Religion as Self Fulfilling Prophecy

[otherbrother]

Not sure what the experts in psychology say, but as one taught in the field and who practiced clinical psychology, I said in this post something to the effect that God is a projection of our mind (which stores human potential) and that we use this positive projection (pushed/projected outward because the potential exceeds our ability to process in terms of what we think to be actual) to reclaim by means of a self-fulfilling prophecy. The Highest Potential Self, the self that appears too good to be true (and therefore must be disowned and projected outward) is experienced as an external Being who we then seek to unite with. Which means, in psychological terms (specifically, Gestalt therapy terms), to reclaim the projection. The mental projection holds the potential that our previous self was not ready to hold or actualize.
Here we get back into the fascinating topic of time that Powessy introduced. Potential is both within and not yet actual, the latter meaning it is in a future. Actualizing potential is, in a way, making/creating time!
And if the positive potential is way within, who can insist that it is a part of the not-yet-fully-developed “me?” And yet if I insist it is NOT me, I push it away and make it less accessible to use. I prefer to say it IS a part of “me,” albeit not the pathetic sinner (missing the marks) I now am.

I actually used this in a mind experiment while running. I imagined my run to be the finishing miles of the future marathon I am training for (to do a marathon at age 70).
My focus was on two things: the mental energy sense behind/within the images and thoughts, and on the future. Result is that the future “event” felt like I was being pulled forward as I ran. I accessed something like “Grace.”

 

[TheLightWithin]

I actually used this in a mind experiment while running. I imagined my run to be the finishing miles of the future marathon I am training for (to do a marathon at age 70).
My focus was on two things: the mental energy sense behind/within the images and thoughts, and on the future. Result is that the future “event” felt like I was being pulled forward as I ran. I accessed something like “Grace.”

Intriguing!
What do YOU mean by "grace" in this context?

 

[otherbrother]

Intriguing!
What do YOU mean by "grace" in this context?

God’s grace is traditionally thought of as forgiving us of our sins. If sins are related to “missing the mark” morally and spiritually (stunted growth), then forgiveness seems related help, as a teacher or coach would help a student or player learn to better hit the marks/goals of whatever knowledge or skills he/e she is hoping to develop. Any boost/help in my very limited running ability seems like I am being helped mercifully. The imagined future accomplishment forgave my limitation (sinful if viewed from the fact that I had not trained harder before, and thus was not in as good of shape as I could have been) by fore-giving the abundance of success. Fear of failure and dread of inability was overcome by something from the Good Unknown that appeared to be in the future.

Short version: I got a boost from God.

 

[otherbrother]

the most divine knowledge of God, that which comes through unknowing, is achieved in a union far beyond mind, when mind turns away from all things, even from itself,

Maybe we have a semantics issue? I think that anything sensed at a deeper level than conscious mental activity, and even deeper than the activity experienced during sleep/dreaming is still what I call mind, albeit a much deeper and purer level of mind that I would not be opposed to calling Mind or even God. Given this broader use of the word/concept “mind,”
a God-in-and-through, supRAnatural, theism is possible, and the view I pick because it is spiritually empowering. Praying to God means going deep, and God and one’s own divine “potential” are not incompatible concepts. The limitations of conceptualizing “self” and “other” are revealed at the deepest level of “mind” (Mind).

 

[Thomas]

Maybe we have a semantics issue?

No, I don't think so.

I think that anything sensed at a deeper level than conscious mental activity, and even deeper than the activity experienced during sleep/dreaming is still what I call mind, albeit a much deeper and purer level of mind that I would not be opposed to calling Mind or even God.

It seems to me you're just referencing deeper human states. The mind is a mystery even unto itself, but that is still the mind, in and of itself.

Given this broader use of the word/concept “mind,”

Given everything you've said, nothing points to the divine.

 

[Thomas]

Praying to God means going deep ...

Pray4er, such as the Prayer of Simplicity, is other-than-that.

... and God and one’s own divine “potential” are not incompatible concepts.

Not incompatible, but by the same token, not the same thing, and easily confused.

The first and most famous of the Maxims inscribed at the Temple at Delphi says:
Γνῶθι σεαυτόν – Gnôthi seautón – Know thyself

It is, of course, a paradox.

There is a comment, by Alan Watts, perhaps a repeat of a much older, possibly Hindu, maxim:
“The Godhead is never an object of its own knowledge. Just as a knife does not cut itself, fire does not burn itself, light doesn’t illuminate itself."

He then went on to add "It’s always an endless mystery of itself”, and that is the case with the human mind.

The mind 'lives and moves and has its being' in the world of forms. Its thoughts are what the mind illuminates, but the mind cannot illuminate itself. The best it can do is know itself by distinction of knowing other things that it is not. Or in believing things about itself which might or might not be.

But when the mind turns to God, once it passes through the veils of affirmations, it's left casting into light into empty space.

It's not that God is not there, it's just that God is beyond anything the mind can conceive.

For God, that's not an issue, nor a problem, because God knows S/He 'Is', and that Is-ness is prior to mind and any mentation.

For our minds, it is ... because we find there is a depth to our being we cannot plumb, we cannot fathom. We can sense it, we can shine the light of mind into it, but it's just light into a void space; light into the abyss, all we can see, one might say, is darkness on the face of our deep.

And we know we are not the source of ourselves ...

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At some point, semantics will find itself adrift, its anchors latching onto nothing. There episteme has reached its limit ... there is only the dark, and the silence ... that is the place where true prayer, deep prayer, operates, and there it finds its response, and in that response, its repose.

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We were made to be, we were made to think and to know, above that to love, and beyond that to pray the Hymn of the Universe.

 

[otherbrother]

It seems to me you're just referencing deeper human states. The mind is a mystery even unto itself, but that is still the mind, in and of itself.

If a laptop computer accesses the Cloud while doing its computing, I consider that the computer’s potential, not just the cloud’s. The computer is my only way of utilizing the Cloud. Whether there is something outside of mind (the computer) is irrelevant as long as mind (the computer) is my only way to access it. As far as my goal to being a more whole and spiritual person is concerned, my mind is the only means I have to access God (the Cloud). If God falls in the woods and there is no mind there to hear Him, does he make a sound?
To focus on anything other than my own mind’s possible ability is to count angels on the head of a pin or to fail to take responsibility for my own growth, leaving me vulnerable to depending on an imaginary parent, and one someone else imagined and sold me on. My mind’s hands would be tied behind its back.
I think my logic here is in line with Buddhism’s emphasis on “mindfulness.”
Yes, the deepest workings of mind may count on spirit and Spirit, but its ability to access it is all I have as an incarnated physical being. Mind is the other dimension within this physical dimension. It is my God portal. It is my way of “Asking.”

 

[Thomas]

Whether there is something outside of mind (the computer) is irrelevant as long as mind (the computer) is my only way to access it.

That's rather my whole point, I do not agree with you here.

Union with God is not a 'meeting of minds' in the Abrahamic sense, rather, "bringing the mind to stillness" (a discipline I think the Buddhist would endorse) is a prerequisite of that union, but it is just one condition, there are others, as the 'person' is more than 'mind'.

 

[otherbrother]

It's not that God is not there, it's just that God is beyond anything the mind can conceive.

True. But the mind PERCEIVES, senses, that which is beyond conceptualization. It’s still the mind that senses God, and that’s all we have. Anything else is to anthropomorphize by projecting a category of otherness—something that human beings in relationship with each other and with classical objects in our physical reality are familiar with (an “other” that gets anthropomorphically experienced as a supreme Other). To say God is other than us IS to anthropomorphize! Better to admit that God is not not self, but probably even better to say that since concepts of self and other are irrelevant in the Great Unknown, it is at least spiritually empowering to think of it as part of a Subjective Reality where a “self”
resides, made possible only by mind.

 

[otherbrother]

Union with God is not a 'meeting of minds'

I agree with that statement. Minds merge at their deepest level. And yes, duality has to go when or if mind senses a reality we call God.
I’m not sure you and I are as on different pages as we appear to be. I think the human mind is a chip off the old Universal Mind Block. Our only difference may be that I call the unifying “stuff” mind. Our atheist Hindu friend calls it Brahman. He and I hold a view of continuity (supRAnatural in my case, pantheism in his case) whereas you seem to prefer a supernatural view.
But we each have interesting points we agree on. I do agree that union with God is not a meeting of mindS

 

[Thomas]

I’m not sure you and I are as on different pages as we appear to be.

I am pretty sure we are.

Our only difference may be that I call the unifying “stuff” mind.

I think the difference is ontological.

... whereas you seem to prefer a supernatural view.

Actually, I don't, as the 'supernatural / natural' thing is a dualism.

 

[Thomas]

My final parting word is that, at some point, one has to let go the mind, and leave it behind ...

 

[Aupmanyav]

Do I believe in God? Yes. Mainly because my praying to God works for me. Metaphysically? If it works, there must be something there, but knowing its exact nature is not necessary.

A small correction: Metaphysically, if it works, there must be something there, .. in your case. I agree.
Metaphysical argument.

My final parting word is that, at some point, one has to let go the mind, and leave it behind ...

And cling to what was taught to me in childhood?

 

[otherbrother]

Actually, I don't, as the 'supernatural / natural' thing is a dualism.

See. That left me scratching my head, willing to see how that works according to Thomas’ reasoning. So at least there is room for dialogue about that. If explained before, I either didn’t understand or I’ve forgotten. My guess is that you believe God transcends but includes mind. Whereas you don’t agree with my premise that mind at its deepest, purest, level includes God. You think it’s a one way street? I think it’s a two way street.

 

[Thomas]

My guess is that you believe God transcends but includes mind.

I believe God transcends everything; every mode of existence and category of being.

"In Him we (the formless and formal, the manifest and unmanifest, mind, body, spirit, in all its modes and manifestations) live and move and have our being,"

Whereas you don’t agree with my premise that mind at its deepest, purest, level includes God.

In what way do you mean 'include'? Mind can posit 'God' as a hypothesis, Mind can posit attributes of God, but only from the standpoint of its own process, reflective reason and rationality ... but unless God reveals Itself to mind, then it remains a hypothesis.

"Can you find out the deep things of God? Can you find out the limit of the Almighty?" (Job 11:7)

Mind is not the only way to know God, nor necessarily the best.

 

[otherbrother]

but unless God reveals Itself to mind

If mind senses what God reveals, then in my book (my way of seeing) God is at least in THAT mind. The mind has some characteristic that allows for the revelation. That CHARACTERISTIC is in mind. And if it is a doorway for God, unless God is a relative recluse and doesn’t visit many minds, then God, as is in any way knowable, is IN minds. Otherwise anyone (like you and me) who experiences God is out of their minds. Perhaps Aupmanyav would agree!

 

[Aupmanyav]

.. but unless God reveals Itself to mind, .. Mind is not the only way to know God, nor necessarily the best.

Mind is the worst way to know God. If you use mind, God never reveals Himself to you.
Books are the best, or preachers/clerics/swamis.
That is what happened to me. I used mind to find God.

 

[TheLightWithin]

Mind is the worst way to know God. If you use mind, God never reveals Himself to you.
Books are the best, or preachers/clerics/swamis.
That is what happened to me. I used mind to find God.

I'm confused by this?

 

[Aupmanyav]

I'm confused by this?

Where is the confusion? I read the books (including Bible and Qur'an), applied my mind, and became an atheist.
Read Bible, apply your mind, perhaps the same thing will happen to you too.

 

[faithforall]

And I can agree with that, as long as we don't fall into the error of making anthropomorphic assumptions as far as God is concerned.

Dionysius the pseudoAreopagite (known in the East as St Denys, which is how I shall refer to him hereafter) said:
"But again, the most divine knowledge of God, that which comes through unknowing, is achieved in a union far beyond mind, when mind turns away from all things, even from itself, and when it is made one with the dazzling rays, being then and there enlightened by the inscrutable depth of Wisdom." (The Divine Names)

My point is that analogous models work only so far ... the Divine Mind is a superlative 'idea' with regard to creature and Creator, but the Divine Mind does not function as human minds do, or rather, in assuming how human minds work is a model of how the Divine Mind works – that is why the great spiritual commentaries speak of 'silencing the mind' or 'going beyond mind'. The mind works with ideas and images, and Meister Eckhart notably said that so long as we have these ideas and images in mind, there is no space for God.

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Can I recommend "Paths to Transcendence" by Reza Shah Kazemi

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The parable of Martha and Mary (John 10) has wisdom to offer on this; so does the race of Peter and John to the empty tomb (John 20). John is the mind, and arrives first, but cannot enter, but what lies within is beyond its knowing; Peter is the will, and arrives after (the will powers the light of the mind to look ahead, so in that sense the intellect is always ahead of the will), and suffers the same not-knowing, but by strength of will goes into the tomb ...

Going deep into that place where creature and Creator meet is never, and cannot be, a purely mental act – it's a whole-body experience. It is why ascetical praxis goes hand-in-hand with self-disciplined theoria on the spiritual path.

Taken conversely, it's why profound 'mystical' experience often comes with pronounced physical reaction – as evidenced by the likes of Ezekiel (catatonic states) and Saul of Tarsus (blindness).

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Just yesterday I stumbled on a video of Jimmy Carr talking about the late Sean Lock. Sean was something of a mentor to Jimmy, and Jimmy grieved his passing, then recovered, then 'caught a cold' and lost his voice ... he was seeing a therapist at the time who said the loss of voice was not uncommon, as if the body's way of saying 'nothing you can say can match how you feel'. What it signifies is a 'whole person experience' rather than some abstract "I'll miss him" passing thought.

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Your post really got me thinking about how we connect with God in ways that go beyond just our thoughts. I love how you brought up Dionysius and Eckhart—those ideas about silencing the mind to make room for something deeper hit home. The way you tied in the Martha and Mary story, and Peter and John at the tomb, paints such a clear picture of how our hearts and wills are part of this journey, not just our heads.

That bit about Jimmy Carr and losing his voice after Sean’s passing? Wow, it’s such a real example of how our bodies can carry what our words can’t. It reminds me of times when I’ve felt something so big—grief, joy, or even God’s presence—that it wasn’t just in my mind but in my whole being. Your point about Ezekiel and Saul makes me think of how God often meets us in those raw, physical moments to show us He’s there.

I also appreciate how you highlight that meeting God isn’t just mental gymnastics. It’s like the spiritual path asks us to bring our whole selves—body, soul, and all. It’s comforting to know that even when our minds can’t grasp it, God’s still working in us. Thanks for sharing such a thoughtful post—it’s given me a lot to chew on! Looking forward to hearing more of your insights.