But my point, and what I found personally, was that spiritualism is finding the god within yourself. The "you" being one small aspect of the creator of this reality. While it's not a god in the sense of the Christian "God", it is as powerful (meaning US) a concept.
This is sort of a Hindu viewpoint as expressed in the Mahabharata, and condensed in the Bhagavad Gita. In this worldview, each being is animated by a small shard (Atman) of the great super being Brahman Atman.
It is something of a semantic distinction, but it is conceivable for there to be a creation which is the result of another force, rather than something with a singular identity. Perhaps creation could be in theory the result of a concert of beings which are really quite separate and distinct, but are working in collaboration.
Some modern physicists would postulate that fundamental features of any reality, such as the laws of logic, may have forced the world into existence, in order to validate them.
These are not my viewpoint, but they are logically consistent to me.
I don't think you can progress spiritually until one realizes the truth of this existence.
Hard to say for me. I am not sure if any of us are actually progressing in most senses. The idea of progress within a non-linear system has always seemed odd to me. It makes sense within the context of a single human life... it is clear to see that a person often is better than they once were, and perhaps grow closer to truth; but the greater reality is not sequential like this, and after death this logic is difficult to continue coherently to me. I think it might be a sort of anthropomorphism... expecting greater reality to resemble our experiences here.
And that aside, assuming progress does happen, it is conceivable to me that a person can grow into being greater than they once were merely by grasping personal principles. Perhaps this person conceives of a love for honor, or compassion, or defending and bettering those around them. Many religions would call this person of low worth, because they lacked training in this or that dogma system. I think you would agree with me though that this person is among to most laudable of all, because they became greater without external prompting from others, but rather because they felt it was best within themself.
The common counterargument that is offered to this line of thought is that this person "knew God in their heart but didn't realize it". Perhaps this is true, but I think it confuses the real point- that you don't need to know various facts about the structure of existence in order to do what you perceive to be good things. I think a person can get quite far on devotion to helping others alone. Interestingly, this is another of the ideas expressed within the Bhagavad Gita- that a person need know little of the actual truth in order to move closer to the greater realities.
This is all speculation for me too, even after the handful of great experiences I have had through the years, but I guess the common thread of what I am trying to express is to examine your assumptions.
What things do you know because of evidence, and what things do you merely feel to be true?
Here is an example for me personally:
When I am at what I would currently call my "up state" in a waking setting, I feel visceral connection to the entire reality around me. It is not merely an abstract intellectual reasoning, but rather a powerful knowing that there is no separation between myself and the clouds and the trees. It feels like I am bleeding into them without a boundary. On a deep emotional level, and with an intensity that I think humans rarely experience, I truly feel this connection, and it is accompanied by massive exhileration. But as odd as it must sound, I must take this serially repeating experience, and keep it self-contained within its own slot.
I think in the past folks may have taken such experiences, and derived religions or cults out of them. It might go something like this: I have this tremendous experience of the enormity of creation and its interconnectedness. From this I know that all things are one. From the knowledge that all are one, I know there to be a super conglomeration of beings I will call God. God has property A, B, C, and not D. And the person reasons on- some things being fairly close to having a basis in what they experienced, some things being derivatives of derivative statements.
But out of deference to truth, I know I cannot and should not do this. I should not derive things that seem to be true but that I cannot know to be true if I am honest with myself. I feel there to be a great oceanic current of consciousness to this world. But as soon as others start talking about this same current, start referring to it as God, I get pretty suspicious of these statements. Why? For me, it is because they are speaking with certainty about things which clearly no person could be certain. They are using language borrowed from history, and dogmas contained therein. They are relying on the assumptions of others, rather than direct experience in most cases. I have a large degree of direct experience myself, and I still know that I can say few things with authority.
I guess this is what I am saying... I think I may have had a handful of the same experiences you may have had. These experiences are tremendous in and of themselves, but I think we have to be very careful to separate what we know from what we suppose.
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