User:Spiritual presence/sandbox

The mystery of Gods presence in the life of humanity has always intrigued me since I attended church as a young child over eighty years ago. At the age of 37 I had a spiritual experience that enabled me to understand this mystery. What we call God is not a physical entity but rather a Spiritual Presence that arises through stimulation of the primal aspect of our brain stem involving the Reticular Activating System. This is the site in the human brain where all our survival instincts have their origin. The initiating influence is through stimulation of neuronal pathways involving the limbic system by repetative prayer or meditation over a prolonged period of time. Such a process activates neuroplastic changes in those structures involved in the sleep/wakefulness cycle leading to an awareness of this spiritual presence, an altruistic belief that our presence on this planet is for a higher evolutionary purpose and not just for the personal pursuit of material and monetry gains. This dramatic alteration in ones outlook on life has been called an Awakening, an Illumination or the Holy Spirit. This spiritual presence is recognised as an internal voice in our native language directing us to lead a life dedicated to the wellbeing of others and is based upon some form of pre-existing faith system such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity or Islam. Known as Cognitive Transcendence in analytical psychology, such a gnostic experience takes some time to be integrated with ones pre-existing sensate memory, as seen in the personal experience of Carl Gustav Jung from 1913 to 1917.