What is God FAQ

[nado]

Hey there!

I'm sure you already have a list of FAQs for part 2 of "What is God?", but I thought there might be a chance some of these could be missing and worthwhile:

1. What are direct experiences like after the first one? Let's say 2000 hours of meditation got you the first, do you need another 2000 for the next? Can it be done at will? Does it get faster and faster with practice? Or maybe just having one experience is all you need because you only need to align yourself once?
2. What happens when a direct experience occurs? Does the mind shut down and something that is always there "seen" or does Whatever-That-Is just crashes through ego?
3. Are those 2000 hours of meditation just to shut up the ego or is God playing shy and there's a random factor involved in revealing itself or not?
4. What "senses" stuff beyond/before the 6 senses (aka 5 senses + mind), is it just "Awareness being aware of itself"?
5. Is "our reality" being a dream in God's mind just an analogy?
6. Can Realization happen spontaneously? For example the other day at work I was walking while thinking about metaphysics and I just felt like there was something around me I should be aware of but couldn't figure out what.

I understand these are intellectual questions and wouldn't be offended if none was covered in your follow-up. I hope they're not so ignorant to cause despair.

Cheers!

[Leo Gura]

Some good questions. Yeah, if you guys want to post your questions here, I might pick some for part 2. Part 2 hasn't been shot yet.

Make your questions good. Make them about God itself, not meditation technique or other aspects of spiritual practice.

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Or maybe just having one experience is all you need because you only need to align yourself once?

In practice, one experience of God is almost never enough. One experience of God will likely leave you more confused than zero experience of God. God is just too big to grasp it all at once. You'd probably faint if that happened.

It took me maybe 10-15 separate breakthrough experiences to get a solid understanding of it.

But eventually your goal is to make it a permanent state of consciousness, called Sahaja Samadhi, where you are conscious of God 24/7. This is called the stateless state.

[joeyi99]

Should you stick with one spiritual practice to master it and become conscious of god? So you don't half-ass your effects and dable in many practices.

"the man that chases two rabbits catches none" 

Or have many (kriya yoga, meditation, self inquiry etc)? 

[Leo Gura]

@joeyi99 That's very tricky. It depends a lot on you. You need to find a technique you're happy with and then hit it hard.

There is a trade-off between dabbling vs getting stuck.

The more techniques you try, the more risk of dabbling. The less techniques you try, the more risk of getting stuck. I've met people who meditated for 20 years but still weren't enlightened. They got stuck.

[joeyi99]

@Leo Gura I've seen solid progress in SDS combined with Do nothing and doing kriya yoga but still feel guilty for not doing self inquiry. I keep telling myself I need more concentration skills for self inquiry but maybe thats just a trick of the mind.

Edited February 4, 2019 by joeyi99

[Leo Gura]

@joeyi99 I suffer from that same problem. I tend to go overboard with variety of technique. At some point you'll want to pick a thing and drive it home.

If I was forced to pick one thing, it would be Kriya yoga. Because it has a strong physiological component, which I think it important, especially if you have lots of monkey mind.

[Robi Steel]

Does god go through evolution? Or has God made the evolution happen? 

Is god looking at himself through my eyes or is there anyone looking at all? 

Is god using organs to perceive reality? 

How is God different in a non-dual state than in a dual state? 

Why are you talking about states of duality when there's no duality anyways?

Why is God constantly asking questions about himself and going on "advanced" forums to solve the mystery about himself instead of doing some solid reality and go logging somewhere? Lul

 

 

[Truth Addict]

Hey @Leo Gura, it's cool that you will consider answering some of our questions on part 2.

I've been thinking, does "why" questions apply to God? I know that ego needs a why (a purpose), and supposedly God does not need anything, so is the ego just a fake picture of God that "can need" and that's how God includes everything?

[Cameron]

If God is Nondual and God is everything, how come duality?

[Sempiternity]

If this all is a dream of God, we are all dreams of God, what reality is is God dreaming. That means we have no free will because we do not actually exist. God just created entities that thinks it has its own free will. Why did God dream up these separate entities that think they are real, thinks they're a body, and perceive time and space, have an Ego, think they die, don't know what they actually are or what reality actually is? Why did The Absolute intentionally dream up things that don't believe in itself? That would be like me lucid dreaming and intentionally creating masses of people who are tortured nonstop for eternity. Why would I intentionally do that, unless I was sadistic. But God is just Nothing, so no intention or meaning. So why does it create this mess and not something else? If God wanted to create something of itself, then why not itself enjoying itself. Having entities that all know what they are and can be in peace. This just doesn't make any sense to me. @Leo Gura I'd love some of this covered in the video. 

Edited February 4, 2019 by Jed Vassallo

[SerpaeTetra]

Can God improve?

[martins name]

@joeyi99 do nothing got me an enlightenment experience. The final destination of self inquiry is the same as with do nothing: pure consciousness. I'm probably going to do do nothing until the end.

[martins name]

@joeyi99 Read Santata Gamanas first 4 books if you haven't already. His kriya is more powerful that JC Stevens and he incorporates do nothing/self inquiry/just being in to the kriya routine.

[iamnotahumanbeing]

1 hour ago, Cameron said:

If God is Nondual and God is everything, how come duality?

If God is non-dual, how come anything? Perception.

[now is forever]

@Leo Gura you said god was not chaotic but then you used the image of fractals. it’s a little confusing. also some very old archaic gods and godesses are the impersonification of chaos - it’s almost impossible to understand anything about brahman if not going deeper into the topic of chaos/chaos theory. even though that’s a huge topic on its own.

also it would be interesting to think about the different entities of god, does it have structures levels systematic phenomenons? even though it is the shapeless shape, the formless form, the pathless path the gateless gate?

also missed my favourite word: eternity of being - maybe you can smuggle it in. 

Edited February 4, 2019 by now is forever

[nado]

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Make your questions good. Make them about God itself

Awesome, thanks!

When we say God is infinite do we mean infinite potential or that all possible permutations of the universe exist in parallel? For example I almost sneezed, but didn't look at a light; is there another parallel universe where I looked at a light and did sneeze or we only mean I could have sneezed?

[now is forever]

@nado maybe you’re getting viral...

[Leo Gura]

4 hours ago, Truth Addict said:

I've been thinking, does "why" questions apply to God?

You can become conscious of why everything appears to exist and why it functions as it does.

A full consciousness of God is the answer to all existential why questions. It's a very very very satisfying answer. The answer is non-verbal. Your understanding becomes TOTAL. No more questions about life remain. Everything is perfectly clear. You become literally omniscient, but this omniscience is non-verbal. You could never verbalize it.

[nado]

How about God being eternal? Do we mean he spans from minus infinity to plus infinity on the time spectrum or does time not exist outside or minds?

[nado]

Did God really create himself or has it always been there and creation not necessary outside our human concepts?