For believers: When and where do you feel closest to God, and what does that feel like?

[More Than A Feeling]

It seems to me that nobody can truly share in the religious experience of another. Even though we can describe the experience in the same way, its as unknowable as whether my experience of the color red is the same as yours. Nonetheless, I am still interested in hearing about the experiences of others, because we hardly get to talk about them, on this forum or anywhere else. Perhaps that is because these sorts of things are so personal, and if that is that case, I respect your decision not to share.

[NoSheep]

1. When I listen to great music. I feel like I am complete. It's as if

I could drop dead and I wouldn't be afraid. Another time is when I have eaten mushrooms. I feel connected to the universe and all my questions are answered. I'm not sure what I believe...but I think we are all connected. The evil folks...their connection is broken, or they can't access the love there.

[greyl]

2. and how is it different from becoming lost in dance or song? nt

[redqueen]

15. for me, it's more open

when i get lost in dance or song, that same sense of appreciation is there, but it's more open and inclusive of all things, not just the song or movement. that said, song or movement can lead to that more open feeling of being close to 'god'.

[William769]

3. I would love to share my experiance here but...

[LanternWaste]

4. When it happens I feel...

There's never been any kind of correlation for either the 'when' or the 'where'. I can say the majority of the time it happens, I'm alone and my surroundings are quiet. It's happened in my truck, in my apartment, when I'm camping, first thing in the morning.

As to *when* it happens... it just happens. I can't/don't call on it to happen, it just happens. Maybe once a year.


When it does actually happen, I feel very quiet, sedate, calm, passive and small. An overwhelming sense of emotional warmth and security with a big side order of personal unworthiness brought on by the warmth.


It's one of those questions that I'd be forced to spend three or four days looking for *just* the right words, contexts and analogy's to express it.

Edit: spelling

[stellanoir]

5. The single thing we all share is the ability to laugh.

When I truly and deeply laugh, I know g-d, is with me, which I prefer to refer to as the "Creatrix" because it is playful and transcends gender and dogma. Ya know.

Some astrophysicists speculate that at the center of the galaxy the primary chemical componant is nothing other than NO2 (aka laughing gas.)

Get the joke already. Healing is preordained, despite all indications and evidence to the contrary.

Peace.

[dweller]

6. whenever

my eyes are open, and i marvel at the creation surrounding me ...

dp

[delphinium]

7. I feel close to God when working in my garden and

in church and any time I pray. But in the garden, I feel like I belong here on earth and am a part of creation, if that makes any sense. O8)

[nealmhughes]

8. From preparing for Communion all the way to standing after the Post Communion hymn.

I feel light headed and warm and very, very close to God and the departed and as if it is "a foretaste of the Lamb's great wedding feast".

[Az]

9. It is the ulitmate in personal

I have no such experience as I am not a believer. But as I do understand the nature of the experience I will not tarnish by attempting to rationalize away what are very important things for those that do believe.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

10. Many types of occasions:

But it's hard to explain.

It's happened during services, especially the powerful positive vibes that fill the sanctuary when everyone's soul is in the same place.

It's happened in nature, when the beauty of it all makes me want to laugh.

It happens when my prayers are answered in ways that I didn't expect.

It's like falling in love. It's hard to explain, but you know it when you feel it.

[Danger Mouse]

11. There are times that it comes over me...

...a warm, safe feeling that I can't explain.
It's those times that I feel it the most strongly.
Usually during a service, or when I'm praying...well I don't pray so much as blabber on and on in my mind, heh, but you get the idea...

[kwassa]

12. The best feeling there is

At one with the universe, total connectivity.

I feel centered, grounded in my chair, and as if an infinite plane of light is bisecting my body.

I can be doing nothing but sitting, I can be listening to or performing music and dance, and feel awash in sensation. I can by lying down staring at the sky. I can be driving or sailing or flying or reading.

It often happens to me in either beautiful natural surroundings, or in spaces designed to be spiritual. I find very old churches to have the feeling of accumulated spirituality, of those souls that passed before. Good art does this for me, too.

I don't feel close to God, I feel at one with God, unified.

The prayer without ceasing, that is always occuring. Just turn my head and notice that it is there.

[FDRLincoln]

13. moments

Moments when "it" happens...

During meditation or sometimes during yoga.

While making love with my wife or even thinking about making love with my wife

While watching my children play

While driving my car alone

While listening to certain music

When reading certain poems

What the experience is:
Beyond words, really. A sense of absolute and utter connection with everyone and everything around me. . .a warm glow inside. . .sometimes it is a very, VERY ecstatic experience, union with all around me, the feeling is sexual in a way but beyond sexual. . .at times it can only be described as a "spiritual orgasm" that consumes all of my being. Time ceases...nothing matters in this state but love. Other times it is more subtle, a gentle warmth within, the knowledge that I AM, that we all are thoughts in the mind of God, cells in the body of the Universe if you will. When in this state, I am afraid of nothing, not even death.

[FDRLincoln]

16. god

I should note that it is for this reason, these experiences, that I believe in God and a spiritual reality beyond our current understanding. I should also note that traditional Christian religion, the Bible, per se, has NOT helped me understand these experiences, and I've had to go out on my own path, an eclectic blend of mysticism influenced by the Sufis, Quakers, Hindus, and Buddhists.

I will also note that the scientific materialists would say that it's just my brain malfunctioning. Maybe they are right. All I know is that these experiences make me happy, and they make me a better-functioning person who loves more and enjoys life more. Perhaps this is merely an evolutionary trait, and perhaps it is something more. I believe it is both, actually, the material universe evolving greater spiritual conciousness as time passes. No matter. It works for me.

So, to the atheists among us, my friends, I have great respect and admiration for the fact that you are willing to buck the theistic trend in society and stick with your convictions. Please understand that, as a mystic pan-entheist, I don't believe in God because of church or a book or brainwashing, but because of my own experiences, just as you DON'T believe in God because of your experiences. It doesn't matter...I think we'll meet on the other side of the veil (yes, I believe atheists go to heaven)...and you think we'll meet as worm food. Either way, let's just live our lives together in love, trying to make the world a better place for everyone, trying to survive as a species.

[kwassa]

17. I relate to everything you just said

in both your notes.

Very well puot.

[redqueen]

14. No particular place or time...

it feels like understanding.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

18. When I feel gratitude

I remember driving past a farmhouse of a friend of mine, feeling gratitude for their kindness, and being hit in the chest with an overwhelming sense of love and peace. I had a similar feeling when I went to the grave of a Sufi saint. I have felt peace and love in a circle doing zkr, doing the Dances of Universal Peace; I have felt it in the intense darkness and heat of a sweatlodge; I have felt it when witnessing a magnificent sunrise. I have felt it when I have looked into another's eyes and realized I was looking into the eyes of the Beloved.

[peanutbrittle]

19. When my eyes water with the feelings of sadness and/or joy,

when in a state of marvel while enjoying nature or in any other particular situation.

I have family ties to the civil war and and enjoy researching that era and history along with ancestory.

I feel particularly close to God when visiting civil war battle sites and when envisioning the suffering and situation those folks must have had to go through. Within the serenity of the battlesite in their present state, the sacred ground can be very moving.

When standing at a grave.

When feeling thankful.

Of course when feeling the warmth within the emotion of love.

[peanutbrittle]

20. Probably should clarify something...

based on recent events here....

Ancestors in the civil war...

Union Chaplain for an Indiana Infantry Unit- Ft. Donelson, Shiloh, Miss. Campaign to Atlanta
Union Cav.- various western campaign mainly Ark.- Helena, Little Rock etc.

both were Union

[beam me up scottie]

21. So you're not one of those guys that dress up like rebels and reenact the battles for fun?

They scare me. :scared:

[peanutbrittle]

22. LOL...no, but I saw one of them, there

secessionist once re-enacting. All part of our heritage I guess. Everyone gets along well at those types of events these days...lol

[beam me up scottie]

23. Sounds like most of the battle sites around here.

When I visited one, I felt a little like I did when I stood before the Moving Wall.

[peanutbrittle]

25. The moving wall? n/t

[beam me up scottie]

27. The half-size version of the Vietnam Memorial.

http://www.themovingwall.org/



I had no idea it would affect me the way it did.

[peanutbrittle]

24. The first and best experience........

Nothing ghostly or anything like that..lol. I was driving back from a trip overnight and decided to stop at Shiloh - Pittsburg Landing battlefield on the Tenn. River in Tenn. It was right at dawn, half dark and extremely foggy when I arrived and drove through the gate, I was the only person there and drove straight down to the landing. Shut the truck off and got out of my truck. Eerily quiet and fogged in the goose bumps started to rise immediatly. I couldn't stay there long, got back in the truck and continued back up the hill past the cemetery (was no way I was gonna stop there!) and onto some other points on the main battlefields. Surely my own mind buying into the eeriness and fears until the daylight started to take over and burning off the fog. Then I went from fear to awe. It was very moving as, again, I was the only one there. Spent until mid morning and then left.

Anyway it was awesome and to me very spiritual, treading on sacred ground and thinking back into history. From then on I would rather visit when there are not large crowds around.

[beam me up scottie]

28. That's a great description.

So many lost their lives on that one small piece of land.

[peanutbrittle]

26. Add:

Also when you know the details of the battles, have an ancestor who was there and know exactly where his unit was...makes it that much more of an experience (btw...the chaplain was a ggg-grandfather who left his diary from the civil war which i have read, feel like I know him..lol..just kind of interesting

[beam me up scottie]

29. I felt the same way when I visted Europe.

It brought the war home to me in a way pictures and stories never could.