@SeventhSense When you write your poetry, as you did above, I find little to quibble about with you. I know the feeling of oneness with the universe. I would not dismiss it as mere mysticism or some kind of intellectual philosophizing. If that’s what you call God, then, while we probably have similar understandings or feelings about the universe, we use different nomenclature to talk about it.
I also do not see a need to universalize the feeling or to try to persuade anyone else to feel it. I think it has healthful benefits, and helps people gain a sense of themselves and where they fit in the universe, and, perhaps most importantly, a sense of not being alone—at least not how we usually experience aloneness. It is a sense of connection and an awareness of the ways in which everything is interconnected. It’s something that most people can understand intellectually in a “Leg Bone Connected to the Knee Bone” kind of way.
However, it seems to me that there is another, non-linguistic way of understanding these connections, or experiencing them. I don’t choose to call that God, but it seems to me that a lot of people do think of that as God. Certainly, when you describe it, it is a familiar thing.
What I reject, however, is the need to convince myself of its existence by persuading others that it exists. Nor do I think it has any power to do anything—this feeling. It helps individuals feel where they fit in the universe, but it means nothing in terms of predicting the future. And, while I appreciate it and am comforted by it, I don’t think of it as a consciousness—it just is.
There’s a strong tendency, however, amongst people who would make a religion of this feeling, to try to nail it down and make it into one thing, with one interpretation, and one way to access it. I can not go with that. For me, it is a thing that people find, or not. Sure, I would like others to feel it, because I know it has healing power. But I know it is something that people have to feel on their own. I can’t interpret their experience for them. I can only interpret my own experience. Although, even that, I try not to do. Mostly I just describe my experience, and I don’t try to tell others that it means anything to anyone other than me.
I also know how to open people up, so they can experience it. I think of it as a “spiritual technology.” It’s about creativity, though. It’s something that people can either experience just as a fun thing to do, or they can get some other sense from it, if they are open to that. Either way, it’s rewarding. But I reject the idea that it has to mean this, or it has to mean that. I think that if people can’t interpret it or make of it what they will, then it becomes worthless.
For me, it is about creativity. It is about responding to circumstances in a creative, non-threatening way. It is about taking whatever you bring to it, bouncing it off of other people, “speaking” to them without words (but with music and dance). It generates a non-linguistic language of its own, and it generates it new and different each time people join together in the rituals that help us experience it.
When I write this stuff, it means something to me, but the words seem totally inadequate. I don’t want to promise anything. I just want to share my experience, and yet, it’s an experience that is supremely difficult to describe, using words. It is the kind of thing that must be experienced before it can become understandable. Which makes it sound so suspicious. Well, I don’t guarantee anything, and I don’t think anyone can.
