From: Robin Edgar
Robin Edgar has left a new comment on your post "What do you believe in?":
Q: Do you believe in God?
A: No.
Q: So, you are an atheist!
A: No.
It occurs to me that this would be an appropriate response from someone who knows that God exists as a result of direct personal experience of God. . . Carl Gustav Jung being just one example amongst many others.
***
My response to Robin Edgar:
Correct in that one who knows has no need of belief, which is held to be a less certain state of mind than knowledge. But distinguishing knowledge and belief is very difficult, if possible at all.
Direct experience is certainly the best way to attempt certainty, but there is no way to acquire absolute certainty in a logically compelling way. At first glance, an epiphany, a personal experience of the divine, would seem to be absolutely convincing, but in its bare experience it belongs only to the one who has the epiphany. All others must be content with hearing about it, and, if it's important to do so, they must decide whether to believe or not, and how much. Even the person with the epiphany can question it, for people in dreaming, or in psychosis, can be utterly convinced of realities that fade with awakening or the reemergence of sanity. In my own experience, I have found it impossible to know for sure that one is not dreaming at any given moment.
Let me tell a little story, that I assure you is completely factual.
An adherent of Asatru named Dirk is indulging in some aquavit in a bar in Norway, when an interesting character shows up and sits on the stool next to him. The guy introduces himself as Odin and offers to buy him a horn of mead. Dirk is a modern man and will not simply take even a god's word at face value, though this fellow may certainly look the part and exude divine charisma all over the place. Although he gladly accepts the horn, he asks for some proof of godship before accepting that claim. Odin pulls out a deck of cards and starts shuffling. "Something more dramatic than a card trick," asks Dirk. Waggling his white eyebrows, the old man laughs, "As you say!"
The day turns dark, and the wind picks up, even inside the bar. The shimmering form of Freya appears hovering before our friend Dirk. Never has he seen any female so beautiful! She reaches out and he feels her hand take his. She says only, "Come!" and the bar and Odin disappear. Freya remains, but Dirk is no longer sure that he does. She leads him to spaces and places where wild fires roar with the heat of billions of exploding stars, and she takes him by still waters where peace is so profound you can heal all of eternity's heart's wounds. She takes him to her rainbowed bed and lets him make love to her until he forgets his humanity on the spill of amrita through his veins and out his loins. And then, Dirk spent and content, she takes him back to the bar where the funny old man with the white beard is chortling into his mead.
When Freya disappears and all is as before, he asks, "Better than a card trick?" After a moment to gather his wits, Dirk says, "Could be proof you're a pretty good hypnotist!" The All-Father shouts, "That's my boy!" and continues:
All we have, inside and outside of us, is appearances. We play a game of "as if," relying on consistencies as we perceive them, to gain the appearance of pleasure and avoid the appearance of pain. The truth lies behind a screen where the shadows of puppets play, and even if you could peer behind the screen, how can you know you see more than just more shadows?
Dirk nods and says, "Now I can believe you're the All-Father. Still a pretty good hypnotist, though."
***
Now, maybe there is some direct way of knowing, bypassing the senses and any other medium. But how would the knower know this knowing is true? You can say that such knowing is self-validating, and I bet it sure is! But self-validation can also occurs in psychosis. You say this is not true self-validation? Please show me the difference!
This is one reason why traditions such as Zen set such high value on a teacher's validation of one's insights. Even so, a teacher's validation may be just another hallucination.
Give up the quest for certainty, I say . . . settle for a measure of consistency in your dreams!
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