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As a young adult I was "slain in the spirit" and had this very warm feeling through out my body. Was it a God or just some form of hypnosis? I found the experience disturbing and will never forget the look in the preacher's eyes. It seemed evil to me for some reason. I never found that experience comforting.
I never had the slightest subjective spiritual experience, even when I was open to it and seeking it. I am just one of those people who aren't subject to them I guess.
You are probably left-brain dominant, mordant. It would take time and discipline to awaken your right-brain sensitivities. Our education focuses on the left brain disciplines . . . language and mathematics and generally ignores or downplays the right brain disciplines.
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However, my particular branch of fundamentalism was anti-charismatic and often cautioned (wisely, in this case, IMO) that subjective personal experiences can be misleading. We know that stimulating a particular region of the brain produces transcendent religious experiences, a sense of a Presence (positive or not), etc. so it's clear that having a "peak experience" in and of itself proves or validates nothing necessarily about one's spiritual beliefs.
You are forgetting that it is the brain sensing the stimulus and interpreting it. The fact that it is an artificially produced EM field does not eliminate the fact that the brain senses field phenomena. What is instructive is what the brain interprets the field phenomena into . . . presence or OBE. Given that there is no such thing as "outside" within the universal field . . . only as a sense experience produced by our physical brain . . . it is quite suggestive.
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Rather than seeking after experiences we were encouraged to study the Bible and meditate on it in a presumably more rational fashion. This proved to be my undoing as there is not much that's rational about the Bible, when it comes to it.
Understood and very typical. It is the man made religious concepts and descriptions about God that you reject . . . but you apply it to the generic concept of God.
As a young adult I was "slain in the spirit" and had this very warm feeling through out my body. Was it a God
But is there any moment or experience when it is not?
"And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." (1 Thess 5:23)
It is the man made religious concepts and descriptions about God that you reject . . . but you apply it to the generic concept of God.
I do not see an actual God beyond the man made religious concepts. I see all gods as human inventions, and all god-related feelings as ... well, just feelings. Nothin' more than feelings ...
I am in fact left-brain dominant, but I think it's more a matter of distrusting feelings for this kind of thing. I don't fully trust feelings as an accurate barometer of material existence, so it certainly doesn't impress me as a measure of spirit. Yesterday a close friend betrayed me in a way that leached the very will to live out of me for the better part of a day. Nothing changed except that I had a reality check and it surprised me. My emotional reaction was genuine, but largely unhelpful. I would expect the same to be true of any problem domain you would apply emotion to.
You are probably left-brain dominant, mordant. It would take time and discipline to awaken your right-brain sensitivities. Our education focuses on the left brain disciplines . . . language and mathematics and generally ignores or downplays the right brain disciplines.
You are forgetting that it is the brain sensing the stimulus and interpreting it. The fact that it is an artificially produced EM field does not eliminate the fact that the brain senses field phenomena. What is instructive is what the brain interprets the field phenomena into . . . presence or OBE. Given that there is no such thing as "outside" within the universal field . . . only as a sense experience produced by our physical brain . . . it is quite suggestive.Understood and very typical. It is the man made religious concepts and descriptions about God that you reject . . . but you apply it to the generic concept of God.
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Originally Posted by mordant
I do not see an actual God beyond the man made religious concepts. I see all gods as human inventions, and all god-related feelings as ... well, just feelings. Nothin' more than feelings ...
I am in fact left-brain dominant, but I think it's more a matter of distrusting feelings for this kind of thing. I don't fully trust feelings as an accurate barometer of material existence, so it certainly doesn't impress me as a measure of spirit.
We get information from our environment through two pathways . . . left brain (thinking) and right brain (feeling). By ignoring one of the pathways you open yourself up to being blind-sided. Everything we can measure and test using our science comprises less than 5% of our total reality. Yet you are restricting your perceptions to that 5% and ignoring the other 95+%. A logical, left-brain oriented approach is typically unable to deal with the diversity and incoherence in reality and must be supplemented with a disciplined and practiced right-hemisphere involvement, heavily weighted toward intuition and insight. Unfortunately, especially here in the West, we do not develop nor do we respect that form of analysis. A particularly cogent description of the problem can be found here from The Tao of Power:
. . . The brain accepts all types of information from all stimuli simultaneously, and the mind processes it in the form of emotional responses, intuitive feelings, and logically formulated analyses. In the West, we rely almost exclusively on logical analysis. . . . These logical functions, according to neurological research, are performed by the left hemisphere of the brain. At the same time, we learn to discount aesthetic or intuitive information - a right hemisphere function - because it is considered less valuable to our culture. Thus we find ourselves primarily concerned with measuring events and analyzing their meaning, rather than creating and directing their flow. We are taught to ignore the intuitive or irrational, no matter how strong these 'gut feelings' might be. As these right-hemisphere feelings are repressed, we lose touch with our intuitive mind and our insights become increasingly rare. . . . The fact is, each of us knows far more about reality --- past, present, and future --- than we are able to understand and express rationally. And whether or not we work on our inner development, we all experience, with our intuitive minds, the most profound truths about our world and our destiny. What we must do, then, is use our analytical, logical mind to bring this potentially vital information to the surface, where we can use it. . . . And, in doing so, we achieve the fulfillment that comes from leaving what we touch with our minds a little more evolved than we found it.
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Yesterday a close friend betrayed me in a way that leached the very will to live out of me for the better part of a day. Nothing changed except that I had a reality check and it surprised me. My emotional reaction was genuine, but largely unhelpful. I would expect the same to be true of any problem domain you would apply emotion to.
I am truly sorry that your friend betrayed you. I would never claim that it would not have happened if you were more attentive to the right brain sources of information . . . but intuition and feelings are one of the better ways of knowing who actually IS a friend.
I am spiritual, not religious. As a spiritual person, I "believe" in a power greater than myself . . .don't have a clue what it is, but I believe there is a divine power of some kind . . .
And I pray to that divine power and believe my prayers have some effect on changing "reality."
But my faith is intellectual - and maybe spiritual, but not emotional or physical . . .I can't FEEL anything coming back in terms of reciprocation . . .
So this post is for those of you who FEEL a spiritual presence . . .what can you say about that?
I am not sure why my spiritual/emotional senses are blocked (I perceive that there is a block) . . .It is very frustrating. I think my whole life would be different if I could actually FEEL a divine presence in my life.
This thread is strictly about FEELING DIVINE PRESENCE, NOT ABOUT RELIGION. I would love to hear people's experiences.
I understand what you mean. I myself believe in God and have prayed, longing to actually 'hear' him like you hear an actual voice and not a 'sense'. I've yet to hear that, although it might be more than I could handle...you know the 'be careful what you ask for'...But I do feel frustrated in my heart sometimes, like I'm not being heard.
But, I have felt in prayer, a 'warmth' in my chest that was comforting. Then, when I wasn't praying at other times a 'feeling' like someone was in the room with me. That's usually an unsettling sensation, but it to was a comforting feeling, although no one was there. It does not happen a lot, but it has and I am grateful that I have ever felt anything at anytime.
I guess, if a divine presence is not dropped like a ton of bricks, it's the basic concept of Faith: The substance of things hoped (prayed) for, and the evidence that things exist that are not yet perceived (seen or heard) with the senses.
Anyway, that's what I have felt. A warm, comfortable 'vagueness'. Hope it makes sense. It's hard to explain.
Last edited by lydia415; 02-03-2013 at 05:53 PM..
Reason: typo
Yet you are restricting your perceptions to that 5% and ignoring the other 95+%.
No one is ignoring it. We just do not know what it is. It may even turn out to be nothing for all we know - just errors or incompleteness in our understanding - calculations - theories and so forth. Not knowing what it is is not equal to ignoring it. Our science is working very hard on discovering explanations for these things.
Filling in the gap with pretty pictures and random ideas however is - while not ignoring it either - also entirely unhelpful. The location and identification of what comprises 95% of our reality is an unknown. That unknown does not license us to run away with our fantasies and mistake them for facts.
Only through KNOWING can you accept devine reality, not explain or convince yourself or others. We are all part of the universal whole. LISTEN to life talking back to you in the form of coincidences, 1st impressions, bad vibes etc.Be positive , love, laugh, forgive... always be ready to give but pay attention in receiving. You always get more than most acknowledge or pay attention to. Act happy, look for and FIND joy. You might be surprised. Most important is learn and go on and love, It'll all come back in a good way.
I have felt that the Spirit was more real when I was focused on living a life with love and purity and peace.
Maybe my mind was projecting my inner feelings on to the world, but everything did look different. It seemed to glow more, and I felt happy and at peace.
Our emotions do colour our experience. I am very visual, so strong positive emotion can manifest in a glorification of what I see. Sometimes it might manifest as the sound of soft music.
What triggers these experiences is a strong abiding emotion - usually developing out of a deep relaxation and peace, and a compassionate intention towards other living things.
The trouble is, I based this lifestyle on believing in the Bible, but the Bible has since come into question, so I stopped living it. I made my lifestyle contingent upon holding certain beliefs.
However, I still believe in an Intelligence behind nature - a creator .
So, in conclusion I would say - it is possible that we only experience god when we walk with god, ie when we start living a life based on love, purity and peace.
It is hard to be compassionate when you feel cynical and sceptical about life, but learning to relax as deeply as possible and practicing goodwill towards others once a day will probably manifest the experience that you seek.
Somethings can be only experienced by living them, because they are not static properties, but rather are phenomena that arise from interaction - from doing.
I am spiritual, not religious. As a spiritual person, I "believe" in a power greater than myself . . .don't have a clue what it is, but I believe there is a divine power of some kind . . .
And I pray to that divine power and believe my prayers have some effect on changing "reality."
But my faith is intellectual - and maybe spiritual, but not emotional or physical . . .I can't FEEL anything coming back in terms of reciprocation . . .
So this post is for those of you who FEEL a spiritual presence . . .what can you say about that?
I am not sure why my spiritual/emotional senses are blocked (I perceive that there is a block) . . .It is very frustrating. I think my whole life would be different if I could actually FEEL a divine presence in my life.
This thread is strictly about FEELING DIVINE PRESENCE, NOT ABOUT RELIGION. I would love to hear people's experiences.
This is another old thread, but a good one. I enjoyed reading through it again. When this thread started, I also hadn't had any experiences of feeling a "supernatural" (for lack of a better term) presence, and that hasn't changed. Reason tells me that God exists, and being curious, I'd be very interested in experiencing that God in some way out of what is ordinary to me and says beyond a shadow of a doubt, "I'm God and I'm here!". But I haven't.
I came to a similar conclusion as Craig.
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Originally Posted by craig373
it is possible that we only experience god when we walk with god, ie when we start living a life based on love, purity and peace.
It is hard to be compassionate when you feel cynical and sceptical about life, but learning to relax as deeply as possible and practicing goodwill towards others once a day will probably manifest the experience that you seek.
Somethings can be only experienced by living them, because they are not static properties, but rather are phenomena that arise from interaction - from doing.
For me, personally, while "out of the ordinary" would be a very interesting thing to experience and I'm not closed off to the possibility, I don't spend much time or effort seeking it. Love (caring and compassion) is real and it matters in this life, so that's what I seek ... Both the feeling and the practical application of loving others. I think that is what ultimately connects us all to God and allows us to experience God. If that's not true then, imo, God really doesn't matter other than as a point of curiosity.
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I enjoyed reading through it again. When this thread started, I also hadn't had any experiences of feeling a "supernatural" (for lack of a better term) presence, and that hasn't changed. Reason tells me that God exists, and being curious, I'd be very interested in experiencing that God in some way out of what is ordinary to me and says beyond a shadow of a doubt, "I'm God and I'm here!". But I haven't. 
