[Smithy1]

What prevents you having a direct real experience of God (call it what you will) is the crap that goes on in your mind. An analogy is to think of God as pure silence and the incessant mind chatter as constant noise. You need to remove the noise to hear the silence. The problem is doing that ain't easy.

The purpose of the external world is for you to do your karma. You can only be born if you have karma to fulfill. From that you gain experience and grow. But it is a meaningless distraction. The path of the return to God is about mastering what happens between your ears. The external world doesn't actually matter, it is an imposed regimen.