> On the flip side, I don't think we should confuse the "other" part of our inner monologue as G-d speaking back to us.

How would one know? Would not a G_d talk back to us? G_d spoke to Abraham and Moses. The covenant itself comes from a chat with G_d.

I looked up this Hebrew word from a Leonard Cohen song.(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cK4iAjzAoas : You want it darker.. Assassin's Creed trailer). "Hineni". It appears in the Hebrew Scriptures only a handful of times. It means ‘Here I am” and I have often thought about it. I really liked what it meant. Especially the bit about the sacrifice of Isaac on the mount in the Genesis. And when Moses says it during Exodus.

One of the most cliched but likely phased out school morning ritual I recall is the roll call when I was in school. The teacher would sit down with an open ledger and call out our names in alphabetical order. And we have to yell out ‘Present!’.... “Here I am”.

Without the back and forth, there is no acknowledgment from either side. So faith needs a Hineni. Faith needs a “Here I am.” Faith needs a back and forth. It needs a separation between the sacred and the profane. And if we can’t see, hear or touch the sacred, we will have to imagine it.

It also made me wonder...do animals and birds and insects have imagination? Perhaps that’s why they don’t have a God. Imagination is our super power. To not use it would be a pity.

Neurologically, electric impulses in the brain and imbalances of brain chemicals, seizures and epilepsy and injury can cause visions and make us hear voices from god or deja vu or even psychic abilities. This is an illness. This often causes hyper religiousity. To approach god and to realize god as an imagined entity that we will absorb later into our own psyche is not a mental illness. It is entirely rational and it operates with its own control system.

All religions are syncretic from Sumerian/Babylonian times. Even from the oldest recorded words in the Epic of Gilgamesh, we have been hearing the quiet affirmation or the thunderous demands of divinity. Imagined or otherwise.

In Hinduism, there is a concept called Brahman. (Not to be confused with Brahmin who is a person/an individual who engages in priestly activities. A generic wiki entry here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahman)

[..] Brahman (Sanskrit: ब्रह्मन्), (Hindi: ब्रह्म) connotes the highest Universal Principle, the Ultimate Reality in the universe. In major schools of Hindu philosophy, it is the material, efficient, formal and final cause of all that exists. It is the pervasive, infinite, eternal truth and bliss which does not change, yet is the cause of all changes. Brahman as a metaphysical concept refers to the single binding unity behind diversity in all that exists in the universe.[..]

On the other end of the universal cosmic principle aka Brahman is the Atman, the individual soul that is housed in this mortal sheath.

There are two broad schools of religious thought: Dvaita and advaita. Dualism and Non-dualism. Dualism says that there is the soul and then there is the unchanging omniscient godhead.

Non dualism says there is a separation between the individual soul and the universal cosmic principle. But it is temporary. Because there is no difference between the two.

With religion...because we are unable to imagine this all encompassing Brahman, we give it shape and form and names. We pray and talk and offer sacrifices and create rituals.

Believing that the microcosm is in the macrocosm and the macrocosm contains within itself all else will lead us to the Brahman eventually(or at least that’s the hope) and the way it realize the inter connectivity of it all. Because all this is maya.

When I was more atheist/agnostic, I would say all this is shite. I now say all this is maya..illusion. I don’t think I have changed my opinion.("none of this is real") I just use different words.

But surrendering to faith is not easy. To forgive is hard. To accept others as they are is even harder. To accept ‘oneself’ is the hardest part of it all.

I think the rituals, prayers, places of worship, beliefs, pilgrimage..those are the easy parts. That’s no different from any other routine I have or following them is not any more difficult than remembering and following my sequenced kettlebell routine. It’s external. Religion is easy.

Faith is difficult. The line between who you are internally and your ‘god’ is thin and blurred. As is the line between faith and insanity. maybe its fantasy. To be on the side of sanity, the faithful would need to talk to this ‘invisible omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent’ entity called God.

And if we don’t, we’d be called insane for talking to ourselves. And so to compartmentalise my god as separate from me while I sort out this messy business called life is important. To me.

Just woolgathering.