.  "If you are really there God I want to know you".  What I got was never what I expected, it scared the shit out of me.  Don't ask what, because that is extremely personal and I don't want to give something so sacred to me to a bunch of atheists waiting in the wings to trample my rose. It's like a beautiful work of art that very few people will understand.

Jan 24, 2010 -- 10:28PM, Jcarlinbn wrote:

Jan 24, 2010 -- 10:09PM, Wendyness wrote:

 You must have a hunger to know God.  If you are asking for a major revelation, a lightening bolt to come upon you and reveal the truth, that doesn't happen often.  It is a journey that begins with a leap of faith, prayer, meditation, contemplation on scripture and the ability to deeply understand symbolism, and live your life with as much love for others as you have for yourself.  Feeling immense gratitude for your life.  Each journey is very different.  

I guess the question that must be asked is why would I want to have a hunger to know God.  Why would I want to take that leap of faith, waste all that time on prayer and meditiation, etc.  I have been open to God to show me why I might want to do all these things and so far nothing.  Suppose I waste the rest of my life doing all these things, die and all that is left is the life I didn't waste up to this point.  No thanks.  I have wasted enough of my life studying God's music among other things.  If God is interested Hesh can call.  God is not my problem.  If there is a problem it is for God.  

just for the record I am saying nothing at all about your experience.  It obviously works for you.  God bless you.  It does not translate for me.    

God bless you too, and sweet dreams.

Jan 25, 2010 -- 2:12AM, Wendyness wrote:

Jan 24, 2010 -- 10:28PM, Jcarlinbn wrote:

Jan 24, 2010 -- 10:09PM, Wendyness wrote:

 You must have a hunger to know God.  If you are asking for a major revelation, a lightening bolt to come upon you and reveal the truth, that doesn't happen often.  It is a journey that begins with a leap of faith, prayer, meditation, contemplation on scripture and the ability to deeply understand symbolism, and live your life with as much love for others as you have for yourself.  Feeling immense gratitude for your life.  Each journey is very different.  

I guess the question that must be asked is why would I want to have a hunger to know God.  Why would I want to take that leap of faith, waste all that time on prayer and meditiation, etc.  I have been open to God to show me why I might want to do all these things and so far nothing.  Suppose I waste the rest of my life doing all these things, die and all that is left is the life I didn't waste up to this point.  No thanks.  I have wasted enough of my life studying God's music among other things.  If God is interested Hesh can call.  God is not my problem.  If there is a problem it is for God.  

just for the record I am saying nothing at all about your experience.  It obviously works for you.  God bless you.  It does not translate for me.    

You say you wanted to know why it is that you have not had a God "experience", because you consider it a waste of time. 

W

I think you misunderstand the "waste of time" reference.

We should not need to all become nuns and monks, living apart from secular life, praying and seeking after God virtually every hour of the day.

Imagine the sensation of being at the railroad station, standing near the tracks, holding up and waving a "valid train ticket" but everytime the train comes by it won't stop to let you on."

This is how some feel who have actively sought "a closer walk with God" and just didn't get there. Everyone who thinks they know "the path" offer their advice. However, "enlightenment" in any form, is a uniquely subjective and personal experience. If one is having trouble "getting there as a potential theist," perhaps another path will get them there.

Why "waste the time spent in fruitless searches" if your "grove" lies elsewhere?

Jan 25, 2010 -- 7:10AM, costrel wrote:

Jan 25, 2010 -- 5:37AM, exploringinside wrote:

It is perfectly legitiment to remain "open" to all possible facts, yet to come; this is a weird sort of flexible-rigidity. You are still responsible to live your life within the Reality you perceive; faking reality in any way, leads to pain, suffering and loss. At the least, your own sense of personal integrity will be damaged if you fake reality.

So......be as certain as you can be and trust your ability to perceive those things in your life that have value to you. If you make a mistake, Reality will correct you because there are no contradictions in Reality......what is, is; [the correction Reality gives can be a nasty bite on the ass or worse, so try to be a little careful of what you allow to be in your life.]

Try to minimize "unprovable things" and limit them to abstracts like emotions, fantasies, etc; focus on the concrete things that you can directly influence such as friendship, charity or benevolent assistance to others, growth, your own self, etc

W

I think you misunderstand the "waste of time" reference.

We should not need to all become nuns and monks, living apart from secular life, praying and seeking after God virtually every hour of the day.

Imagine the sensation of being at the railroad station, standing near the tracks, holding up and waving a "valid train ticket" but everytime the train comes by it won't stop to let you on."

This is how some feel who have actively sought "a closer walk with God" and just didn't get there. Everyone who thinks they know "the path" offer their advice. However, "enlightenment" in any form, is a uniquely subjective and personal experience. If one is having trouble "getting there as a potential theist," perhaps another path will get them there.

Why "waste the time spent in fruitless searches" if your "grove" lies elsewhere?

 

For me, it really did feel like I was wasting my time trying to live as a Christian ascetic. It seemed like everyone else had some kind of story about God or Jesus, whether it was the Apostles or later saints such as Teresa of Avila, or the Evangelicals I knew who said that Jesus either talked to them with an audible voice or appeared to them apparitionally as Jesus appeared to St. Paul or the Lady of Lourdes appeared to St. Bernadette. Eventually, I decided to take Thoreau's advice at the end of Walden:  

"I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there. Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more lives to live, and could not spare any more time for that one."

 A year or so after abandoning my ascetical path, I found myself also abandoning Christianity and still later, even theism. I still am uncertain how or why it happened. I know that I've been told before by certain Christians that the reason I didn't have any celestial experiences was because I really wasn't a Christian (because a real Christian could never abandon Christianity, etc.), but for me, celestial experiences were something that I just did not have. Why people have them, or how people have them, I do not know, but all I can say is that whatever they are, and whatever their origins might be, they have always been something that I have read about or heard about, but never subjectively experienced.

C

I added in a copy of an earlier reply because it felt like it applied here. Honestly, I'm of the opinion that for the majority of the 20+ billion humans that have lived during all of human history, and claimed some sort of religious belief, the large majority of their time and thought has been occupied with survival and family issues and most of them never had a "personal revelation" either; that does not make their Journey somehow less valid than the journeys of others, nor does it diminish their value as human beings!!

EI