The Search for God: Journey to mySelf

Beyond Religion

As a Spiritual Therapist and Teacher of spiritual growth and meditation, I’m often asked, “Do you believe in God? Do you go to church? Do you pray? How did you get into this anyway?”

These are important questions, and ultimately we each must find the answers for ourselves. I’d like to share my thoughts and feelings on this subject, while leading you to the door of your own understanding.

To begin with, let’s throw out all the ideas we’ve inherited about “God.” Most of us have grown up in a  particular religion which taught very specific concepts of God, along with myriad beliefs about creation, afterlife, as well as numerous moral precepts which we were instructed to follow on pain of becoming a sinner, lost, unclean, or consigned to hell.

I was raised in the Jewish tradition, and as I grew, and read, and studied more, I  became increasingly uncomfortable with the Jaweh of the Old Testament, who seemed to be a “stern, old man with a beard sitting in the sky.” That view didn’t make sense to me. It was so clearly a projection of a patriarchal father-figure, judgmental and demanding, that I couldn’t take it seriously. I just dismissed the whole idea. (But not, by the way, the culture and traditions of Judaism, which were very much a part of my family life when I was growing up, and so remain very dear to me.)

Many of my students and clients are Catholic, or were raised in some denomination of Christianity. They, too, have had difficulty accepting many of the ideas presented to them as gospel when they were younger. It seems that the nature of religion - any religion - is to present a body of teachings that are to be accepted without question, leaving little room for an inquiring mind to explore deeper spiritual issues.

Dissatisfaction with religion often leads people to seek answers elsewhere. We need to step outside of our religious traditions in order to find the truth. While  every religion contains seeds of truth, none contains all the truth. For religions are organizations which need to maintain themselves, and spirituality often gets lost in the process.

Organized religion has been the way man has attempted to connect with God. Certainly, many people do find great comfort and peace in practicing the rituals of their religion, and in joining with others for formal religious worship. Yet there are many individuals now who are seeking something more, something deeper. This thirst for a deeper spiritual connection is being felt by people all over the planet, who feel an emptiness within themselves, who have a longing for meaning and purpose in their lives.

This desire for fulfillment, meaning, and purpose grows from a strong dissatisfaction with the way things are. Our present way of life, based on materialistic values no longer serves us on any level. These values  of power and greed are destroying the very ecosystem which sustains the life of this planet. We know that something is very wrong. We may not know exactly what it is, or what to do about it, but we feel our world crumbling around us. We can hardly breathe the air, our food products lack nourishment, and a deep sense of alienation keeps us separated from one another. Our days are spent in a race with the clock, and we seldom take time to smell the roses. Indeed, we are not only disconnected from one another, we are also disconnected from nature and the earth itself.

In many ways we have been sleepwalking. Now, something within us is stirring, and we’re trying to wake up.

This inner stirring may initially be experienced as a desire for reconnection with spirit. Thus, our search for meaning may become a search for God.

Yet, when this search turns us back to religion, we soon realize that the answer is not there. Often, what we do find are the very values which got us into this mess in the first place: a sense of moral superiority, the need for obedience, an emphasis on guilt, shame, and sin, and the notion that salvation comes by giving up power to some deity.

My own search led me to explore other religions, investigate many teachings, and study various theologies. Eventually, though, I came to realize that the God I was seeking is not some distant giant being in the sky. What, then, is it? Is there any God at all?

Eventually, my discouragement brought me back to basics. I had to start from scratch.

What happens when we clear away all the teachings, all the ideas we’ve inherited, read about, and studied? What are we left with? Inevitably, I came face to face with three basic facts of life: I exist. Nature exists. The universe exists. And none of it is man-made.

From these indisputable facts arose the logical conclusion that there must be a power, a force which created all of this, a Source of All That Is. This Source, this Creative Power, that which we call God , must therefore be an incredible Intelligence/ Love/Wisdom/Power, a Force beyond all imagining.

God, then, is the word we use to indicate the ultimate source of existence, that which brought forth the cosmos, the universe of matter and anti-matter, the world of duality out of the realm of the Absolute. It, God, is the creator of time/space dimensions, and dimensions beyond time and space. It is the pattern and the essence of every particle and wave of energy, every form. It must, therefore, also be the essence of my own beingness.

Thus, does the search for God bring us face to face with our own Self. For rather than seek God out there somewhere, we need to look within. To find God we need to connect with that which is the spiritual dimension, the God-part of our own self.  As you turn you search inward, and begin to explore the nature of your own being, you find that the person you feel yourself to be, your personal identity, is not who you really are.

Beneath all the acquired layers of personality, beneath the feelings of inadequacy, the fears and doubts, there is a Truth of Being that is deeper than this personality self. There is, at the core of your being, a spiritual essence which contains the wisdom, love, beauty, and power that is God.

Peeling away these layers, allowing more and more of this essence to emerge and express itself through your everyday personality self, living in this physical form, in this time and place, is the pathway of spiritual growth, the process of awakening.

You are an evolving being. Religion may have been a step along the way, but as you begin to expand beyond religion to spirituality, you discover the Source of All That Is that lives within you, as YOU. Thus, you grow beyond fear of an external power to feeling your own internal Power. You move beyond obedience to imposed rules, rituals and artificial morality to a deep inner knowing of what is right, what is in harmony with natural law. You recognize a higher authority within your own being, the still, small Voice of Spirit that speaks to you from within.

We are connected with God — Spirit, Creator, Higher Power, at the core of our own being.  As we open our hearts and minds to allow that Spirit to flow freely through us, we find there is no separation between self and Source. Indeed, we are One. God is everywhere. God is the spiritual essence of your own being. Your own soul is a unique expression of the Creator, your own body a temple. Every act becomes a form of worship, every place a sacred space. Your “religion” becomes one of honoring the Divine in all things, seeing the Christ in all people.

Wherever you find yourself on the religious spectrum, sooner or later you will walk this path. This is the path of the mystic.

Whether your search begins with a quest for Truth, a deeper understanding of the nature of reality, a longing for meaning and purpose in life, or a need for comfort and solace from some all-loving being, ultimately your search will lead you back to yourself. Always the search for answers, becomes a process of awakening, the pathway of spiritual growth.

Stages of Awakening

Regardless of your religion, or lack of it, the awakening process often begins with a crisis - a death, a loss, an illness, a major life challenge. Your comfortable world is shattered, and you begin to question the meaning and purpose of it all. You look for answers.

Sometimes, though, there is a more gradual awakening, a growing dissatisfaction with the life you’ve been living, a need for something more. At some point in your life, you look around and ask, “Why am I here?  And what’s it all about anyway?”

My own journey began with a period of deep existential despair during which I found myself staring at the fact of death, the cold, simple fact that death is an inevitable end of life. Of course, every one of us must sooner or later deal with the loss of a loved one, or a pet, and come to grips with death. But this was different. I had not lost anyone. In fact, I had just given birth to my second child. I guess I could feel myself part of the endless chain of procreating humans, perpetuating the species, and at the same time wondered what it was all for. The questions that kept me awake at night, and haunted me throughout the day, were the most basic, yet the most profound questions we can ask: If we’re all going to die anyway, then what’s the point? Why bother? What am I here for? Why have children? And what difference do I make? What was the point of my existence? My brain felt imprisoned, held in by its own limitations, ready to explode. Life and death. Meaning. Purpose. Why?

These questions without answers left me with the sense that the very ground of my being had been whisked away and I was left with nothing to stand on.

Ironically, it was an exciting time to be alive. It was the ‘60’s. Major political and social issues were at the center of our lives. I was active in the anti-Vietnam war movement, became involved in the emerging Women’s consciousness-raising movement, and supported the Civil Rights movement. Yet all of this activity simply highlighted the issue even more: if we’re all going to die anyway, why bother?

There were many sleepless nights. I struggled alone with my “existential crisis,” unable to speak of these feelings to any one, not even my husband. Finally, in one desperate “dark night of the soul” I cried out to the darkness for help, sending my plea out to what I felt to be the emptiness, the void.

The next day, I received my answer. For there, in the neighborhood drug store, I found myself looking at a paperback book entitled “The Sleeping Prophet.” It was the story of Edgar Cayce, a man whose incredible psychic abilities, all documented, enabled him to provide cures for “incurable” illnesses, all while in a deep trance. Moreover, he also indicated that many problems, both physical and emotional, were the result of karma from past-life experiences. Now, of course, reincarnation and karma are almost household words. But, then, in 1967, these ideas filtered into my exhausted brain like a cool rain after a dry, parched summer. The possibility of meaning and purpose, the idea of a Divine Intelligence at work in the Universe, indeed that consciousness continues beyond this little lifespan, was stunning. I was jolted out of despair and into possibility. I came alive.

Thus began my search for knowledge and understanding. One book after another, one teaching after another, they came. No simple, pat answers, but signposts pointing the way: reincarnation, soul evolution, a greater reality, levels and planes of existence, mind as a creative power...a whole new world of possibility began to open up.

The journey took me in many directions. My thirsty mind lapped up new ideas, new possibilities, from parapsychology to healing, to out-of-body experiences, expanding the boundaries of reality. At the same time, I found myself caught in the ultimate paradox: for just as I began to grasp the extraordinary unlimited potentials of mind and spirit, I also saw that my mind, based in the  beliefs of a time/space/matter consensus reality, could not be relied upon for answers. The mind which poses the questions is bound by its concepts of what is and is not possible. The intellect is therefore unreliable as a source of Truth (a fact which modern physicists confirmed when they reported that their own expectations influenced the outcome of their experiments).

Thus, the seeker of Truth has to go beyond the intellect. In other words, you have to be out of your mind in order to discover the true nature of reality! What is required is an expansion of consciousness, an opening to a level of knowing that we can only find when we quiet the mind and stop thinking. This is the level of awareness that is not limited, not caught up in beliefs. It is beyond belief. It is experienced as a deep intuitive knowing. This is the level of awareness that arises from our true spiritual essence, our Beingness. It is the God-mind.

Well, here we are, once again, face to face with God. Once again, let’s clear away all the old concepts. Let’s start from scratch. If we’re to continue on this journey we must empty ourselves of all the ideas, preconceptions, prejudices, and expectations. There is no old man in the sky. We don’t know what God is. We don’t know anything. All of our learning, all of our studies are merely the play of the intellect. Mostly, we are learning of other people’s opinions. We need to find out for ourselves. Reading these words will not teach you anything. They merely point the way. The way is to go within, to explore the nature of your own being: where your thoughts arise from, how your feelings move through your body, what intention causes your toes to move, what fear does to you, how you choose to change the focus of your attention. The only way to know what water is, is to feel its wetness. Drink it. Bathe in it. Wade in it. Swim in it. The way to know God is to experience It.

This is the journey of awakening. The answers really are within.

For me, the best way to begin was to simply observe nature. The beauty, the organization, the perfect interrelationship between the elements, the earth, the growing things, the creatures, and the very fact that nature is. This realm of life, which is not man-made, for me was evidence that some other creative force, some greater power, must exist in the universe. Thus, I came to accept that such a Life Force, with intelligence, was the source of nature, of all life, including myself.

So I, you, we all, have a Source. We were brought forth by a Divine Creator. Divine, because that which brought forth life, is surely of a level of Beingness that is far beyond human. Humans, of course, are quite capable of manipulating life forms. Genetic engineering, cloning, and other such manipulations will soon become acceptable. But humans cannot create something out of nothing. That which brings forth life from the void, is indeed Divine.

The next step was to recognize that this Creative Life Force continues to be part of all that It has created. This life energy is what maintains and sustains all of life, even as it goes through many changes of form, even as it goes through the cycles of death and rebirth, as witnessed in the autumnal decay  and spring renewal.

Life is continuous. The Life Force is indestructible energy. Life is therefore eternal. It is logical then, to say that if this eternal, indestructible Life Force is the essence of all that is, then its also the essence of my being, and therefore I, in the essence of my being, am indestructible, am eternal.

Death, then, is merely the appearance of loss. It is the decay of the physical form, which, following the laws of physical nature, will mix with other elements and be renewed in the natural world. But I, my essence, am not physical and am not subject to those physical laws. I, my essence, is the eternal Life Force, and thus I, my beingness, with consciousness, will continue to exist whether or not I am dwelling in this form.

I am.

These are the immutable Truths that I found: First, as Nature, existence, is not man made, it has a Source which is an awesome Creative Power far beyond what we can know. Secondly, I, too, am a portion of Creation, I too have my Source in that same Creative Power. I am. I exist, therefore my essence is the same eternal Life Force as All That Is. Thus, to know God, I must know myself.

So now the question becomes “Who am I really? Who is this ‘I’ that is eternal?” What is the Self that says, “I am,” which knows itself to be. The changeless, the essence, the pure consciousness of Being. That’s not the same “I” that calls herself Elizabeth. This person is one who may change from day to day, from hour to hour. I receive news that my paper has been accepted to be presented at a conference, and I’m elated. An hour later I’m stuck in traffic, late for an appointment, and I’m irritated. The next day I see I must pay an enormous bill and worry about my finances. And the day after that, I realize that I can pay the bill, and am grateful for all that I have.

The person that I feel myself to be is subject to moods, reacts to changes in weather, gets hungry and tired, dances to music, loves butter pecan ice cream, dislikes being crushed by crowds. This person is affected by conditions and is obviously changeable. Therefore this personhood cannot be the eternal truth of my being. That must be something deeper. For that is the level of Self that simply is, that remains unchangeable through all the reactions and moods. Through all the changes there remains the silent Witness. The Observer. The Knower.

Now the journey  becomes a process of  bringing forth that Self that simply is, to become more and more that one who is centered, aware, knowing, unshakeable, the one who simply says, “I AM.” This is the path of spiritual growth, the process of awakening.

To choose this path is to invite the Creative Power to come into your life more fully, more consciously. It is to open to your own intuition, to guidance, to teachers who will appear in many forms (often disguised as your child, your neighbor, the clerk in the supermarket). Every person, every experience becomes an opportunity to deepen your awareness of truth, and to connect you more fully with your true Inner Self.

Thus, my existential despair led me from an intensive period of study and learning, through engaging fully in my own inner healing and growth process, to the mystical path of experiencing the Divine in my own being and in all of life.