Me, too. But, for much of my adult life, knowing God, knowing mind, or feeling connected to something grander than myself escaped me, eluded, even evaded me. Then, one day, something happened to me and I made a remarkable discovery. Meister Eckhart was right: “The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me.”

So, I write this blog today assuming two things: 1) That God is; and 2) she is knowable. I call God, God but, you might prefer something else as in Being, Transcendence, the Eternal, the Mind, whatever…I have long suspicioned she has many names and aliases.

I’m hardly looking for widespread agreement on these suppositions. Some of you will agree and that’s fine. Others of you won’t and…well…that’s fine, too. If you don’t share these assumptions, you’ll not likely read anything else in this post you agree with either.

What follows in bold text are a few of those things I’ve learned about knowing God or living a Divine life, or being enlightened, or awakened, or, as the Christians love to say, “being saved.”To know God is simply the deep, inner feeling of inexplicable oneness with what is, a kind of wholeness and connectedness with life itself…with God.  I love the way Eckhart Tolle puts it:  ”The word ‘enlightenment’ conjures up the idea of some superhuman accomplishment…it is really just your natural state of felt oneness with Being.”

Here’s what I’ve learned:

Knowing God is the purpose of human existence. It’s why you showed up. It took me half a lifetime of searching before I got this.  I had always thought, and had been taught, there was some “grand purpose” for which I appeared on planet earth…some job nobody else could do…would do…that I was supposed to do. So, I wasted a big chunk of my life looking for what it was.  Perhaps you’ve lived with similar expectations.  When I awakened from this illusion however, I realized there was nothing I was supposed to “do.”  The Divine had done it all. I had shown up to simply enjoy it–that is, to just be.

When you get this, you’re at peace.  The search is over.  The expectations are lifted. Life begins to be genuinely celebrated.  Then, you go on to “do” whatever you wish while enjoying who you are in the process. It is only after you stop looking for what it is that will define who you are…that one big moment or task or recognition that the ego in you craves and so deludes you into believing awaits you just around the “next” corner that you begin to live.

We show up for one reason and one reason only–to walk with God, as did Enoch of old (Gen. 5:24). This is an anthropomorphic way of describing what is the natural experience of deep connectedness with God.  If you read all of Genesis 5, you realize the writer is making the point that Enoch’s contemporaries were born, lived, begat, and died…but, they never got it.  That is, they never quite figured out the simplest, yet the most profound truth about life. It’s all about knowing the Divine, being one with oneself and with what is.

There is something else.  Knowing God takes no effort whatsoever. Effort is the stuff of religion.  Virtually all of them, too. While most religions seem to start out right – that is, with the purpose of helping people know and feel oneness with themselves…with life itself…with the Divine – it isn’t long before they turn this grant from God into some kind of loan that must be repaid with obligations, offerings, obedience, and so forth.

So, with those who’ve left religion for reasons associated with abuse (and those may number in the millions), the real reason most people have left organized religion (but have not left their spiritual longings), is because they’re frankly tired of trying to know a God their religion says requires still more sacrifices…still more duties…still more doctrines to debate over…still more rules to keep…lifestyles to conform to…and so on.

My advice is: don’t make knowing God into a problem…into a performance…into some kind of duty or ritual.  Know that you know God already.  Knowing God is nothing more than the progressive realization of Presence itself, which is why Jesus said, “The kingdom of God is within you” (Lk 17:21). You could not get any closer to God than you are now. So, know that every thought of God, every impulse is grace itself…IS God.

Give your attention to the inclination you feel to know God. I love what Thomas Merton said, “As soon as people are disposed to being alone with God, they are…no matter where they are:  in the monastery, in the city, in the country…in the woods. At the moment it seems they are somewhere in the middle of their journey, they have actually arrived at the destination already.”

Give your attention to the questions you have about God, too…even the doubts. See where that takes you. Your religion might tell you that you should accept the things you’ve doubted or questioned on the basis of faith alone. But, that’s nonsense.  God does not ask you to ignore your questions or disregard your doubts. Faith does not preclude doubt.  Real faith is learning to live in ambiguity…with paradox…with questions for which there may be no answer.

Your questions might frighten the faithful. But, I assure you that your questions are welcomed by God.  She created you with a mind.  Use it.  As I say in The Enoch Factor, “Doubt is no more disbelief than questions are compromise.” The most faithful followers of any faith have been those whose minds doubted, questioned, and so contemplated the inexplicable mysteries of life.

Meditate more often than you medicate.  It is so unfortunate in our western world but, as Christiane Northup has said, “The only acceptable form of western meditation is hospitalization.” I suppose it is conceivable that life would give you whatever you need–even a hospital bed–to help you look within–which is, of course, the only place where you could ever really find yourself or experience the Divine presence. The rabbis say, “God has but one synagogue…the human heart.”

Although I am a devoted follower of Christ, I regularly practice eastern meditative disciplines.  There is much Christians could learn from the spiritual traditions of the east. Ignore those Christian leaders who warn you against meditative practices or yoga or whatever. They’re only admitting they live more from a place of fear and suspicion than they live by faith. For me, and many other practitioners of the Christian tradition, I have the highest regard for those spiritual traditions that, while different from mine in many ways, have enriched my journey nonetheless.  In fact, the more I learn from other traditions the more devoted I am to my own and the more I realize the similarities in all of them.

While Benedictine monks in the Christian tradition know this, most other Christians do not. But, Jesus himself regularly practiced meditation just as his eastern counterparts. What do you think he was doing for forty days and nights as he wandered in the wilderness? (Lk 4:1-13).  On a hunting expedition?  His temptations grew out of his inner impulses.  And, to deal with them, he had to go within in order to find his way out.

You will have to do the same.  Learn to meditate.  To meditate will mediate God’s presence faster than anything I know. Lao Tzu said, “Where there is silence, one finds the anchor to the universe.”

Know that every experience carries within it an expression of the Divine presence.  I am not suggesting that everything you might encounter in life is sent by God.  But, I am saying that everything that happens in life can be the occasion for connecting deeply with the Divine. When I experienced a profound shift in my spiritual life a few years ago, I did so with the realization that life has a way of unfolding as a series of synchronous events that, seemingly coincidental or even random, are actually conspiring together to bring you into union with the Divine. This understanding has been transforming my reaction to and interaction with every experience of life–the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Make it your daily spiritual practice to bring your awareness into the present moment.  When you are here (and not somewhere else in the mind), you will be at peace…in presence. If you haven’t discovered this already, you will likely learn that one of the greatest challenges to living with a felt sense of oneness to God is disciplining the mind and so training it to the “here and now.”

To be in union with God may take no effort but to know that union and so enjoy its blissful benefits…well…that will likely take a lifetime.  Which is why it’s important to get started now and why the sixteenth century Carmelite monk, Brother Lawrence, called this “practicing the presence of God.” Think of this in the way Ernest Hemingway said to think of yourself: “As an apprentice in a craft where you could never become a master.”

Again, don’t make a problem of this.  Just know that knowing God unfolds naturally as you train yourself to give attention to every thought, impulse, or inclination you feel to know God. Recognize the thoughts.  Acknowledge the inclinations, however faint they may be.  It is here you will find peace, enter presence, and so know God.

The ancient sages said that Enoch walked with God (Gen. 5:24).

If he did, so may you.

I realize how absurd this must sound, like something out of the Twilight Zone. And, I suppose, for that very reason, I said nothing about it for years.  But, the presence was so unmistakable that I care no longer what others may think of me when they hear me talk about it.  I must tell this story.  Maya Angelou has this saying, “There’s no greater agony that bearing an untold story inside of you.”  Well, I bore mine for many years.  But, the day finally came when I decided I had to share it.

I first heard of Enoch – this ancient spiritual teacher out of Jewish folklore and mythology – when I was in seminary doing graduate work. I describe all of this in the book so it isn’t necessary to go into the details here.  But, one of my professors, a Jewish scholar himself, spent an entire class period introducing us to Enoch.

Jewish historians remember Enoch in much the same way Easterners remember their spiritual avatars – as one of those rare human souls who attained a spiritual consciousness, or awareness, that seems to escape virtually everyone else.  For example, Enoch is said to have “walked with God.”  Although I cannot be certain of this, I suspect that must mean the same thing as “enlightenment” in Buddhism, what New Agers might describe as the “God-realized life,” or Christians would describe as a person who had experienced an “epiphany.”

I was fascinated by Enoch but, as life does to all of us, I soon laid aside my interest in him and moved on to more pressing matters.  That is, until the day my father died.  Not only did the story of Enoch come back to me, but I felt his presence in the ICU room with me. During that undeniable sensation, all of the pain and sadness I was feeling about my father dying of a stroke lifted.  There, in the presence of death, was this beautiful feeling of stillness…a kind of OK-ness…of peace both in me and around me.

I knew right then and there that one day I would write about this experience.  I did not know when that would be, or what I would say, or even why I would say it.  I only knew I would someday tell the story.  Ten years or so later, I did.  I began writing and, within a span of twenty months, I had given birth to The Enoch Factor: The Sacred Art of Knowing God.

You were born to walk with God, so why would you walk alone?

Enoch is the human archetype of the sacred art of knowing God. History records the myths and legends of persons who lived at a level of God-consciousness never realized by the majority of their contemporaries. A few of them are

Buddha, Abraham, Lao Tzu, Moses, Confucius, Mary the mother of Jesus, Saint Paul, Muhammad, St. Francis of Assisi, and, more recently,Mohandas Gandhi, Mother Teresa, and the Dalai Lama. There are many, many others, of course. Jesus lived at this level, too. In fact, most Christians believe Jesus embodied the Divine presence in his earthly life more completely than any other person who has ever lived.

Throughout history, the people who seemed to have arrived at an advanced level of spiritual awareness were known by specific names. Jews called them tzadikim, Hindus called them avatars, and Christians called them saints.

Labels are unimportant, however. What is more important is that they were rare souls indeed. Enoch was one of these rare souls, too, although not as widely known. Of him, it was said, “Enoch walked with God” (Gen 5:22). Only one other person in the sacred record of Jewish history was said to have reached this level of Divine consciousness. That was Noah (Gen 6:9). The words “walk with God” are an anthropomorphic way of describing closeness, awareness, knowing-ness, and intimacy. Most likely, the words “walking with God” and “knowing God” mean the same thing.

So, what does walking with God, or knowing God, really mean? And, how is this possible?

To know God, or walk with her, means to live your life in the awareness of an indescribable and eternal presence that is within you and all around you, beneath you but also beyond you. It is personal and yet mysterious, real but also surreal. You can know this presence but also not know it. You can experience God, but you will never explain God. When you live your life in union with God, however, you will be at peace with yourself and with the world. You will know joy, too, as well as security and a kind of fearlessness in life. There will be an inner sense that everything is as it’s supposed to be. Anxiety, stress, discontent, and even boredom all but disappear from your life. It is truly remarkable, what the Russian novelist Romain Rolland called, “the oceanic feeling.”

How can one know God? Walk with a consciousness of the Eternal Presence?

1. First, to enjoy an extraordinary life of intimacy with God, you must know that it does not happen by accident. It takes practice to live a God-realized life. “God is not difficult to find,” said Deepak Chopra in Why is God Laughing, “God is impossible to ignore.” And, he is right. But, the more complete picture is, most people go through much of their lives missing God almost all the time. Why? They do not make it their practice to know God. This is why the Carmelite monk, Brother Lawrence, as long ago as the seventeeth century, called the spiritual life “Practicing the presence of God.”

2. Second, don’t misunderstand me. Knowing God takes practice but not practice in the same sense as one would practice improving his or her golf swing by hitting a bucket full of balls at a driving range. There is no effort associated with the kind of practice I’m describing. It’s more like an awareness. When you become aware of your desire to know God, to feel her presence, and so forth, the practice is in giving your attention to that awareness. The more you do–and that’s the meaning of “practice”–the more aware you’ll become of God’s ineffable Presence. I love the way Thomas Merton put it. He was the Trappist Monk who spent much of his adult life at the Abbey of Gethsemane, not more than a few miles from where this article is being written. He said, “As soon as a man is disposed to being alone with God, he is alone with God, no matter where he is: in the country, the monastery, in the woods, in the city…At that moment he sees that though it seems he is in the middle of his journey, he has arrived at his destination already.” Words do not get more beautiful than that.

3. Third, along these same lines, remember that there’s a chasm of difference between intimacy and interaction. With the widespread phenomenon associated with text messaging, e-mail, and cell phones, a visitor from another planet might get the idea that, since humans are always connecting and interacting with each other, they must be friendly toward one another, even intimate and caring. It would not take him long however, to realize that his first impression was an illusion.

Although virtually everyone is endlessly talking and texting, the irony is that we may be the most disconnected, discontented, and dysfunctional generation on record. There is division in almost every family-yours, mine, and the families we know-as well as conflict in relationships both at school and at work. Furthermore, there is division between races, religions, cultures, and nations. People are more divided than perhaps at any other time in the history of the human race.

Conversation is no more communication than sex is intimacy. Communication and intimacy require attention–your attention. In other words, just to boast of praying much doesn’t mean you’re enjoying intimacy with God.  A genuine connectedness to Source goes much deeper than words.  In its purest sense, the Law of Attraction teaches–that to which you give your attention will expand. In other words, if you’ll simply give more of your attention to your spiritual life, your spiritual connectedness to the Presence of God will expand. And, it will so naturally. That is to say, with no effort on your part. That’s all it takes.

A. Your intention to be in union and intimacy with God.

B. And, your attention to those moments when you are aware of God or just have a thought about God.

Make this your spiritual practice and see what happens. This is how “Enoch walked with God.” It’s how we walk with God, too.  So, enjoy the journey.

If you’d like to explore how to walk with God and a host of other questions related to the spiritual life, I’d like to invite you to read the book, The Enoch Factor: The Sacred Art of Knowing God. In it, I share many of the things I’ve learned about this and other important matters pertaining to spirituality. In fact, I’d be happy to send you a complimentary chapter of the book in pdf format, for free. Just send me an email and I’ll shoot you a chapter from The Enoch Factor. Email: steve@stevemcswain.com.