As I said in My Vision of God, I saw God as a reflection of me form the outside. Like, it was like I was my mind alone, and the external world was simply a white space that too was my mind, but it was whiter than white.
The underlying principle, as I’d come to see it later rationally, is that Eeshvara is your own self when you look through the lens of Maaya. Or in other words, Eeshvara has imposed on itself, Maaya to separate itself from the Jeeva-s, thereby creating a dualistic world.
To put it more discretely, to a person who wears rose glasses, the surroundings are rose tinted, and for a person wearing green glasses, the surroundings are green tinted. But a person wearing muddy glasses would see mud in the surroundings. God is likewise always within your vicinity, but because of the mud in your glasses, you never come to that realization.
On how to do clear your glasses, I cannot give you a discrete set of steps though. These glasses are not your eyes, it is your mind. So in one sense, you are the only one who knows your mind. But what is ultimately to be done is to perform the “right” actions as you feel, along all steps, and the simple fact that wrong steps will show you their flaws over time, you will be guided in the right direction, and when you proceed in that direction, you will have your mind cleared.
And I may add, do not follow someone else’s opinion when it contradicts yours. Then you will be led astray from your path. As it is said: “When the right means are used by the wrong person, the right means work in the wrong ways”. This is also said in the Bhagavad Geetha 3.35, śreyān sva-dharmo viguṇaḥ, para-dharmāt sv-anuṣṭhitāt; sva-dharme nidhanaṁ śreyaḥ, para-dharmo bhayāvahaḥ, that it is better to follow your own duty even if it is faulty than to perfectly follow someone else’s duties.
Now one may say, who decides those duties? As per the Bhagavad Geetha 18.59-60, te prakṛitis tvāṁ niyokṣhyati, it is designed into your own nature, and even if you feel like disagreeing with it, your own nature will drive you to it. So while the above statement about duty is given philosophically, what it means in practice is that you will only act as per your nature, and only when you do what is truly in your nature will you feel content.
Now, an average person won’t see a reflection of God without their mind being cleansed. So for them, to walk in the direction of the Godhead, when Karma Yoga seems like a tough path, they should take up the path of Bhakthi Yoga, by devoting themselves to an ideal deity. These descriptions of ideal deities are formed by enlightened seers who have a good notion of the qualities of an ideal deity.
By adhering to the practices of an ideal devotee to the prescribed deity, one would end up modifying the lens of their mind to be able to see that form of the Godhead. To use the glass analogy I mentioned earlier, when one chooses the path of Bhakthi Yoga by initiation, they are getting themselves a new set of glasses to look through, and are exploring the world. Meanwhile, one who takes Karma Yoga is someone who is choosing to clear their own muddy glass to see the Godhead according to their original nature. This is only possible if someone can clear the mud off of their own glasses in their lifetime, and so is a rare condition. I’m lucky to have been in this state.
A Jnaana Yogi on the other hand can try on different glasses. The difference between a Jnaana Yogi and a person who thinks he is a Jnaana Yogi, but isn’t, is that he thinks that all glasses are equal, and so, does not consider the presence of mud on his lenses, and ends up not seeing the real nature of the Godhead, and falls into Samsaara.
Regarding how Vishnu and Shiva are non-separate:
This is a matter of confusion among Vaishnavas and Shaivas. I shall clear it up using Indian theology as well as through empericism. By theology, the Supreme Godhead is too evasive to our finite descriptions, and so any descriptions of his personality and form are limited. And then, names are simply labels we give to entities to identify and refer to them. Likewise, Krishna and Shiva are simply two labels given to the descriptions of the same Godhead, as viewed by different people. The Godhead is not limited by names.
To give an emperical example, well, I’ll stick to the Advaita comic again. One looks at an elephant from different angles and calls it a lot of things. And people label it from such different viewpoints, and they argue over which is the true description of the elephant. The reality is that all of it refers to the same elephant, it’s just that the elephant is larger than their descriptions. Now of course, we could define an elephant in different ways without having confusions, as we study it in science. But when it comes to God, it is still one of the most complex subjects. In fact, in Indian theology, we can never refer to God as an object, because God is the ultimate subject, and so it even transcends any subject-object duality. This is true Advaita, Shuddha Advaitha and Achinthya Bhedha-Abheda. I don’t know well about the rest yet (studying Analyzing Darshanas).