A personal relationship with God.

An atrophied "self" of some kind, then..

Well--he would wouldn't he. Acolytes expect nothing else. It doesn't mean anything outside of him saying it.

I think many people sincerely WANT a real relationship. What I think they have in the end is still sincere, but I doubt real.

T
K
O

FRESCOE

Or, it could be the being that you are striving to be, your real and underlying "self," encouraging the direction to be taken.

In a metaphysical class sometime in the 1980s the teacher described "thesis" and "antithesis" as: Anytime in our life when we reach a little higher than where we are on this ladder of life, we will encounter the antithesis (a challenge!), then when we reach that goal (thesis) we will, of course, set a higher goal and will face a tougher challenge (antithesis) and that this is how we "climb Jacob's ladder" to wherever it is we are looking to get to. As to who "we" are I cannot ever believe that we are these bodies but the energy that sees thru our eyes, feels through our senses.

I like he Big-Bang Theory.

Francis,

There are alternative views of "selfhood". The one I personally (ho ! ho!) subscribe to is Gurdjieff's "committee" of argumentative facets (little me's) with little knowledge of each others existence. To commune with this, there needs to be occasional glimpses of "committee operations" from a vantage point that some have called a "higher level of consciousness". I suggest that those with "God" as a conversation partner are unaware that they are involved in committee debate, And those who favour transcendent holism are trying to categorize the psychology of "the vantage point".

Your progression of thesis-antithesis is similar to Gurdjieff's "law of three" in which ascent is made to higher levels of consciousness. (Gurdjieff probably follows Sufi mysticism. For more try Google)

"Until a man uncovers himself he cannot see."

Is that the filosofy of blind nudists ?

Maybe the rules for sighted nudists depending on the club !