The Mystical Experience of God
When I speak of God, I am not speaking of a God that can be known with the mind. I am speaking of God as the present moment revealed. I am speaking of God as the silent Presence at the very heart of all things present. I am speaking of God who exists at the very heart of silence within you, and who is not separate from you. I am speaking of God as Eternal Is-ness. I am speaking of God as pure consciousness. I am speaking of God as the source from which everything arises and into which everything returns. I am speaking of God as everything and nothing. I am speaking of God as the beginning and the end. I am speaking of God, not from my mind, but from within the mystery.
~Leonard Jacobson
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May 28th, 2010 at 8:25 am
I love this post. I see it as an excellent example of the difficulty of talking about God, and of overcoming that difficulty to some extent. I run into so much resistance (mental noise) from others and myself on the subject of God. In my own book, Divine Connection without Distraction, early drafts made copious, unself-conscious reference to “God,” but in the final draft, while there is Love, Divinity, and Godness on every page, I chose alternatives to that always loaded word whenever possible.
An early draft even included this line, “I suspect that throughtout the course of this book I’ll put some readers off by my use of the word ‘God’ and I’ll put others off by offering anything approximating an apology for doing so.” That captures the conundrum for me. My solution was to use the word only when necessary for poetic flow and not to apologize at all.
Thank you for this post, Leonard. Though it’s hard not to see this piece as an apologia of sorts, it gives me new permission to speak of God. As usual, you’ve made me braver.
Peace and love.
May 29th, 2010 at 10:55 pm
Whatever terms we use are arbitrary, but we should strive to be conscious when using them. I tend to use ‘gnostic’ where Leonard uses ‘mystic’, but true or real gnosticism IS true or real mysticism, and vice-versa.
The Conscious Way (of gnostic mysticism aka mystic gnosticism!) must be practical as otherwise it can be of no practical use.
Whether one uses the term ‘God’, ‘Great Spirit’, ‘Allah’, ‘the Way’, ‘Tao’, ‘Dao’, ‘Ipseity’, ‘Life, ‘Love’ or any other of a myriad alternatives, it can only be of practical value if the wonder that the finger of the arbitrary term is pointing to can be experienced here and now – our parameters in space and time for experiential reality. Thus Leonard says: “I am speaking of God as the silent Presence at the very heart of all things present.” Here and Now – how wonderful!
Resistance can only come from an unstill mind, not present in the here and now. ‘God’ is SO beyond beliefs, opinions and theories for or against – yet so close to be perennially and immediately experienceable here and now.
Waoist pun: every moment is a moment for Christmas Presence. (… to be reborn as a child of Life and Love, One with Life and Love – until there is no death to be reborn from).
July 15th, 2010 at 6:54 pm
I love that you write “I am speaking of God, not from my mind, but from within the mystery” . The mind cannot reach God. God is experienced beyond the mind, deep in the self.
August 6th, 2010 at 9:58 am
Eloquent conveyance the ineffable, thank you. I noticed it go straight in, no resistence. A smooth rock dropped into a still pond, still reverberating
September 26th, 2010 at 9:35 am
this is so wonderful …. thank you. thank you for this divine expression. this is absolute truth … we talk, read, think … and maybe that is all necessary … but the individual experience of “the present moment revealed” is IT.
we go from “glimpse” to “glimpse” … until there is no “we” … just what is glimpsed … anna