We tend to choose a particular parent, and wind up resembling the parent we chose.
A lot of esoteric posting going on, so I'll chime in with thoughts from Bruce Avenell , founder of The Eureka Society, based on a re-booted (all religion removed) version of surat shabd yoga:
We are taught to think of Creation as a one-story building with an attic (heaven) and a basement (hell). Creation is actually more like a skyscraper with approximately 97 stories going up and 97 basements going down (as above, so below) only the basements are not "hell" (no such thing); but rather levels of lower frequency where lower levels of consciousness go when they dis-incarnate.
There is, indeed, a Master Creator, who has, one might say, a penthouse at the top of the "skyscraper." He is not alone. He has a female counterpart. And they are not alone. They are a part of a much larger community.
This place, this physical world, is a womb, a school, and we are Divine embryos. The Master Creator is indeed a parent, who wants what all parents should want for their children: to become adults in our own right.
It is possible to learn to travel in this skyscraper while still living here in the physical world. Consciousness is a vehicle, it can leave the body as it is not of the body. It can go anywhere.
There is a "helicopter pad" next to the Master Creator's penthouse at the top of the skyscraper, when we launch off of it, into the higher reality, then we have truly been born.
Actually, there are at least 12 to the 12th power (possibly 15 to the 15th power) universes. And there are approximately (I don't know of anyone who has tried to count them) 97 levels, dimensions, realms, whatever you want to call them, between us and the Master Creator. Traditional surat shabd yoga teaches that the path up only goes to Sach Khand (the Heaven of Love) and hanging out there for eternity in bliss is their goal. The rebooted version my teacher espoused utilizes a different access to the higher dimensions which takes one past Sach Khand to the Master Creator.
The "I cry bullshit" is old hat. Not trying to convince anyone, simply sharing an alternative point of view. You think you know what I am talking about when you don't. And if you don't give a shit, then shut the fuck up. I am speaking from personal experience, my own, my teacher's and my fellow students; not quoting something I read about in some text, ancient or not.
The skyscraper is a metaphor, moron. I am not going to bother explaining it to you.
Not retooled; but rebooted, as in all the religious aspects that have accumulated over the years stripped away. This version of meditation is called audinometry: the science of sound.
We have different views of Creation. The discipline I have learned does not teach merging as the ultimate outcome; but being truly born as an individual in a Greater Reality, outside of the Universe of Universes.
I don't normally refer to the levels going up (or down) as dimensions, myself. Most people are familiar with the term "astral realm." The first three levels above the physical are the astral realms. Why would anyone want to travel above them? To find the Master Creator. It is possible to travel to where he is and discuss how everything works with him. Possible to discuss karma with the Lord of Karma (an archaic title, Dean of Higher Education is more descriptive of his duties); he resides just this side of the One Light, where the Master Creator is.