There is a place in you and me that is the place of Divine Grace – where we’ve been touched, or are being touched even now, in ways inescapable…inexpressible…inexplicable.

Psychologists call this place the PSYCHE; theologians call it the SOUL; Jung called it the UNCONSCIOUS; Hindus call it ATMAN; Buddhists call it DHARMA; Sufis call it QALB; Jesus called it the KINGDOM OF GOD. He said,too, it lies within you (Luke 17:32).

It is a place deep within you where God is; where God is found; or, more accurately, where God finds you. Go there now. That is to say, just give your attention to the stillness within–it’s there. It’s always been there. It is beneath and beyond thought, busy-ness, prayers, words. Go there daily. Make this your practice throughout the new year. If you will, you will change. You will experience this Grace. You will walk with God. This IS the Enoch Factor.

I cannot remember who said it but it goes like this: “When the pain of being the same is greater than the pain of being different you will change.” This is the wisdom behind real change. People will say continually, “I’d like to change this or that in my life,” but they never seem to do it. Why? The pain of being same seems less than the pain of changing. When the two switch places, however, you can be sure change will come. If this is true, then what do you wish to change in your life and what is the pain factor associated?

For years, as I describe in The Enoch Factor, I had serious doubts about my faith, questions about the practices I saw in organized religion, but, for fear of losing my ministerial job, I kept most of my doubts and questions to myself. I pretended to believe things I really did not believe and to say things just the way I thought they were supposed to be said to garnish the approval of others. I wanted to be liked and accepted and admired, I lived mostly for the praise and expectations of others. Instead of being a self-referenced person; I was an “other” referenced person. It was not a pleasant way to live. Yet, I think most people live this way.

Then, one day, everything changed (in my outer circumstances). My father up and died before he was supposed to. My marriage in the months that followed fell apart. My world changed. In time, I began to change within, too. No longer did I want to live by the dictates and expectations and religious dogmas handed down to me that others were comfortable even imposing on me. The pain of begin the same as everyone else was slowly becoming greater than the pain of being myself. The caterpillar in me was giving way to the butterfly.

When this internal shift took place, I changed. I awakened, so to speak, to myself–my real self, beyond the ego that is driven to please, to perform, and to perpetuate sameness within and without. Instead, a whole new way of looking at myself and at my role in the world emerged. I became a self-referenced person, more in tune with the deeper me – my real self in union with Source itself. I became free of the ego-me that drove me to dance to everyone else’s tune. I became me. I became enlightened. I began to fly.

1.  I know who I am…

2.  I question everything

a. The stuff I’ve been taught to believe

b. The thoughts my mind thinks A pretty high percentage of the time, both are wrong.

3.  I do unto myself as I’d have myself do unto me Everybody bitches and complains about the world and the need for change. That in you which incessantly bitches and complains IS the world that needs changing and THAT change will only come from within.

4.  I’ve let go of my regrets (and I’ve had more than my fair share) Anybody who’s been asked, “If you could live life over, would you change anything?” and they respond, “No.” Know this one thing! They’re lying through his/her teeth. Which makes them the same people who’d steal your wallet and never bat an eye. Honest people have many regrets and, given the opportunity, would make different choices.

5.  I look for the lesson in every life experience. There really are no mistakes, said Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

6.  I meditate more often than I medicate…usually!

7.  I practice living in space, not time.

8.  I am FOR – GIVING I am forgiven; I am forgiving; As a consequence, I am FOR – GIVING – if there’s a deficit in generosity, there’s a deficiency of grace.

9.  I think about DEATH daily It is only ever the ego in you that is afraid to die. The deeper you that came from God knows it will one day return to God. How could it ever be fearful of Perfect Love out of which it merged and to which it will return. The ego, on the other hand, your illusory self, what Martha Beck calls “your social self,” well it has plenty to fear but especially death. The ego dies at death. Jesus said, however, the key to life is “to deny self” (his way of saying, let the ego in you die). Muhammad put it like this, “Die before you die or you will die a thousand deaths.”

10.  I die daily, too. I’ll show you how to do the same. This is the ONLY way to, as Gandhi said, “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” Jesus said, “Take up your cross daily” – that’s death daily. But, death to what?

11.  I know why I’m here. The greatest disservice our culture (and that includes the church’s culture) is to teach people, and so create within everyone the expectation, that they showed up for some grand purpose in life that only they could fulfill. Almost daily new books are written on helping you find your destiny, fulfilling your purpose. It’s a whole lot of bullshit, to put it as plain as I know how. You showed up for one purpose and one purpose only: I’ll share what that is in the book.

12.  I am One with all that Is – the UNIVERSE is UNI “one” VERSE or “song” So, the universe is “one song.” This is the enlightenment or, as Christians call it, salvation that changes the world. It is the profound awareness that we are all really ONE – as long as there is the feeling of separation in you to anything or anyone, that’s your growth curve. I’ll show you how to remove the barriers and build bridges. The survival of humanity depends on it. I thought about the Unity pendant being part of the design on the cover too.

Like to know your thoughts. So, what do you think? On the right track? Dump it? Keep going? New title? Other points I’m missing? I’m open to all your wisdom. (Copyright)

I grew up in a very conservative Christian environment. But, if you regularly read my articles, you know I have moved beyond many of those early beliefs, most of which can work as long as you live in a very small, narrow, exclusive, and illusory world.  Which, of course, I did. But, no longer. Given my exposure to other cultures and religious traditions, and at a very young age, I can remember wondering how Christians alone could be right and everyone else wrong. But, I tried for some decades to ignore those inner questions. And, so, I went the way of most Christians. I tried to conform to everyone’s way of thinking and believing, graduated college, went off to seminary, earned a doctorate in theology and pastored for nearly twenty years among Baptist people.  All the while, wondering in my heart, do I really believe all this narrow-minded nonsense I’m expected to preach every Sunday?

You don’t ignore such questions or live an inauthentic life for long. Life will give you whatever you need, or so Eckhart Tolle reminds us, to bring you to a place of awakening.  And, of course, that’s exactly what happened to me. It took the unexpected death of my father and my world crumbled beneath me.  I left the ministry and divorced. And…well…the rest is history, as they say. I wandered and wondered for many years.

Then, one day, I quit struggling, looking, searching and then it happened. I woke up. Might be why I like the Buddha so much. His name means, as you perhaps know, “the awakened one.” In a little way, I think I know what his name means.

Today, I am a devoted follower of Christ.  His way of knowing God is the path I follow. However, I also know that Jesus said, “I have other sheep that are not of this fold…”(John 10:16) meaning, as the Sufi poet said, “There are many gates into the garden; and you need pass through only one.”

So, I prefer to refer to my beliefs today as “perspectives,” as that leaves room for growth and change.  That openness has enabled me to embrace what’s wholesome and good about the diversity one finds even within the Christian community.  In fact, I can say today, “I am Christian, first, as well as a Baptist, a Roman Catholic, a Methodist, a Lutheran, a Presbyterian, an Independent, and so forth.  It also enables me to affirm and embrace the spiritual truth I find in other traditions.  This is what Gandhi meant when he said, “I consider myself a Hindu, Christian, Muslim, Jew…and, so forth.”

If this resonates with your spirit, permit me to make a few recommendations that might help you continue growing in the same direction.

1. Stay open to everything and attached to nothing.  It’s our attachments, in this case to a particular belief system or way of thinking, that creates much of our mental suffering. You can have firm convictions, provided the platform upon which you build your life is made of wood, not cement.

2. In the Christian tradition, St. Paul said, “Work out your own salvation.”  Most Christians misread his meaning. What he’s not saying is that one’s experience of transcendence is manufactured by you or me. Grace is grace because it’s surprising. It shows up the moment you stop struggling to know God, as I try to make clear in my book, The Enoch Factor.

What Paul does mean is that your spiritual growth, in whatever tradition seems right for you, does depend on the attention you give it.  This is the real meaning of the Law of Attraction. There’s so much nonsense written about this fundamental spiritual law. Most of it from very greedy little egos looking for some magical way to make their dreams come true.  The real meaning is that the universe will work with you–it can’t do otherwise–in helping you advance in self-realization and God-realization but…and this is a big but (pardon the pun),–when you make it your intention to awaken and so give your attention to your spiritual awakening.

3. Then, I would suggest you meditate this day, and a little every day, on the rich diversity of spiritual truth experienced and expressed through countless spiritual traditions–not just your own. Sure, affirm your own perspectives and spiritual convictions. But, ask God, or, if you prefer, the universe, to give you an open heart, an open mind, and open hands to embrace all whose perspectives and experiences might be different.

Just a little wisdom today from the myriad of rich and wonderful spiritual traditions – and this from a former Baptist minister.  How’s that for openness?

I left the pastorate nearly two decades ago, broken and disillusioned. Some of the pain I experienced was the consequence of my own life choices. The rest was the consequence of my disillusionment with organized religion. In my estimation, the church had become — and almost universally remains — critically ill. In fact, as I say in my book:

“If the current decline in church attendance were the medical case history of a hospital patient, the diagnosis would read: ‘Chronically ill; resistant to change; on life support; likely terminal.’”
“The church itself is the one institution most in need of the very thing it proclaims to the world — salvation. It boasts of knowing God, but by the sheer numbers who have given up on the church, it is right to question whether the church knows God at all.”(The Enoch Factorhttp://stevemcswain.com, p. 56).

So, I left, in terms of personal involvement and interest. In that respect, I was one of those whom researchers today call nones. The difference is, unlike most, I was a religious leader and a none — that is, a former pastor who had walked away from the ministry. I took up consulting with churches and parishes, Catholic, Evangelical, and Protestant alike. While clearly disingenuous, I didn’t know what else to do. All my professional training was in religion. Besides, I didn’t hate the church. I was just disillusioned by it. Deep within, I held out hope the church would change. I remain hopeful to this day.

I wandered, however, and wondered for many years whether a church existed anywhere that remotely resembled the teachings and practices of Jesus. I found most taught their traditions and practiced them with rigidity. They seemed lost in the madness of their differences from each other, as well as their dogmas, doctrines, and endless debates.

One day, I found such a church – Highland in Louisville, Kentucky. And then — I’m happy to report — I found a few more. To me, they are candles of hope that faintly flicker in a desert of religious darkness. Most churches, however, remain lost.

And so, the decline continues as the exodus escalates. I find it humorous how religious leaders of virtually every Christian denomination try to put a positive spin on their declines. They do so by continually showcasing the few churches in America that are growing. What they do not tell you is that their growth is coming primarily from disenfranchised and disgruntled members of other churches and denominations. Talk about disingenuous.

By some estimates, the exodus has surpassed thirty-four million. Yet, what’s interesting to me is that the majority of these pilgrims still regard themselves as spiritual people. Which, of course, they are. Spirituality isn’t defined by church attendance, theology, doctrine, or practice.

You don’t have to go to church to know God either. As far as I can tell, Jesus himself seldom attended any “organized religious” gatherings of his day. The few times he did, the guardians of madness drove him out. At least once, he got mad enough to drive them out. For the most part, however, Jesus practiced his spirituality outside the Temple or synagogue. But, anyone who has read the New Testament would know this.

So, last year, I finished writing the book to chronicle my own spiritual journey — that is, how I’ve learned to walk with God beyond the insanity that is so much of religion today. Throughout, I display quotes and teachings from virtually every major religious tradition in the world. I know now there really has only ever been one spiritual truth — experienced and expressed in the context of a variety of different cultures and traditions. In other words, any and all spiritual traditions will speak to the inner you, just as they do me — that is, if you’re open to them and not so attached to your own beliefs that you can neither respect nor receive the truth found in others.

What I could never have predicted is the impact this book is having, as well as other things I’ve written since its publication for the Huffington Post, the Washington Post, and others. It hasn’t been limited to the US either. Almost daily, I receive emails and Facebook friend requests from people everywhere. Just this morning, in fact, from a spiritual seeker in Bloemfontein, Free State, a province of South Africa. Most of these people have left organized Christianity or some other tradition, since much of the insanity found in the Christian church is found in other religious traditions, too. They are still interested, however, in a spiritual life.

This is becoming a kind of virtual congregation. And, quite honestly, I like the thought of it, perhaps because, although I left the pastorate many years ago, I never left my desire to help others in their spiritual walk.

Where will this go? Who knows? Frankly, it really doesn’t matter. What does matter is that thirty-four million people know that spirituality isn’t defined by a council of clergy-persons or a crowd gathering weekly to shout, shake, shiver, or do nothing but sit. It is instead defined by how you think, the way you live, and, perhaps mostly, by the way you treat yourself and others. Jesus said, “Love God. Love others. Love yourself” (Luke 10:27). Doesn’t get much clearer than that.

Something else Jesus said is that “this is eternal life, that they know you (God)” (John 17:3). Eternal life for most churchgoers is some far off fairytale they’ve got to die to find. That doesn’t seem to be the point Jesus was making. Knowing God is eternal life and the knowing is now. If what I write should help just one none is his or her knowing, for what more could I ask? So, whether you still walk beside or within an organized faith or religious tradition, know that you can walk with God. In fact, you do already.

I’m curious. Are you a none? Did you leave the church, too? Or, some other religious tradition? I wonder why? Still interested in spiritual things? I’ll be watching for your comments as well as your contacts. Blessed journey.

The spiritual wisdom expressed below has not only been around for centuries but is available to anyone.  The key is to know it for yourself and this kind of knowingness is more than head stuff.  It is the kind of knowing that could only eer be fashioned in the crucible of your spiritual practice.  In other words, to live the life you really want means you must make the following wisdom your spiritual practice.  Daily.

1. Know your real purpose in life.  Leo Tolstoy said, “Without knowing what I am and why I’m here, life is impossible.”  Your purpose has nothing whatsoever to do with career or calling, your profession or position.  Virtually everyone looks for it in such things because our culture is wired this way.  We tell people that there’s some grand purpose that only they can fulfill and that their first task is to figure out what it is. Unfortunately, however, most people who believe this nonsense spend the greater part of their lives searching for this purpose but seldom finding it.  You showed up for one purpose—to know and to walk in oneness with the Divine, in self-unity and oneness with all that is.  I describe all of this at length in The Enoch Factor.
2. Question all of what you hear and most of what you think.  Why? Until you question what you’ve been taught or learned by osmosis, it cannot be yours—really yours.  Also, most of what we think is not accurate anyway, which is why Byron Katie counsels people in whatever situation they’re in or whatever the thoughts they might be having about the situation, to do “the work,” as she calls it. The “work” is a series of questions you should ask yourself: “Is what I’m thinking true?” “Can I be absolutely certain it’s true?” If you’re honest, you’ll admit to yourself at this point of self-inquiry that you cannot be absolutely certain about much of anything. Then, given that reality, there’s the question, “What do I feel or think, or how do I react, whenever I believe this thought is absolutely true?” And, finally, “Who would I be, or how would I feel, if I gave up this thought?” What Katie calls “the work” works. Euripides said, “Question everything; learn something; answer nothing.”
3. When Saint Paul said, “Pray without ceasing” (1 Thess. 4:13-17), he was not suggesting that we kneel continually or lock ourselves in some synagogue, temple or church and recite prayers all day.  He’s talking about a way of living, a kind of meditative practice…what easterners would describe as “mindfulness.”  So, meditate at least twice as often as you medicate.  The former is foreign to most westerners; the latter isn’t.  Furthermore, most of us could use a whole lot more of the former and a lot less of the latter.  What’s the point of mediation?  Pema Chodron answers that best: “We sit in meditation, not to become good meditators, but to become more awake in our lives.”
4. “For all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these: ‘It might have been’,” or so wrote the abolitionist John Greenleaf Whittier.  In other words, Let go of your regrets.  When asked if they’d change anything were they to have the opportunity to live their lives over, those who say, “No, I would change nothing,” are lying. Everyone has regrets. And, most of us have many of them. Regrets are normal.  But, to carry them around like one would tote a backpack is not.  Think of regrets as Divine reminders of what’s needed now—some kind of action, as in first and foremost self-forgiveness.  Write the letter. Make the phone call. Instead of waiting on their apology, reach out to the person who offended you.  Take action and do it now.
5. Do unto yourself as you would have your self do unto you.” Slightly different twist on an old truth.  Jesus said, Judge not (Matt. 7:1).  Make no mistake. He’s not suggesting you never exercise discernment or make choices or even judgments about what’s right for you.  Instead, he calls for an end the incessant fault-finding, complaining, and finger-pointing that’s so characteristic of many interpersonal relationships.  You do to others what you do to yourself.  You do to yourself what you do to others. So, do unto yourself what you’d have your self do unto you. Try it and see what happens, both in your relationship to yourself and in your relationship to others.
6. There’s something else Jesus said, “Love your enemies” (Matt. 5:43-48), which means, have no enemies. The Buddha put it like this: “My enemy is really my friend.” These are radical teachings, which is why they’re almost universally ignored. To live like this, however, is transformational.  And, what is transformed is YOU.
7. When you have the choice of being right or being kind, choose kind. Can’t remember who said this but I’ve never forgotten it.  It’s the key to avoiding needless arguments and debates and the resulting division that too frequently occurs between people.  Words are like arrows. Once released, they can never be reclaimed. Their harm can be almost irreparable, too. So, choose to be kind.  Kindness is always a choice.
8. Know that there are no accidents.  Saint Paul said, “All things work together for your good…” (Rom. 8:28).  Know that everything in your life is not a coincidence but a Divine-cident.  This is why, in A Course in Miracles, the question is asked, “How would you live if you but knew that everything that happens to you is planned by One who has nothing but your best intest at heart?”  Or, to state it another way, as it is in The Enoch Factor, “All events in life, though they may seem coincidental or random, are actually conspiring together to bring you into unity with the Divine.”  The more you come to know this, the less you will resist what is.  Or, in the words of Pema Chodron, “Nothing you are experiencing disappears until you learn the lesson it was sent to teach you.” When you learn the lesson, the consequence of that kind of knowingness could only ever be tranquility and peace.
9. Think about death at least as often as you think about life.  Does that sound morbid?  If you deny, or simply disregard the reality of death—your death, it will.  Woody Allen once quipped, “I’d like to achieve immortality through not dying.”  Cute, but the fact is, death is your destiny—your only real destiny. So, work on knowing for yourself what Leonardo de Vinci said. “All my life I’ve thought I was learning how to live; now I realize I’ve really been learning how to die.”
10. Be For-Giving.  There are two ways to understand this. One is to be on the side of generosity—that is, to be for giving.  Why? It’s the secret of happiness. You will never meet a genuinely generous person who is, at one-and-the-same-time, an unhappy person.  The two realities cannot coexist in the same person. Miserable people are miserly people. The other way to understand the words, “Be for-giving,” is to be forgiving—that is, to practice the art of forgiveness.  What I’ve learned is that the deeper your experience of forgiveness, the higher your capacity to be forgiving.  If you cannot forgive, know that there’s something inside of you that you’ve never forgiven.

These are the secrets to living the life you’ve always wanted.  But again, they’re not really secrets; instead, simple wisdom to the pathway of living.  So, think of yourself, as Ernest Hemingway put it, “as an apprentice in a craft where you could never become a master.”  Life requires practice.  Daily.

Instead of a bridge to God, religion is often a barrier to God.

Instead of freeing people from their burdens, religion itself is the burden.

Instead of knowing God, religion is obsessed with knowing about God.

Instead of divine acceptance, religion is preoccupied with guilt and failure, and the depiction of God as a deity displeased about both.

Instead of bringing unity to humanity, religion is the principle cause of most disunity, with its endlessly expanding hard-drive of beliefs, dogmas and doctrines around which little egos collect to argue, debate and ultimately divide.

Instead of peace and tranquility, religion is, for many its practitioners, a circus of endless activity, programs and meetings all of which are time-consuming and exhausting.

Since I know other religions only as an outsider, I’ll reserve my observations to what I know best as an insider to Christianity. I’m certain, however, many of the same problems could be found in other faith traditions as well.

To begin, it is not a little ironic to me that the literal meaning of the word religion is “to return to bondage.” It comes from two words, the prefix re meaning, “to return” and the root legare meaning, “to bind.” Since everyone wants freedom and happiness and many turn to religion to find it, the regrettable consequence is that too often the only thing they get is greater enslavement.

Here’s are a few random observations of mine:

Many churches and church leaders seem obsessed with achieving the status of being the biggest church with the largest crowds and the most elaborate campuses. In the last 10 years alone, for example, churches have spent more than $100 billion on buildings and facilities while 400 million people starved to death somewhere in the world during that same period. Something is horribly wrong with this picture. Church leaders measure spiritual progress in terms of the number of attendees, the size of their annual income and the square footage of their facilities. Furthermore, virtually every Christian leadership conference lauds the largest of these churches and their leaders as if they were role models for all other churches.

Additionally, churches and church leaders saddle their followers with a catalogue of “dos” and “don’ts” as onerous as the proverbial Sears catalogue. They are told what to think, how to believe, and the way they are supposed to live. Furthermore, many Christian leaders disregard the fact that Jesus himself repudiated the religious leaders in his day for doing this very thing to the followers of Judaism (Matt. 23:4).

And, what of the “circus of endless activity?” Have you been in a church lately? Were it not for the cross at the top of the building, you might think you had just stepped inside the big tent at a Barnum-and-Bailey circus. It’s not only a wheel of perpetual and often pointless activity in many churches, but leaders seem to take pride in the fact that their church has become a 24/7 operation. All that really means is that the members have no time or energy to be “salt and light” in their communities because they’re incarcerated in a church with its plethora of activities.

Churches are neurotically preoccupied with peripheral matters of faith, too. They argue theology and debate over the Bible almost incessantly. Their beliefs and dogmas are imposed on believing and unbelieving people alike. In the throes of this kind of madness, it is not surprising that millions of believers are leaving the church in greater numbers today than ever before in the history of the Christian church.

Replacing members they are losing, as well as the equally difficult task of keeping the ones they have, are among the most important priorities facing ministers today. Whether they wish to or not, they are forced to spend an inordinate amount of time looking for the latest gimmick to attract people through the front door, just to counter their mounting losses out the back. If they succeed in getting people to come, then the rest of their time is spent trying to get them to stay. Churches actually compete with each other the way Las Vegas hotels compete for the best show in town. Since the mega churches can afford the more expensive talent, they have a manifest and unfair advantage over almost all other churches. The churches in America that are growing numerically, and there are only a scant few anymore, are finding that their growth comes largely from the disgruntled, disenfranchised or burned-out members who’ve left other churches. Mega churches are filled with people who desire a spiritual connect to God but want nothing to do with the madness of busy-ness that is most churches today.

Rather than mutually respecting and affirming the one and only thing all religions share in common, which is their diverse ways of knowing peace and Presence, religious leaders become preoccupied with what distinguishes them in terms of their beliefs, doctrines, viewpoints and so on. Whenever they do, which is most of the time, it isn’t long before they begin insisting that their beliefs are right and by implication the beliefs of others are wrong. The inevitable consequence is disagreement, division and even destruction. Unless this madness ends, and soon, religious people will end up destroying the very world their religion has evolved to redeem.

I feel more strongly today than ever before that the future of humanity is at stake. Unless there are profound changes in human consciousness — changes in how we understand ourselves and this universe, how we look at each other, as well as how we treat each other — I sometimes wonder if there is much hope for humanity’s survival. The Dalai Lama is right, “Until there is peace between religions, there can be no peace in the world.”

Here’s what I think must happen:

First, accept the fact that there will always be many religions. No one religion will ever convert the whole world to its way of believing. How do I know this? Followers within the same religion can’t even agree on everything and so have divided into an almost endless number of sects and denominations. In Christianity, for example, there are more denominations than there are flavors of Baskin-Robbins ice cream.

Noted historian, Huston Smith, once observed: “…if we were to find ourselves with a single religion tomorrow, it is likely that there would be two the day after.” So, what does this mean? Just what John Coats said recently in a HuffPost article, “Your place at this table is a given.” In other words, we must make room, not only for all Christians, churches and their denominations, but for all religions as well.

Second, religious leaders must continually remind themselves of the supreme purpose of their religion — to bring followers into a meaningful relationship with the Divine — and stick to this purpose. Everything else is secondary. However, if secondary matters — things like your understanding of the Divine, your beliefs or your group’s beliefs, and so forth — are given a place of preeminence, the eventual consequence is a feeling of superiority. That feeling quickly gets ugly and, when it does — and it always does — no good thing will ever come of it.

So again, there must be room at this table for everyone. How? The only way to accomplish this is to grow up. Your ego (and the arrogance around it), as well as the collective ego of your group, must die, which is what Jesus meant when he said “Deny yourself,” (Mark 10:37) or the Buddha meant when he referred to “anata,” or “no self.”

Just call it maturity if these concepts don’t work for you: the capacity to cherish your individual beliefs while making room for the differing beliefs of others. F. Scott Fitzgerald put it something like this, “The mark of maturity is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in the mind at the same time and still be at peace.” Religious people who continually debate, defend and then demand their way of believing is the “right” way or, worse, the “only” way are only revealing their immaturity, as well as inability, to live with paradox, ambiguity and, most important, to live by grace and with grace.

Third, I would suggest you make the effort to forgive your faith tradition for its failures. There is so much anger and well-deserved rage toward the church, particularly from those who’ve been damaged or disenfranchised by it. I was one of these persons myself but, since I describe that story in detail in The Enoch Factor, it isn’t necessary to go into it here. Suffice to say, forgiveness will be no small task for many of people. The injury inflicted on them by the church is not only inexcusable, it is in countless instances so inconceivable, even horrific in nature, it borders on being unforgivable. I admit there are times I fight the impulse to walk away from it myself. I still find it incomprehensible, for example, even reprehensible, how the church could expect gays and lesbians to return to the proverbial closet, as someone so eloquently put it, while hiding, as well as protecting, clergy pedophiles in its own closets. If you haven’t forgiven your religious tradition for its insanity, or simply cannot just yet, know that I completely understand. For myself, however, I’ve chosen to forgive and, of course, that’s what forgiveness really is: a choice.

Finally, the fighting must end, too. And, this statement isn’t directed just to Islamic fundamentalists but to Christian fundamentalists, too. The former use weapons to destroy people who don’t agree with them. The latter use a little belief system they call the Rapture against those who don’t agree with them. This system has no Biblical basis as any scholar knows but it postulates that Jesus will return to earth, hover in the clouds while Christians are zapped from the earth, leaving behind all disbelievers.

It’s a belief system straight out of the comic books, which is the irony because, if Christians actually knew where the idea of the Rapture came — which of course they do not — they would reject it outright. Meanwhile, however, belief in the Rapture serves as a convenient way to take revenge on disbelievers or all of those whom Christians have failed to convert to Christianity.

Thinking Christians know that, whatever was meant by the words of Jesus’ return to earth, the New Testament passages that speak of this all suggest it will only occur when people least expect it. Since fundamentalist Christians are all looking for Jesus’ return, they do not realize but they are likely responsible for his delay.

Again, just as it is outlandish to believe your religion is going to convert the world to its way of thinking, it is equally outlandish to develop a belief system that would leave behind the world you can’t convert. We’ve got to learn to get along. “No tree has branches so foolish as to fight among themselves” (Native American wisdom).

Whenever God is referred to as a “he” I’m inclined to respond with, “SHE is everywhere.”  Of course, God is neither male nor female and God is nowhere, yet everywhere, too.  To say much more than this, however, either about who God is or the location of God is somewhat problematic.

I do not wish to be evasive here but it is hard to speak of God without using words that are limiting themselves.  So, I prefer to say very little.  What I will say is this: whether you call God, God, or by some other designation (since the Divine has many alias and many names – more than a thousand names in Hinduism alone), it really does not matter. What does matter is that you touch the infinite or, in the words of Thich Nhat Hahn, “touch the Father.”

For example, in The Enoch Factor, you likely know I both open and close the book with the statement and question: “You were born to walk with God, so why would you walk alone?” Again, I use the name God and I’m obviously being a bit anthropomorphic here in attributing to deity a human experience or idiom – that of “walking.” But the point is, the purpose of human existence is to know a meaningful connection with transcendence, the infinite, the eternal, how ever you may conceptualize it or name you may call this “otherness” that is among us and, dare I say, IS us.

In the East, they say, “the raindrop knows no greater joy than when it merges with the sea.”  And, for me, that’s it! That’s the point of human existence.  Now, when you know this, there is no debating about the “existence of God.”  Why would you debate or argue for that which you know already?  You only argue and debate about the things you do not know with any certainty.  Now, it is for this same reason that St. Augustine said, “Our hearts are restless until they find rest in Thee.”

So, who is God and where is she?  Well, I would have to say your guess is as good as mine.  I do not know the answer to these questions.  What I do know is that I have had in my life, which I write about in the book, a most profound and transformative experience of the divine, of God, of transcendence, or, maybe I should say that what has happened to me is that I’ve had a profound experience of inner union with myself – the self with itself – or, maybe that what has happened to me is that which the Buddha would describe as arriving at the place of “anata,” or no self – by which he means no ego – just oneness with oneself and oneness with what is.

I do not know.  What I do know is that this all sounds so paradoxical, even contradictory and, of course, it is. It cannot be otherwise, it seems to me, whenever you try to describe God or your experience of what the French novelist, Romain Rolland called, “the oceanic feeling.”

I did nothing to know what I know. This spiritual transformation of consciousness—which I could describe in any number of ways – as a Christian, I could call it conversion; as a Zen Buddhist or Hindu, I could label it a satori or even enlightenment; as a New Ager, I might call it an awakening – but, of course, these are all just words or labels, mere pointers to a reality that defies explanation.  This much I can say with absolute certainty, it was an experience of profound grace, not a reward for anything I had done or achieved.  One of my own spiritual teachers puts it like this: “God is not difficult to find; God is impossible to ignore.”  In other words, when it finally dawns on you, as it did me, that there is nothing you can do to find God, and you give up the struggle—which is what religion often becomes, a struggle—the amazing thing is that this is precisely the moment at which God finds you.  So, I ask you, what could be more important than this?

2.  Your own spiritual journey has led you to question established and dogmatic religious institutions. What are the main problems you see with all religions?

Parmahansa Yogananda once said, “All religions serve the same purpose: to reunite the soul with the Supreme Soul, with God.”  Even in Buddhism, where there is no actual acknowledgement of a supreme being, the purpose is still the same: to unite the self with itself.  That is, to bring wholeness with or to free one of the internal struggle of the soul and the consequential suffering that is the result. While all religions start out with this lofty purpose virtually every religion eventually loses its way.  How so?

First, my own observation is that there is no exception to this.  Sooner or later—and it’s usually sooner than later—all religions become a burden, instead of the blessing they’re intended to be.  For example, instead of freeing people of their burdens, religion instead becomes the burden to people with an ever-increasing belief system and catalogue of “do’s” and “don’ts” as onerous as the proverbial Sears catalogue.  Instead of religion pointing the way to God, it’s as if the religion itself becomes God.  Which gives meaning to what they say in the East – “the finger pointing to the moon is not the moon.”  Well, we know that, but religion often forgets that.  And, this is its danger. It becomes the moon instead of the finger pointing toward it.

Take the life of Jesus as a further example.  When he appeared on the scene of human history, he found himself steeped in a religious system that had become infinitely complex and equally dysfunctional.  I suspect what he found then is not entirely unlike what he would find today in most religions but, perhaps especially, in Christianity, my own faith tradition.

And, what is it that Jesus found?  A religion that was saddled with enough rules and regulations that it would rival the US Tax Code.  What had started out as a means of knowing the Infinite became a mad and insane stumbling block instead.  The madness is further complicated when religions get lost in their own collective insanity—collective ego—and begin to believe “We’re right, You’re wrong,” “We’re the chosen ones, You’re not” and so forth.  They debate among themselves, cannot agree on much of anything, divide and then spend a great amount of energy defending their view of truth, their understanding of God, and, meanwhile, followers either get caught up in that madness and so lose themselves in it—that is, they are religious but in terms of knowing intimacy with Infinite themselves, a sense of inner peace and tranquility, freedom from the burdens of this life—they know anything but any of this.  Or, at the other end, there are those that see this madness and run from it.  Then, they either reject religion altogether, find another religion and soon see the same madness there, or—and this is the preferred—they awaken out of the insanity and discover the living Presence within them.  That is, God finds them and they step out of the madness and into the Eternal and Ineffable Presence itself.

This is essentially what happened to me, too.  I describe in detail in the book just how religious but lost I was, so it isn’t necessary to go into detail here.  Suffice to say, however, what happened to me happens to religious people in virtually every religion all the time. People burn out, wear out, give out, and eventually give up on religion and walk away which is what the American Religious Identification Survey recently pointed out is happening within organized religion today.  Some 34 million Americans (and many, if not most, of these were raised in Christian churches) have given up on religion.  Well, I can understand why they have.  And, in many respects, I have written this book for them.  I want them to know that there is a place for them in the Eternal Presence and that, although they may have walked away from organized religion, there is no reason in walking away from God.  So, I’ve written to help them know how they, too, might know an intimacy with the Divine that’s outside organized religion.  I’ve also written to help those who, for whatever reason, have tried to stay within their faith tradition but have become disillusioned, as well as frustrated, with it.

Religion, you see, is like a billboard sign you might observe along a highway just fifty miles, let’s say, south of New York City.  The sign reads, “Experience New York City Today—Straight Ahead, Just 50 Miles.”  Now, the significance of the sign to you the driver is that you know you’re headed in the right direction and, if you keep going in that direction, you’ll soon arrive in New York and avail yourself of the full experience of that incredible city.  So, the sign is a pointer of what’s ahead. But, suppose you pull over to the shoulder of the road and decide to just stare at the sign or become enamoured and obsessed with the sign?   This is what has happened in many religions, Christianity notwithstanding.

3.  Can people be religiously tolerant and also believe they practice the one and only true religion?

I am and I do.  So, can others?  Now, that doesn’t mean I view my religion as the “one and only true religion.” I view all religions as one might view the stars in the heavens.  Some shine more brightly than others but they all provide light.  In the Bahai faith there’s a saying, “Many lamps, One light.”  For me, in Christianity, Jesus embodies perhaps the greatest light of truth as to who God is and what God is like of any person who ever lived.  But, others have lived at a similarly enlightened awareness or consciousness – Moses, Muhammad, the Buddha, and others.

So, I think it all depends on whether your belief system has become your god or if your belief system is understood by you as a way of describing, understanding, and expressing your experience of that which is above and beyond description, understanding or expression—but that is all it is, then you can make room for others.  Your God is only as big as you allow her to be. If you let your ego find its sense of self and identity in a belief system, then it’ll develop an exclusivity around it and feed off being right by making others wrong.

For me, Christianity, or more accurately, Christ is the embodiment of a really big God and it is this faith expression that best explains for me my experience of God.  But, I find great meaning in many of the teachings I discover in other religions, too.  In fact, virtually all of those teachings, rather than making me less Christian, have helped me evolve into being a better Christian within my own faith expression.  And, by that, I mean, one who not only better understands the teachings of Jesus but how to apply those teachings to my life.  In other words, I am a much better follower of Jesus today, not because I reject other religions and believe that Christ is the only way of knowing God, but precisely because I embrace the light of spiritual truth wherever I may find it.  This openness, it seems to me, is necessary for the evolution of one’s own spiritual consciousness.

Being a follower of Christ does not mean I define my life by a cadre of beliefs.  It means I pattern my life after Jesus and how I understood him to have thought, to spoken, and so to have lived his life.  Jesus invited people to “Follow me,” as he put it.  But, what does that really mean? To just believe certain things about Jesus?  Well, that’s what many in the church mistakenly think. So, what you have today is a country where 80% to 90% of all Americans say they believe in Jesus.  But, as the religious survey recently pointed out, most of these same people have no clue whatsoever what Jesus thought and taught, nor how he lived his life.  Well, I’m inclined to feel, it really doesn’t matter whether you go to church every week or, as I did, act as religious leader of a Christian congregation.  You’re not a real follower of Jesus until you make it your spiritual practice to think as he thought and so to live as he lived.

For example, Jesus was clearly opposed to war of any kind.  You cannot read the New Testament and draw any other conclusion.  Furthermore, he instructed his followers to “have no enemies.”  Yet, the church today is full of people who believe in Jesus but disregard his admonition, “Those who live by the sword die by it,” and so they are quick to defend going to war and they live with many enemies.  So, my question of them would be, “How do you reconcile saying you’re a follower of Jesus and, yet, defend going to war or having enemies of any kind?”

Well, for me, I cannot.  So, it all comes back to your question, “Yes, you can be tolerant of any and all religions,” but only when, as Jesus instructed, you have “denied yourself,” and with it all the beliefs to which the self, or the ego, attaches itself and, instead, follow his way of living unto God.  In my own life, I am becoming increasingly conscious of the ineffable presence I call God and its precisely because, as a follower of Jesus’ way of knowing God, I make it my spiritual practice to think and live as he did.  But, there are others who may know God by choosing to follow a different spiritual path. There is only one spiritual truth and each faith tradition gives its historical and cultural expression to it. There is no contradiction here. It may be paradoxical, but it is not necessarily an irreconcilable contradiction. The Israeli writer Halevi spoke of “the possibility of accommodating a competing narrative.” Well, unless you have spiritual awakened, this won’t be possible for you.  There will be no accommodation. It’ll be “My way or the Trailways,” so to speak.  You will mistakenly think your way is the only way to know Eternal Truth.  Friedrich Nietzsche said, “You have your way, I have my way. As for the correct way, or the only way, it does not exist.”

4.  There is a great debate among religions happening over morality today. This struggle is playing out between hard-line conservative faiths and more liberal and progressive churches. Disagreements over homosexuality and women’s place in the church are at the heart of the struggle. How can we discover which points of view God supports?

There will always be different points of view over such issues as abortion, homosexuality, euthanasia, the role of women in religious leadership roles, and so on.  Legitimate differences.  We will never see eye to eye, as they say, on all matters like this, any more than we will ever have only one religion.  This is why it is so arrogant for a religious person to feel that his or her religion is the only correct one and so feel compelled to convert everyone to his or her belief system.  It will never happen. Given time, every religion eventually sub-divides into a plethora of sub-sets.

For example, Christianity began as a small group following after the teachings of Jesus.  Some scholars believe they were known as “people of The Way.”  In time, however, they organized and began jockeying for position and power.  The little egos in them looked for ways to control the beliefs, as well as the direction of the early Christian Church. Well, if you’re a student of Christian history, you know that, by the time of Emperor Constantine, around the 4^th century, he declared the Christian faith to be the official religion of the Roman Empire.  This catapulted to the church in its growth and power.  What we know today as the Catholic Church.

It wasn’t long before the Catholic Church divided – East from the West—which gave birth to the Eastern Orthodox Church. Then, there was the split when England broke away from the Catholic Church and the Anglican Church was birthed and, I could go on and on, with the Protestant Reformation and down to the present.  Today, there are something like 20,000 different denominations within the Christian Church alone.

I’m told in Hinduism, there is a subdivision of sects and groups within that religious tradition so vastly complex it would make the Christian Church’s denominations look sophomoric by comparison.  The only explanation for this is that, Hinduism has been around hundreds and hundreds years longer than Christianity.  Given some more time, the destiny of Christianity will be the same.

So, my point is simply this.  If you cannot get the people within the same religious tradition to agree on what they believe, then it isn’t possible to get everyone to agree on other issues, moral issues like the ones you mention in your question and, of course, there are others.

It comes down to this, as a consequence.  Do you have the spiritual capacity—are you awake enough, secure enough in your own faith—to be able to disagree agreeably.  I have many beliefs about many things but I do not cling to them too tightly.  I try to guard against finding my identity in my beliefs or allow my ego to get attached to my beliefs because, when I do, I feel threatened whenever anyone questions or disagrees with my beliefs.  So I call my beliefs in the book, as you know, my perspectives on things.  “Perspectives” doesn’t sound so binding or so rigid as to resist being changed or altered.

The capacity to live like this is one of the consequences of an awakened spiritual life.  Until you awaken, however, you will make the mistake, as I did for most of my adult life, of thinking that you are your beliefs (which are really just thoughts, opinions, concepts, or ideas) that have been endowed with a sense of self.  This is the danger.  This is what causes arguments, debates, division, and the insanity of people saying they speak for God or they know what God would approve and disapprove.  But, of course, they don’t. No one does. You have an opinion and opinions like everything else transitory, is impermanent, as the Buddha reminded us over and over again. It is passing away.

What happens however is that the ego loves to think it’s understanding of things is right. So, it’ll wrap itself around a thought, an opinion, a viewpoint and so argue to defend it and fight to protect it.  Why? It makes it feel more permanent, enduring, even righteous, even god-like. But, of course, it is an illusion.  A deception.  It’s also an insane way to live and yet it is the way most people live their lives.  I did, too until the awakening within me.  Today, I live virtually free of the madness of the ego. I say “virtually” because I do not wish to convey the notion that I’ve attained to some level of spiritual enlightenment reserved only for a few superior folk like myself.  I have attained to nothing.  What little I do know is a gift of Divine grace and this gift is available to anyone.  Not because they do anything to attain it, any more than I did.  It just comes to you when you cease struggle to find it. That’s the miracle.

So, which “point of view” as you put it does God support?  The most I can say is the one in the direction of compassion.  I know that is no answer but it is the best I can do.  I could share with you my point of view about, let’s say, “abortion,” and you may or may not agree.  That’s fine.  What would not be fine is for me to intimate that my point of view is God’s point of view.  That would be the ego in me—an ego that wants to be right by making others wrong.  It is from this madness I have been freed.  So, today, I seek to practice compassion toward all people, not just with those who might agree with my perspectives.  I have this feeling if we all would so live, we could manage to live in peace together.

5. What role do doubt and uncertainty play in an authentic spiritual journey?

Until you acknowledge your doubts or your questions, you cannot embrace an authentic faith.  Real faith is birthed in the crucible of doubt.  So, doubt is not a sign of weak faith, as many religious people mistakenly believe, but a sign of just the opposite – strength.  That’s the paradox.  Mark Twain used to say, “It’s not what we don’t know that gets us into trouble, but what we are sure we know.”  The problem in much religion today is that everyone thinks his or her version of truth is absolute or the correct version of truth.  In Christianity, for example, what began as a small band of followers of the “Jesus way” of knowing God has evolved over time into an organizational diversity that is staggering indeed.  There is something like 20,000 different Christian groups or denominations within the Christian Church.

Now, this is not surprising and, when compared to Hinduism, for example, it really is a drop in the bucket.  Hinduism has subsets the complexity of which would make this look sophomoric by comparison. The difference is, of course, Hinduism has been around longer. The same destiny awaits Christianity, which is why is so absurd for religions to believe they’re right, others are wrong and so assume it is their obligation to convert everyone else to their way of thinking and believing.  Religions can’t even successfully get their followers to all agree.  It is absurd, not to speak of downright arrogant, to assume that my religion is more right and, by implication, better than yours and so your choice is, either convert to my way of thinking or live in ignorance.  Yet, this is precisely the evangelical nature within both Christianity and Islam.  Not so much so in Hinduism or Buddhism.

But, my point here is simply that, it is the nature of religion to divide.  It will always be so and one might even argue it cannot be otherwise.  What’s problematic is not that in Christianity, for example, there are now 20,000 subsets but that each subset believes its version of reality is a little more accurate, a little closer to the truth than the 19,999 others.  While one might expect this, what happens is that the ego gets involved in it and, as I point out in the book, there is a personal ego – your own – and there is a collective ego – and this can be seen in religions, denominations within each religion.  It can be seen in movements, political or otherwise, ideologies that people share – a kind of collective ego.  Now, wherever the ego is present, you can be certain it won’t be long before a difference becomes a disagreement, a viewpoint becomes a position, that becomes “the” truth and, whenever that ego-madness gets involved, you can be certain that “truth,” which is really nothing more than a thought or belief to which the ego has attached itself for a sense of identity, has banded together with other little egos, all of which share the same “truth,” and it becomes “absolute truth.”  When that happens, what we feel we must defend can lead, as we know from the history of virtually every religion, Christianity notwithstanding, to war, bloodshed, witch hunts, executions, suicide bombers and so on.

To be able to say, “This is my viewpoint on the subject…” and you share your viewpoint and, then, you go on to say, “…but I recognize this for what it is – my viewpoint or my belief system and, while I believe strongly in it, I know you see things differently or believe differently.  I want to understand your viewpoint and learn what I can from it.”

Now to say something like this or, better, to live this way is not only to display a level of honesty and maturity that is rare indeed. But, it is likely an impossible posture to adopt unless you’ve had, as I describe in the book, some kind of spiritually awakening.  If you have, then you do not feel the need to argue, debate, defend, and so attempt to defeat your opponent because his or her beliefs are not shared by you.  Instead, you feel a genuine interest in knowing what his or her viewpoint or belief may be and how he or she arrived at it.  You are a learner or, as Jesus called it, a “disciple.”  That’s what “disciple” means, a learner.  F. Scott Fitzgerald said, “The test of first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in the mind at the same time and still be able to function.” I would modify that slightly to say, “The mark of a spiritual awakening is the capacity to hold two divergent belief systems in one’s mind at the same time without feeling as if you’re compromising the significance of your own.”

This is why I say doubt and uncertainty, rather than being indicators of an inauthentic faith, are the substances of genuine faith.

6.  Many religions have struggled to reconcile doctrine with science.  Many people have experienced a crisis of faith over the discord between science and religion, perhaps most dramatically symbolized by the apparent contrary claims of the theory of evolution and religion.  How can religious belief be reconciled with scientific discoveries?

Science is not the enemy of religion. Yet, many religions, but perhaps especially, the Christian religion, has followers within it who are greatly suspicious of science and so mistakenly think that science is out to remove God from the cosmos.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Science can be a profound source of spirituality.

You cannot “prove” the existence of God by scientific methodology any more than science can “disprove” the existence of God. I know religious people who try very hard to “prove” God exists by arguing from the platform of “intelligent design.”  They think the argument creation is so incomprehensibly complex, that alone is sufficient proof that a God exists.  But, that is, of course nonsense. Again, you cannot prove there is a God.  Furthermore, only those most uncertain God does exist attempt to prove that she does.  Why would you seek to prove something unless you were uncertain already?

You don’t believe in the sun, do you?  Of course not.  Nor do you attempt to prove the existence of the sun.  Both notions are incomprehensible. Why? Because you can feel the sun, see the sun, know its warmth and so, there is nothing to believe in about the sun.

It is not so different with God.  Whenever I meet Christians or other religious people who are attempting to “prove” there must be a God, or Gods, and they use complex arguments from the position of intelligent design or some other method, I know I’m meeting a frightened little ego whose idea of God is so unclear and uncertain, the ego feels the need to construct a platform of certainty upon which its fear may stand.

When you know God, Cosmic Intelligence, or the Holy Other, as Rudolph Otto called it, or Vishnu, or Yahweh, or Allah, or one of a million other names by which God is known, what is there to prove? Whatever happened to me on that Sunday afternoon that I describe in detail in the book, my life has been profoundly, deeply, and radically altered.  I call my experience a shift in spiritual consciousness, an awakening of some sort, and I’ve attributed it to an experience of God but, I do not feel the need to say that what I experienced, or who I experienced, IS God.  It doesn’t matter to me.  And, if it turns out, I’m wrong, then that’s OK, too.  My life, the joy, the peace, the tranquility, the happiness – whatever you would like to call it, that has been one of the many consequences of that Sunday afternoon wake up has been so wonderful and complete and, for me, spiritually-inexplicable, that I know of no other way to refer to it except to say, I experienced God.  But, I do not think you have to be religious or even subscribe to a religious belief system to experience something so transcendent and magnificent, it leaves you speechless, what I call “explanation-less.”

One of my favorite writers is the French atheist who once wrote a book entitled, “The Little Book of Atheistic Spirituality.”  Whatever happened to Andre Comte-Sponville is not unlike what has happened to me.  He experienced that “oceanic feeling.”  His life has never been the same.

So, I tell people, let science tell us how the world, the cosmos, evolved. Let your faith guide you to experience the Mystery within science and the cosmos and so enrich your journey in the process.  When the psalmist said, “The heavens declare the glory of God…” he was not arguing God’s existence from the viewpoint of intelligent design.  He was simply looking into the heavens and being moved by its Mystery.  This has been my experience.

Don’t let your frightened, or threatened, little ego make a battle between science and religion.  It uses such useless debates in order to perpetuate itself and so further divide people and make itself the presumed winner.  It is madness and so completely unnecessary.  Religion is no threat to science.  But, neither is science a threat to religion.  Both were here long before you and I showed up.  Both will be around long after we’re gone.  Instead, I would suggest you learn from both. Your spiritual experience will likely be all the richer for it.

7.  More and more people are describing themselves as spiritual but not religious. The established religious traditions have ceased to speak to them and no longer resonate for them. What advice do you have for them to feel closes to God without the benefit of an organized religious community?

I’ve hinted at this already.  But, I would simply suggest you follow your heart.  It will not mislead you.  Since I believe you and I were “born to walk with God,” there is no need in walking alone.  But, it seems to me, you do not have to subscribe to my particular faith tradition, or any other faith tradition for that matter, to know God, or transcendence, or a spiritual awareness or whatever you’d like to call it.

I mentioned in the last question that one of my favorite writers is Andre Comte-Sponville.  He would describe himself as “spiritual” but not “religious.”  The religions today do not speak for him; do not work for him.  But, he has had some kind of transformative experience with something or someone.  He can no more explain it than I can.  He can no more dismiss it than I can.

And, this is precisely the point.  When you awaken—that is, when you become spiritually aware—you give up trying to explain this inexplicable reality I choose to call God.  Jesus put it like this, “The wind blows where it wills. You hear the sound of it but you do not know from where it comes or where it is going” (John 3).  What he is saying is that God can’t be boxed in.  Like the wind, she comes and goes as she wishes.  You cannot explain God.  You can, however, experience God.  But, do not let your ego mistakenly lead you down the path of thinking, since you experienced God in such and such a way, that must be the “right” way or, worse, the “only” way God can be known.  The wind blows where it will.

So, to all, whether you are in a religious tradition or not, feel the wind, however it comes to you and is experienced by you.  It is this that will make of you a spiritual, not a religious, person.

8.  There are also a growing number of people who are struggling with belief? More to the point, they wonder if they can trust God (or even if such an entity or concept exists), the universe, and the ultimate purpose of life? In this modern world where all claims of truth seem relative, do you have specific recommendations for them?

My book does not give you something to believe in.  In this, the mind/body doctor, Deepak Chopra is right.  “Beliefs are a cover-up for insecurity.”  Now, by that, he does not mean that you cannot have beliefs, or convictions, or opinions without revealing yourself as an insecure person.  But, he means that, whenever you argue or debate, with a view to making yourself right and another wrong, you should know that this comes from that place of insecurity and uncertainty in you.  In other words, it comes from the ego.  Just be aware of this.  That’s enough to render the ego in you powerless.  If you make an internal battle out of it, then the ego is just finding another way to create conflict or discord within you.  And, what’s in you will manifest around you.  If there’s conflict around you, look within.  There’s a pretty good chance there’s conflict within you.  Your outer world is but a mirror of your inner world.  This is the primary meaning behind the almost universally misunderstood concept popularly known as “the law of attraction.”  That, however, will have to wait for another time.

The ultimate purpose of human existence is to know the Divine – to be in union with ultimate reality. That is to say, to be in union with yourself.  When you are whole, you are in oneness, not only with yourself, but with God.  You merge with the Eternal so that there’s a sense in which the one is the same as the other. In fact, there is no more dichotomy—me and you, us and them, we and God and so forth.  No such distinctions really exist.  The separateness we see is but an illusion.  It will disappear.  You come from nothingness and to that you will return, which is what the Biblical writer was trying to say, when he said, “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”  This brief period of existence, we euphemistically call, “my life,” is really just a temporary breath of air you might see on a cold morning – here, then gone just as quickly.  While you’re here, your purpose is to know intimacy with yourself, with the Eternal.

You didn’t show up to “do” something.  This is one of the great myths of our culture – that everyone has a special purpose they’re supposed to complete on earth.  It is nonsense.  We are here to “enjoy God forever,” as the Westminister Catechism puts it.  That’s it.  Now, it is true, you and I are born with innate talents and abilities and, to the degree we use them, we can know a temporary sense of fulfillment and meaning through them.  But, that feeling could only ever be temporary and it, too, will disappear.

So, I would say to all persons just what St. Augustine said, “Our hears are restless until we find our rest in God.”  Find it.  And, you will have discovered the meaning of life.  But, remember, you don’t have to look for God.  “God is not difficult to find; God is impossible to ignore,” as Chopra loves to say.  Or, as I open and close in my book, “You were born to walk with God; so why would you walk alone?”

Out-of-the-blue and instantaneously, something happened to me or, more accurately, in me that literally transformed the way I felt about life, including that of my own and the way I viewed the world and everyone in it.  It changed my view of and experience of the Transcendent, too.

The event was simple and ordinary. I don’t recall having a vision of anything. In fact, I saw nothing at all. Yet, in an instant, I saw everything, too.  I did not see God, but there is a sense in which I did, too. Deep joy was so unmistakably real and near to me.  Instantly I felt in the presence of God and that feeling has been with me ever since.

Today, no matter how out-of-control things may be around me, there is in me a sense of calm, peace, and a feeling that everything is just as it should be.  Peace, contentment, and tranquility are my normal states of consciousness. Joy, too. I know this all sounds like a huge enigma and, in many ways, it is. I cannot explain it otherwise.

Easterners often speak of something they call “the law of least effort.”  What they mean by this is, “Do less and accomplish more.”  Now, such a notion is strange to westerners who are taught from the cradle that they must do more and more and still more and then, and only then, should they expect to be duly rewarded for it.

What I’ve learned, however, is that this is not the behavior of grace at all.  When Grace is understood and experienced, and it isn’t understood and hasn’t been experienced by many religious people, grace is really about doing nothing and enjoying everything. I like to tell the story of the poor beggar who was rummaging through a garbage heap looking for his next meal when, suddenly, he finds a discarded lottery ticket. To his chagrin, he discovers it bears the winning numbers to a multi-million dollar jackpot.  Grace. It occurs when you least expect it, and often to those you believe to be the least deserving.

Since that day of awakening, my life has not been some fairytale but I would be dishonest to say anything else but that it has been pretty close.  I once heard a highly regarded spiritual teacher from the east say, “In my world nothing ever goes wrong.”  Everything in me revolted against such an absurd statement prior to my spiritual experience.  Today, however, I cannot say that about my own life, but I understand it much more now.

The best I can say is that, for me, life is no longer the struggle or the burden it used to be. Instead of swimming upstream, one of many metaphors that would aptly describe my life prior to the awakening, I now flow with life.  How could I not be at peace when, instead of resisting what is, I now accept, often forgive, but always flow with life itself?

I’ve called this my “spiritual awakening” because, in many ways, it was as if I woke up and started living.  In eastern religions, it could be called a “satori.”  Satori is a Sanskrit word meaning “sudden insight,” “awareness,” and “consciousness.”  It is often the word used to describe a transformative experience.  What happened to me on that couch may not be filled with a lot of drama, fireworks, lights and sounds, but, whatever it was it changed my life forever.  And, for the better.