William James wrote: "So long as we deal with the cosmic [...] we deal only with symbols of reality. But as soon as we deal with private and personal phenomena, as such, we deal with realities in the complete sense of the term." This is what Carl Jung referred to as knowing in his famous answer to the question whether he believed in God. He replied that he didn't need to believe, he knew.
It seems highly likely to me that each of us carries within us an idea of God or of some power - belief or a willingness to believe. Some choose to reject the idea completely. Those of us who have gone on to contact this inner something have experience - not proof, mind, just experience. It is though an incredibly powerful experience and usually leads to full acceptance of God or God-ness that transcends the mere idea we used to carry - knowledge.
The closest anybody gets with an explanation that reflects my experience is the description of an Inner Light. Divine light is a common factor in a majority of the world's leading religions and is significant in Christianity but Inner Light is more specific. It is at the very centre of the Quaker belief, holding that a certain element of God's own spirit or divine energy exists in every human soul. Friends often refer to this as "that of God in everyone," or sometimes as the "seed," or the "light."
Quakers believe that no first hand knowledge of God is possible except through that which is experienced, or inwardly revealed to the individual human being through the working of God's quickening spirit. So George Fox, in his Journal, is repeatedly shown commending troubled questioners to the "teacher within." In his long, anxious search for eternal life and peace, he found no help until he learned to listen to the inner voice - as the hymn written by a Quaker has it, the "still small voice of calm."
To get to the position Jung describes, I had to go past thought and accept that part of my human mind was not material and was therefore not measurable. I began to accept the realm of the spiritual and to watch rather than think about this part of me in which God-ness might reside.
It seems highly likely to me that each of us carries within us an idea of God or of some power - belief or a willingness to believe. Some choose to reject the idea completely. Those of us who have gone on to contact this inner something have experience - not proof, mind, just experience. It is though an incredibly powerful experience and usually leads to full acceptance of God or God-ness that transcends the mere idea we used to carry - knowledge.
The closest anybody gets with an explanation that reflects my experience is the description of an Inner Light. Divine light is a common factor in a majority of the world's leading religions and is significant in Christianity but Inner Light is more specific. It is at the very centre of the Quaker belief, holding that a certain element of God's own spirit or divine energy exists in every human soul. Friends often refer to this as "that of God in everyone," or sometimes as the "seed," or the "light."
Quakers believe that no first hand knowledge of God is possible except through that which is experienced, or inwardly revealed to the individual human being through the working of God's quickening spirit. So George Fox, in his Journal, is repeatedly shown commending troubled questioners to the "teacher within." In his long, anxious search for eternal life and peace, he found no help until he learned to listen to the inner voice - as the hymn written by a Quaker has it, the "still small voice of calm."
To get to the position Jung describes, I had to go past thought and accept that part of my human mind was not material and was therefore not measurable. I began to accept the realm of the spiritual and to watch rather than think about this part of me in which God-ness might reside.
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