Confusion / Weird-Ass Creator Stuff

P

pixel

Registered Senior Member
I was just thinking about this stuff as I was posting in another thread.

When I was a kid, I was very deeply religious (Catholic). I thought I'd become a nun. In my desire to get closer to God, I started meditating (but I didn't know I was meditating). What started happening was that I felt my conscious self separating from my physical self -- I was suddenly hyper-aware that my body was just a shell (a novel idea for a little kid), even my identity (Stella), was just a shell. From there I moved into some wild-ass hyper-awareness that I can only describe as "PURITY" -- pure knowledge, pure love/goodness, pure energy/light, pure pureness of existence. (I know, sounds f*cked -- but I swear it was awesome.) Anyway, it changed my life. I just got "smarter" because of it. These experiences went on until puberty -- at that point the experiences were getting increasingly scary, because it was getting harder to "snap out of it" and back into "Stella". The last time I did it, I thought I was going to die or lose "Stella".

For many years, this experience confirmed for me the existence of a Creator or Prime Mover or Intention or whatever.

I started getting into astronomy and physics (not deeply though) as a kid, to search for the Truth and for God, and as way led on to way, and I wandered further from the God of my youth, I honestly felt more informed, but I'm not happier, and I have more questions than ever. Really, I think I've been needing to get closer to "God" since I was a kid, but I feel I am wandering farther away. I feel I took a wrong turn somewhere. I could (/would) never be religious again, but I wish I could tap into Divinity again. I honestly feel lost as hell.
 
pixel said:
I was just thinking about this stuff as I was posting in another thread.

When I was a kid, I was very deeply religious (Catholic). I thought I'd become a nun. In my desire to get closer to God, I started meditating (but I didn't know I was meditating). What started happening was that I felt my conscious self separating from my physical self -- I was suddenly hyper-aware that my body was just a shell (a novel idea for a little kid), even my identity (Stella), was just a shell. From there I moved into some wild-ass hyper-awareness that I can only describe as "PURITY" -- pure knowledge, pure love/goodness, pure energy/light, pure pureness of existence. (I know, sounds f*cked -- but I swear it was awesome.) Anyway, it changed my life. I just got "smarter" because of it. These experiences went on until puberty -- at that point the experiences were getting increasingly scary, because it was getting harder to "snap out of it" and back into "Stella". The last time I did it, I thought I was going to die or lose "Stella".

For many years, this experience confirmed the existence of a Creator or Prime Mover or Intention or whatever.

I started getting into astronomy and physics (not deeply though) as a kid, to search for the Truth and for God, and as way led on to way, and I wandered further from the God of my youth, I honestly felt more informed, but I'm not happier, and I have more questions than ever. Really, I think I've been needing to get closer to "God" since I was a kid, but I feel I am wandering farther away. I feel I took a wrong turn somewhere. I could (/would) never be religious again, but I wish I could tap into Divinity again. I honestly feel lost as hell.
Click to expand...

I can relate. When one loses "the faith", the comfort from it is gone. So then we're out, "alone in the world", and start asking questions we may have never asked before. Perhaps things that are unanswerable. I too miss the comfort of thinking I knew what the truth was. But if we just accepted things as true and never questioned, then I guess we wouldn't grow very much, would we? But yea, I feel like you do also. I wouldn't say I'm happier. I was happier when I "believed", because I thought I had the truth. Personally, I wouldn't recommend "my path" to another. I'm not sure it's worth giving up the comfort, honestly.
 
Both of you. You are both very much loved of your Creator. It is easy for a child to trust in the Word of God because the child does not feel a need to question it. This is how it was for you then.
I want you to rest in the knowledge that you are deeply loved of God and that no matter how far you think you have strayed, He is but a heartbeat away. You even sense Him.
Your relief upon asking Him to take you back will be overwhelming. He cannot wait to take you back. He has been put to death on a cross that you may know His great love for you. We are ALL sinners but it does not matter because it is by God's good grace that we are restored, even unto eternal life.
Step out of the boat. You CAN walk on the water.

Your brother

c20
 
c20H25N3o said:
Both of you. You are both very much loved of your Creator. It is easy for a child to trust in the Word of God because the child does not feel a need to question it. This is how it was for you then.
I want you to rest in the knowledge that you are deeply loved of God and that no matter how far you think you have strayed, He is but a heartbeat away. You even sense Him.
Your relief upon asking Him to take you back will be overwhelming. He cannot wait to take you back. He has been put to death on a cross that you may know His great love for you. We are ALL sinners but it does not matter because it is by God's good grace that we are restored, even unto eternal life.
Step out of the boat. You CAN walk on the water. c20
Click to expand...

c20, thanks for your kind words -- I do appreciate your good intentions. STill, I'm afraid it'll take much more than Church rhetoric to bring me back into that old feeling of connection with the Creator. Also, with all due respect, what is it that gives you the authority to speak for a Creator, by telling me "He cannot wait to take you back"? This kind of thing has always puzzled me. Do some people claim to know the mind of God?
 
The bible says that those who believe receive the Holy Spirit. This Holy Spirit whom we speak of is a Spiritual Being. He is alive. The work of the Holy Spirit is to renew our minds to be like the mind of Christ. We are instructed by the Lord Himself.

Please see

http://latter-rain.com/theology/mindc.htm

peace

c20
 
pixel
I cant understand why you would want to become a sheep, where as self awareness, is so much more exciting and enlightening. ( (you become so empowered )pure clarity of thought is pixilating)

we dont understand this either regarding c20 "what is it that gives you the authority to speak for a Creator, by telling me "He cannot wait to take you back"? This kind of thing has always puzzled me. how Do some people claim to know the mind of God?"

what gives him the right to question gods will, you were made the way you are for a higher reason to become enlighten and to make humanity better for it. alternatively you could take LSD and then you become just like c20 and a lot quicker.

dont step out of the boat, if you cant swim you'll drown.
 
pixel: c20, thanks for your kind words -- I do appreciate your good intentions. STill, I'm afraid it'll take much more than Church rhetoric to bring me back into that old feeling of connection with the Creator. Also, with all due respect, what is it that gives you the authority to speak for a Creator, by telling me "He cannot wait to take you back"? This kind of thing has always puzzled me. Do some people claim to know the mind of God?
*************
M*W: Well, pixel, Paul did a lot of lip service speaking for Jesus (i.e. most of the NT), and there are a few on this forum that speak for Jesus and have conversations with God. They can even describe what God looks like and describes his innermost thoughts, feelings and emotions, like anger and saddness, and how god grieves for us lowly human sinners. If there could possibly be a creator=god, it would be humanity. You are definitely not alone, and this should offer you some comfort.
 
Audible & MW: Thanks for the reassurances. I've lost my grip on the thrill of standing on my own, seeking truth, and traversing unknown territory. It's like I've wandered so deep into the woods, I have no freaking idea where I am or what I'm doing, really. I don't seem to know what the point of this whole thing is anymore.

Maybe I'm just tired these days and it has contaminated my spirit a bit. But really, I'm just lost, lost, lost. I probably just need a vacation...
 
pixel said:
I was just thinking about this stuff as I was posting in another thread.

When I was a kid, I was very deeply religious (Catholic). I thought I'd become a nun. In my desire to get closer to God, I started meditating (but I didn't know I was meditating). What started happening was that I felt my conscious self separating from my physical self -- I was suddenly hyper-aware that my body was just a shell (a novel idea for a little kid), even my identity (Stella), was just a shell. From there I moved into some wild-ass hyper-awareness that I can only describe as "PURITY" -- pure knowledge, pure love/goodness, pure energy/light, pure pureness of existence. (I know, sounds f*cked -- but I swear it was awesome.) Anyway, it changed my life. I just got "smarter" because of it. These experiences went on until puberty -- at that point the experiences were getting increasingly scary, because it was getting harder to "snap out of it" and back into "Stella". The last time I did it, I thought I was going to die or lose "Stella".

For many years, this experience confirmed for me the existence of a Creator or Prime Mover or Intention or whatever.

I started getting into astronomy and physics (not deeply though) as a kid, to search for the Truth and for God, and as way led on to way, and I wandered further from the God of my youth, I honestly felt more informed, but I'm not happier, and I have more questions than ever. Really, I think I've been needing to get closer to "God" since I was a kid, but I feel I am wandering farther away. I feel I took a wrong turn somewhere. I could (/would) never be religious again, but I wish I could tap into Divinity again. I honestly feel lost as hell.
Click to expand...
None of us can help you - not the Christians or the mystics or the atheists. Only God can answer the call in your heart. My experience is that if you reach out to Him, He will reach out to you - but that is just what I know. You must make your own way back to God.
 
David F. said:
None of us can help you - not the Christians or the mystics or the atheists. Only God can answer the call in your heart. My experience is that if you reach out to Him, He will reach out to you - but that is just what I know. You must make your own way back to God.
Click to expand...

Now what on Earth does "reaching out" mean? 'Cause I've been looking everywhere for my old God, and the more I look the less I see of Him. (By the way, I do still mostly believe in a Creator/Prime Mover -- but certainly not one who answers prayers. What the heck would the point of THAT be? If God were partial to those who prayed, he'd be less than a God. If some kid was locked up in a cage and beaten and half-starved all his life (as real children have been), and this kid doesn't pray and "reach out", is he less deserving of a miracle to free him? Please, man.)

I don't think my childhood God is ever going to come back to me, and I'm not looking for ways to get Him back. I was just hoping for the Truth, and one that might include a divine Creator with an actual good intention or a point for existence. What I'm getting instead is a disturbing realization that there just may be no point whatsoever.

So I'm coming full circle to Buddhism again. I think maybe the Buddha was right -- life IS suffering, and the only way to get through this horseshit is to detach.
 
pixel said:
I don't think my childhood God is ever going to come back to me, and I'm not looking for ways to get Him back. I was just hoping for the Truth, and one that might include a divine Creator with an actual good intention or a point for existence. What I'm getting instead is a disturbing realization that there just may be no point whatsoever.

So I'm coming full circle to Buddhism again. I think maybe the Buddha was right -- life IS suffering, and the only way to get through this horseshit is to detach.
Click to expand...

I feel a similar way toward my "childhood God". You thought God was a "good guy" when you were younger, didn't you? A being who was comforting to you? Unfortunately, I feel that my "childhood God" is gone for good also.
 
I wandered further from the God of my youth, I honestly felt more informed, but I'm not happier, and I have more questions than ever. Really, I think I've been needing to get closer to "God" since I was a kid, but I feel I am wandering farther away. I feel I took a wrong turn somewhere. I could (/would) never be religious again, but I wish I could tap into Divinity again. I honestly feel lost as hell.
Click to expand...

Welcome to the world a "fallen" Christian. Sucks doesn't it? Not all the sense in the world can help. I was going to make a thread on it, maybe tomorrow so you can give your input.

EDIT:
To go a little deeper,

Before my faith crumbled, I too wanted to become a missionary. I had heard of the great comission and I was fully convinced that I was "called" to minister to souls and that material wellbeing was not in God's plan for me. Call it the mountain top experience if you will. I am still continually baffled at how I could become 'unChristianized' because I was as militant a "bibliolater" as there ever was. I swore by the holy perfection of God's Word and the unparallelled accuracy of the Bible accounts and NO one could change my mind. Ironically, I was the one who changed myself (sometimes, if not always, I feel regretful of my decision). Compared to now, I was FAR MORE blissful and happy believing Jesus was my Savior and that one day I would be with Him in paradise and I simply cannot come to terms why a supposedly "reasonable" human being like myself would ever turn down such an opportunity to follow after my own wisdom.

Hence, I try not to squabble too much with c20 because I was once where he was and utterly convinced beyond all reason and rationale. There is such an indescribable "mountain top" feeling that Christians have - so sure that their hopes will not be dashed - they will give up their lives and their possessions for the God they love. Any atheist who has experienced such a thing will come to understand that mere reason cannot pull a man from such joy. And so they say ignorance is bliss.
 
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Losing faith in christ/god shouldn't mean you completely lose faith in life. It seems more of a transition from the specific to the general. Regardless of the reason, you have been challenged by a life to live. Find reason to love it, then live it.

I think the question is: Have you lost something, or gained something? IMO, there is only one logical answer. The other leads to self-destruction.
 
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pixel said:
In my desire to get closer to God, I started meditating (but I didn't know I was meditating). What started happening was that I felt my conscious self separating from my physical self -- I was suddenly hyper-aware that my body was just a shell (a novel idea for a little kid), even my identity (Stella), was just a shell. From there I moved into some wild-ass hyper-awareness that I can only describe as "PURITY" -- pure knowledge, pure love/goodness, pure energy/light, pure pureness of existence. (I know, sounds f*cked -- but I swear it was awesome.) Anyway, it changed my life. I just got "smarter" because of it. These experiences went on until puberty -- at that point the experiences were getting increasingly scary, because it was getting harder to "snap out of it" and back into "Stella". The last time I did it, I thought I was going to die or lose "Stella".

For many years, this experience confirmed for me the existence of a Creator or Prime Mover or Intention or whatever.
Click to expand...
I dont get it,how does meditating until youre in something like a zombie trance prove god?
 
Q25 said:
I dont get it,how does meditating until youre in something like a zombie trance prove god?
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I think the emotional power of the experience is the "proof". Have you seen anything on the research?

If not, here's a taste. Not like I'm an expert, but it's interesting stuff anyway.
 
§outh§tar said:
Hence, I try not to squabble too much with c20 because I was once where he was and utterly convinced beyond all reason and rationale. There is such an indescribable "mountain top" feeling that Christians have - so sure that their hopes will not be dashed - they will give up their lives and their possessions for the God they love. Any atheist who has experienced such a thing will come to understand that mere reason cannot pull a man from such joy. And so they say ignorance is bliss.
Click to expand...

It's a long bloody walk to that mountain top :D

I have been put through all kinds of hell where I have wanted to curse God to the Heavens but then I remember Job and I dare not. Then I remember Jesus and I hate this world and everything in it. Not the things of love but the things of the world. When I see people idolising the world and paying no mind to the fact that we human beings have a soul that is desperate for love, I grieve. I crave a spirit of selfless love in man. I am aware through my own life that I cannot be what I would want others to be. I cannot do it. If I showed love it was thrown back in my face. The wolves would come and tear me down if I so much as offered them a glass of water. I sought escape everywhere. I ran and ran and ran but found nothing. Even the love that was once in the people I remembered from my childhood had grown cold and was without feeling. Then at the pinnacle of being lost, two kind Christians came to me and said "You need Jesus"
I was completely cynical. Hell you guys think you are cynical, you didnt have a patch on me. Atheism, science, enlightenment blah blah I could have supported these values with anyone who would listen just so as I wouldn't be out in the cold anymore, but Jesus! Tell me I need Jesus??? Give me a break!

But these guys looked straight faced enough, these Christians. They looked like men of contentment and that was the first time I had seen that look in someones eyes since I was a kid. I longed for what they had. It was that longing that made me go with them to a Christian meeting thing. I hated the meeting really although I made a polite attempt to go along with it. I really didn t think I was going to find contentment in singing good old Jesus Yeah! songs. Then they asked me if I would mind if they prayed with me. Yeah yeah, anything to shut you up now I thought. I stood their with a heart as hard as any hardened atheist when one of the guys said, "You are going to have to let Him in. He knows your doubts and He wants to take them from you. Take your doubts to Him."

I did and was filled with the Holy Spirit. I experienced a joy I have never felt on any drug, it was pure and holy and from above. I have been a believer ever since. It has been a hard walk since then (some fourteen years ago), I have been tossed aside by my first wife, denied access to my daughter, thrown out of my own home with nothing but the clothes on my back, rejected by my parents, been in two terrible car accidents leaving my back permanently damaged and other horrible stuff too numerous to mention.
But I cannot deny what happened to me and I cannot deny that through all of my trials, God has been there right with me, keeping me from stumbling as I walk around in this cold cold world. His warmth inside of me keeps my fire burning. It is He who tells me to pick up my cross and follow Him. He is faithful to me and I am faithful to Him. Jesus and I have walked a long way through good times and bad, I have wandered off from time to time but He calls my name and I return to Him glad to be found again.
The Holy Spirit helps me through it all and guides me to greener pastures and leadeth me to still waters. I love Him.

peace

c20
 
pixel said:
I was just thinking about this stuff as I was posting in another thread.

When I was a kid, I was very deeply religious (Catholic). I thought I'd become a nun. In my desire to get closer to God, I started meditating (but I didn't know I was meditating). What started happening was that I felt my conscious self separating from my physical self -- I was suddenly hyper-aware that my body was just a shell (a novel idea for a little kid), even my identity (Stella), was just a shell. From there I moved into some wild-ass hyper-awareness that I can only describe as "PURITY" -- pure knowledge, pure love/goodness, pure energy/light, pure pureness of existence. (I know, sounds f*cked -- but I swear it was awesome.) Anyway, it changed my life. I just got "smarter" because of it. These experiences went on until puberty -- at that point the experiences were getting increasingly scary, because it was getting harder to "snap out of it" and back into "Stella". The last time I did it, I thought I was going to die or lose "Stella".

For many years, this experience confirmed for me the existence of a Creator or Prime Mover or Intention or whatever.

I started getting into astronomy and physics (not deeply though) as a kid, to search for the Truth and for God, and as way led on to way, and I wandered further from the God of my youth, I honestly felt more informed, but I'm not happier, and I have more questions than ever. Really, I think I've been needing to get closer to "God" since I was a kid, but I feel I am wandering farther away. I feel I took a wrong turn somewhere. I could (/would) never be religious again, but I wish I could tap into Divinity again. I honestly feel lost as hell.
Click to expand...

I had near identical experiences in full waking conciousness when I was
younger. The experience became less frequent the older I got; however,
it was extremely difficult for me to snap out of it in the earlier years (it
would last for hours). In examining the experience I am quite certain that
a lack of blood flow to various parts of the brain resulted in this type of
experience. Just thought I would share a different perspective on it.
 
Q25 said:
I dont get it,how does meditating until youre in something like a zombie trance prove god?
Click to expand...

Q25, I wouldn't describe it as a "zombie trance", really -- it was almost the opposite, like hyper hyper awareness, in a very "pure" form, with no distraction; something I can only call "purity". ????? To be honest, if I heard someone else talking about it, I'd think it sounded screwed up.

I wasn't deliberately "meditating". At that time in my life (childhood), I was so into God, and felt so enveloped in "His love", that I thought about "Him" very often, and sought to get closer all the time. So I guess I was totally in that state of mind, when I was in front of a mirror one day. And that's when it all started -- I fell into this elevated state of awareness. At first, it was just funny to see this human being staring back at me, this supposed "identity". I instantly became aware of disconnection from it ("me") and from there -- I have NO IDEA how -- I tapped into some stream of purity. I guess it was like a combination of energy, knowledge (data?), goodness (absence of evil)... It was something like tapping into some "wisdom vein", maybe? But it definitely felt like I was separate from my physical self, even my identity -- I was "outside" (or something). That's why I thought I would die if I didn't eventually get back "in".

Anyway, the experiences changed me. I was a total spaz beforehand (not that I'm not a spaz now). I truly understood what it meant to be good (not the stupid ten-commandments shite). Somehow everything got much clearer, like my mind opened up, and everything at school seemed to become easy to grasp. I developed a profound interest in science... And I started to become very skeptical of the priests. The Church became increasingly "quaint" for me but not quite right, and so for many years I continued to feel a strong connection to God (and to Jesus to some extent), but I was no longer a practicing Catholic. I think I was a very good person.

Since then, I gradually turned into an agnostic, at one point very angry with religion and then indifferent, then Buddhist (in idea only; no temple), then resigned to a world with a benevolent unknowable unreachable God, then to an indifferent God, then regaining some respect for Jesus' teachings but losing ALL respect for the testaments and religions... etc etc ... Ever-farther from anything comforting. And I've also gone into some kind of reversion -- I'm not very "smart" anymore! I'm also increasingly indifferent.

Anyway, this "trance" did something BIG for me. It changed the direction of my life.
 
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