Experiencing God Directly

Quotes from the book by Marshall Davis

“I” cannot experience God, but God is experienced.

By “God” I mean the real conscious Presence which is living our lives.

I wish I could use another word instead of “experience.” That word assumes something is experienced and someone is doing the experiencing. That is not the case. God is not an object to be experienced, and there is no experiencer.

Oneness with God is the open space of wakefulness where experience occurs.

Even the word “God” is problematic when talking about this. I am actually speaking about a non-experience by the no-self of that to which the word “God” points.

In my experience, the best way to know God directly is to explore what is not “I” in my consciousness.

When one makes a careful inquiry into the nature of the personal self, we can see that the “I” is really around only when we think about it, but not when we look directly at it.

We assume the “I” is our real identity, our everyday normal consciousness, but upon examination we see that it is just an occasional actor on the stage of our lives.

God is clearly experienced when our attention is directed away from self to that which is “not-self” in our lives.

God is so close and so simple that He is overlooked.
All we have to do is turn away from our selves, and there is God!

God is literally everywhere in our lives.
Even the “I” exists only in God.

— Marshall Davis in Experiencing God Directly: The Way of Christian Nonduality.

This week, Daily Nonduality is sharing quotes from some fellow Substackers’ excellent books. Wisdom is all around us. It is us. Enjoy.