“You know Dad, Steve Jobs was to our generation what Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison were to previous generations.”

Summed up Job’s life pretty accurately, if you ask me.

It was during his commencement address at Stanford in 2005 that we learned of Job’s diagnosis with cancer. It was his “wake-up call,” so to speak, to the reality of death. Among other things, Jobs said, “No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there.” That was similar to a quip I heard Woody Allen once make. “I’d like to attain immortality by not dying.”

“And yet,” continued Jobs, “death is the destination we all share.”

He’s right. I’ve been thinking a great deal about death. I suppose it’s just one of those things you do at fifty-six. In a recent Huff Post article, for example, Bill Maher wrote: “The thing about your fifties is…it is the first time in your life that you can see over the crest of the mountain and down into the Valley below–you know Death. Death is the monster we all fear…”

It is. Saint Paul called it, “the last enemy” (1 Cor. 15:26).

Humans share two realities with each other and all other living things–birth and death. I know it’s been the church’s traditional teaching for eons that both dying and death are the consequences of the first couple’s rebellion. But there’s an alternative perspective I’ve written about in The Enoch Factor. It is a perspective far more consistent with Judeo-Christian teachings and certainly more consistent with nature and biology.

Just as you are born, you will die. Death has been part of the Divine plan since the beginning, whenever that was. Death is the one and only thing you can count on. It’s more certain than paying taxes. I know many Christian people, however, who use their belief in Jesus’ imminent return to try and avoid death. They will vigorously defend their belief in his return, not because they know much about eschatology. They do not. They’re just so terrified at death–and who of us isn’t?–that the return of Jesus provides some relief at the problem of dying.

Isn’t it interesting that no other animal but the human animal travails in birth, trembles at death, or finds life troublesome? Other animals embrace the pain associated with birth. They live and die without ever complaining about either. The human animal, however, repudiates pain, resists aging, feels life is an indecipherable riddle, and loathes death itself.

“And the reason for this?”

Ego. It has “Edged God Out,” as someone once put it. As a consequence, humans have little or no sense of felt oneness with Transcendence–the very thing all spiritual traditions seek to restore.

Ego thrives on making life a pain, death a predicament, and aging a problem. It does so pretty successfully, too. Its aim is survival–immortality. Ego will cling tenaciously to positions, possessions, and people–even to your body. Which explains why aging is dreadful to most and death is fearful to everyone. Whenever you confuse the ego-self with who you really are–and who of us does not do this?–there is both resistance to aging and a revulsion of death.

Is there an answer to this human dilemma?

Muhammad suggested, “Die before you die or you’ll die a thousand deaths.” Jesus said, “Deny yourself.” The self you are to deny–that must die–is not the self you really are. How could it be? It must be instead “the mind-made self”–the you, you think is you. It must be the you, you see in a mirror–what Albert Einstein called “the optical illusion in consciousness.” It could not be the you, you really are. As long as you confuse the house wherein you live, however, with the person you really are, there will be resistance to aging or, more accurately, to dying and to death.

The Buddha said, “Death is your guru; let it teach you.” What could death teach us?

That it isn’t the enemy it’s caricatured to be? That it’s all an illusion? That it’s only the ego in you that has trouble living, aging, or dying? That the real you has no difficulty with any of these because the real you is eternal? Virtually every spiritual tradition teaches that the opposite of birth is death, not life. Life has no opposite. Life is eternal, which means you, the real you, is eternal.

What could death teach you? Perhaps how to die to the ego-self and instead live unto your higher self; how to die to clock time and instead live in the timeless now; or, how to die to the life you live and instead live the life you love.

Leonardo di Vinci purportedly said, “All my life I thought I was learning how to live; now I know I’ve really been learning how to die.”

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 think I need a therapist,” she responded.  At just five, I was surprised she knew what one was.

Her assessment was spot on, however. Ours is a dysfunctional family. I see it in them because I know it in myself. We like in others what we value in ourselves. We dislike about others what we deny in ourselves.  Gratefully, I’ve learned to like myself over the years, which really just means I’ve learned to forgive myself and so to forgive them.

Which is precisely what keeps me returning to the annual family tradition, too.  It’s there, with the family, I remember who I am. It’s there, I’m reminded who I’m not. Rumi once said, “If you think you’re so enlightened, spend a week with your family.”  We laugh and sometimes cry. We debate and often disagree about everything from religion to politics to the really important stuff as in how Bristol Palin manages to remain on Dancing with the Stars. For all our oddity, however, we are family. And, I am grateful.

1.  For my children, too.  Perfect? Pretty close.  A day rarely passes but what I look at them and know, for all my blunderings as a parent, they have become remarkable young adults.  They’re independent and hardworking, but as different as night and day. They love their parents and quick to say so. They think for themselves and their beliefs are their own.  They’re responsible, as well as compassionate human beings. How could I not give thanks for such children?

2.  For my parents, I give thanks.  I get my own independence, and survivalist instincts, from my mother.  She’s relentless.  Will celebrate her eightieth birthday soon, but age doesn’t seem to bother her.  To her, aging is something old people do.  Yes, we’re planning a party for her eightieth. But, just to make certain we hadn’t forgotten—which of course we had—we recently discovered Mom had reserved the party room for her own party at the condo where she lives.

With Dad, I have only the memories. He up-and-died before any of us were ready and that just before Thanksgiving sixteen years ago.  Talk about a strange day. Everyone was at table but the one whose chair was conspicuously empty at the end.  His death was a life-defining moment, as in the day Kennedy died or 9/11.  When it happened, I couldn’t imagine anything worse. Sixteen years later, I can’t imagine anything better. I describe at length in The Enoch Factor how I arrived at this conclusion, as well as the transformation that occurred in my life as a consequence.  Louis L’Amour said, “There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. That will be the beginning.”

My in-laws are amazing, too.  Since they live hundreds of miles from us or we from them, we only rarely celebrate the holidays with them. It’s trite to say, but true. Whenever I hear “salt-of-the-earth,” I think of them.  The day I married their daughter, I became their son. There’s no pretense with them. They’re two of the most grounded and spiritual people I’ve ever known.  They simply live and live simply. They don’t judge people either, even those they don’t understand.

3.  I give thanks for my work—the fact that I have a job and one I love. Today, many would give almost anything just to have a job to hate.

I quit looking for myself in my work many years ago. I used to think I showed up for some grand purpose in life. So, I squandered the bulk of my adult life looking for that purpose, my big break, the “opportunity,” and that one chance to make a name for myself and so fulfill the great calling of my life. I finally realized, if I was ever going to be happy—not just temporarily – I could achieve that on occasion – but genuinely happy – that kind of inner stillness and contentment—I had to give up that silly notion. Instead, I began practicing the art of self-acceptance, to learn to enjoy what is, not what used to be or what might be.  The Buddha said, “Do not dwell on the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.”  Jesus said much the same thing, “Take no thought for tomorrow.” It sounds impossible and almost is.  But, with practice, there’s peace—the kind that stays with you.

4.  For my church, I give thanks.  A self-described, “thinking, feeling, healing community of faith.”  It’s all three.  Contrary to most, there’s freedom to think here, to believe as I discern for myself.  This church has declared no war with culture or science or other nations.  Everyone’s welcome, regardless of race, or sexual preference.  Women lead here, too. Absent is the madness in much religion—as in extreme forms of Islam and Christianity—a madness that assumes, “We’re right, you’re wrong!” “We’re in, you’re out!” “We’re the chosen ones, you’re not!” How could I not be grateful for a church like this?

5.  For my country, I give thanks.  No, I don’t like a lot of what goes on, especially in Washington. I used to like flying, too. But, not anymore. Don’t want TSA officials touching me or looking at me as if they might—like I’m the needle in the haystack, the one, lone terrorist among a trillion travelers.

I don’t like wondering whether the news I’m getting is accurate. Or, that taxes go up and service goes down.  Or, that the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer? I don’t like it when leaders are moved more by the whines on Wall Street than the woes on Main Street.  Or, that our lawmakers endlessly debate things like the “Don’t ask, Don’t Tell” policy.  I’m bothered whenever we defend the human rights of people in other nations but deny the equal rights of citizens in our own.  I don’t like the fact that on Thanksgiving day, while I’m enjoying abundance, there are twelve million children who are hungry.  And, this in America alone.

Yet, for all I don’t like about what’s going on in America, I can’t imagine any place I’d rather be.  Where could I go to find greater freedom? Or, more opportunity?  Where could I see mountains and valleys, streams and rivers more colorful or stunning? And, where would I find people who are more beautiful, compassionate, and generous?  So, today, I pause to give thanks for America and for those who’ve given their lives to defend the freedoms I too often take for granted.

Sometimes I remind myself that I could have been born somewhere else. But, through no choice of my own, I was lucky enough to be born here—in America.  How could I not be grateful but, especially, on Thanksgiving Day?

1.  What do you believe?

Personally, I prefer to use the word “perspectives” instead of “beliefs.”  It feels to me as if the word is more fluid and open to change while the word “belief” feels rigid, superior, and resistant to change.  I make it my practice to be open to everything and attached to nothing.  A belief is an assumption you make about life. It’s an idea, a doctrine, or a structure of thought that helps you articulate your human experience. But, this is all that a belief is. Therefore, no belief is infallible or superior to the beliefs of others. This is why I prefer to call my beliefs, perspectives.  A perspective is dynamic, ever-expanding, respective of others, and open to all.

2.  Do you believe in God?

Yes. But, can I prove he exists? No. Can anyone prove she does not? No, again.  While I call God, God, I hesitate to say much more than this. Anything more I might say, no matter how accurate it is, seems too definitive and limiting, as if to place boundaries around the Divine or to squeeze God into some conceptual box.  How do you define what is indefinable, limit what is limitless, or explain what is inexplicable?

3.  What do you believe about Jesus?

Jesus was a human being and just as much flesh and blood, mind and emotions as anyone else.  What distinguished Jesus from virtually everyone else is that he lived at perhaps the highest possible level of Divine consciousness.  That is to say, he lived most fully a God-realized life, a life of oneness with the Divine. In fact, he did so to such an amazing degree that many people regarded him as Divine, even God-Incarnate.  I do as well, but not in any sense that Jesus—and only Jesus—was capable of divinity, oneness with, or inseparability from God. I am too. So are you.  Why else would Jesus say, “The things you have seen me do, greater things you will do…” (John 14:12).  For years, I mistakenly believed that, when Saint John said, “…God gave his only begotten Son…” (John 3:16) that he meant that Jesus was God’s one-and-only Son.  Now, my perspective is slightly different.  Instead of translating the Greek word “begotten” as “one and only,” which, of course, many Christians have, I understand John to mean “unique.”  Jesus was indeed unique.  Given his impact on human history, no intelligent person would argue that. But, does that mean he was some kind of “Superman” in human flesh? I think not.  I regard Jesus as God’s Son, indeed unique in how he lived, the way he died, the example he left for his followers, and the intimacy he enjoyed with the Creator herself.  But I regard myself, just as I do you, to be children of God, too.  By following Jesus, and so living as he lived, I, and you, too, may know the same intimacy with God and so live and die in the joyful Presence of knowing, as Saint Paul so eloquently put it, “Nothing shall separate us from the love of God” (Romans 8:31).  When you know this truth, instead of trying to explain it or defend a position, belief, or idea taught you by your religious tradition, then, and only then, are you truly free to enjoy the indecipherable richness that being one of God’s sons or daughters implies.

4.  Do you believe everyone can know God as Jesus knew God?

Yes. Why else would Jesus say over and over again, “Follow me?” It is in following Jesus you make the wonderful discovery of God’s indescribable Presence in your life.  You become God-aware.  As you practice following the sacred path of Jesus, you grow in Divine awareness.  It is important to remember that following Jesus is infinitely more than simply believing in Jesus.  When Saint John said, “…whoever believes in him (Jesus)…shall have eternal life” (John 3:16), what does he mean by “believe”?  What is there to believe?  That Jesus lived and died? No one denies this.  That Jesus is the Divine Savior?  Many believe this but they continue to live in darkness and do not pattern their lives after Jesus.  In truth, real faith in Jesus is actually the opposite of belief in Jesus.  Faith is a way of life. Since we have no verb in the English language for “faith,” we are forced to substitute in our translations of the Bible the word, “believe.”  This oddity in our language has been the source of much confusion.  People have confused “faithing” or “believing” with beliefs, but believing has little do to with content. It has infinitely more to do with conduct, though not in some morally superior way.  It’s not what you know that produces an inner transformation.  It’s Who you know and, as a consequence, how you go about living your life and patterning it after that of Jesus himself that produces inner change in your thoughts and attitudes and outer change in your conduct in the world.  Again, the real followers of Jesus are those who pattern their life after his. When you make it your daily spiritual practice to think as he may have thought, to live as he lived, and to practice showing compassion to yourself, to others, and toward God, then you ARE a follower of Jesus.

5.  Do you believe Jesus is the only way to God?

Jesus is my way to God. To be a “disciple” of Jesus means to be a learner of his way of thinking, living, and behaving.  It is to follow his path, one that inevitably leads those who do into a life-changing awareness of the Divine presence.  There may be other pathways of knowing Universal Intelligence, however. Practitioners of the Baha’i faith, for example, speak of “One Light, Many Lamps.”  God is the Light of all and gives light to all. It seems most probable, as well as logical, that God may be seen and known through the light of many different lamps.  It would be arrogant of me to either presume or to assert that God can only be known in one way.  Besides, how could I ever be sure of such a presumptuous assumption?

6.  Do not the perspectives you hold undermine the uniqueness of Jesus and the authority of the Bible?

They do not for me.  Do they for you?  If so, then you will likely disagree with my perspective(s), cling to some other perspective, and perhaps feel the need to vigorously defend it.  But, this is not necessary unless your sense of self is attached to your beliefs or perspectives. In that case, you will react to not only my perspectives but to any different perspective as if it were a personal attack against you.  Attachment to anything, including a belief system, will cause you to suffer, or so instructed the Buddha.  For me, I have found it much more liberating to “be open to everything and attached to nothing.”  Only when you feel the need to insist your perspective is “right” and other perspectives are wrong that you create an “us” and “them” world, which is the principle cause of virtually all conflicts.  This may be a small planet but it is large enough to sustain a variety of perspectives, provided humans are mature enough to tolerate polarity, ambiguity, even contradiction.  Branches on a tree don’t have to all look alike to draw nourishment from the same vine.  Native Americans say, “No tree has branches so foolish as to fight among themselves.”  My perspective is to stay open, be reflective, and keep seeking.  Or, as the philosopher Andre’ Gide put it, “Believe those who seek the truth; doubt those who have found it.”  Jesus said, “Seek and you will find…” (Matt. 7:7) and, in another place, he said, “You will know the truth and it will make you free” (John 8:32).

7.  What do you believe about the Bible?

The Bible is my primary source of Divine inspiration, spiritual insight, and practical wisdom.  It is not a book of magic, however.  It didn’t fall out of the sky bound in leather and in the language of King James.  Instead, it is a collection of sacred stories and spiritual teachings that span several hundred centuries of Jewish and Christian history.  As a consequence, no passage could possibly contain absolute truth.  Rather, each must be read and understood in its cultural context and social milieu.  For example, Leviticus says that adulterers should be stoned to death.  It’s a good thing that’s no longer practiced or about half of any congregation would have to kill the other half (probably an exaggeration, but you get the point).  The psalmist spoke of the four corners of the earth (Psalm 78:5).  Until well after the Middle Ages, most people mistakenly believed the world was flat with four corners. Of course, we know better today.  The Bible is the story of the Jewish/Christian quest to know God. It isn’t the only sacred record of the human quest for the Divine. Other peoples and cultures have their own sacred writings.  All of these sacred texts, however, point toward the same spiritual quest. Virtually every branch of the Christian church has debated, disagreed, and eventually divided over what it was going to “say” about the Bible.  Most conflicts have swirled around such words and concepts as “authoritative,” “inerrant,” “infallible,” and so forth.  But, my own perspective is this: the Bible is infinitely more than anything I, or anyone else, could ever say about it? In fact, if what I “say” about the Bible is more important than what the Bible says to me, what could be more insane than this?

8.  What denomination are you?

I grew up a Baptist and, more specifically, a Southern Baptist.  I didn’t know it at the time but there are as many Baptists as there are flavors of Baskin-Robbins ice cream.  Today, I regard myself as the product of many Christian traditions, as well as many non-Christian ones, too.  For example, I recently joined the Roman Catholic Church. I did not, however, abandon my Baptist faith or my membership in a local Baptist church. So, today, I hold membership in two churches. Someone said to me, “But, you can’t?” Says who?  I have.  Who knows, perhaps before I leave this planet, I may just join the Methodists, too, as well as the Presbyterians, Episcopalians, the Unity Church, and the Snake-Handling Pentecostals in the hills of eastern Kentucky.  I’m drawn to the Buddhist teachings, too, as well as the meditative practices within Hinduism.  Having consulted with virtually every branch of the Christian church, I have come to find much affinity in all of them.  What’s infinitely more important is that I am a follower of Christ. But, I have no interest in debating the supremacy of my faith tradition over another.  My choice to be a Christ-follower has been shaped by my background, as well as my ever-expanding perspectives. So, when I am asked, I tell people I’m a Christ-follower by choice, a multi-denominationalist with ties even to Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, as well as Sufism within the Muslim tradition. As a Christ-follower, I’m a Baptist by heritage and a Roman Catholic by choice. But, I also love the Methodist for their emphasis on the sacredness of our religious traditions, the Episcopalians for their emphasis on the equality of all persons and for the few Episcopalians who actually practice acceptance of alternative lifestyles, the Presbyterians for their emphasis on Divine providence, the Pentecostals for their emphasis on joy in the Spirit, and the Evangelicals for having broken out of the box and who practice “doing” church and worship in alternative ways.  Frankly, however, labels mean little to me.  My desire is to simply walk with God…to master this sacred art that was once described by the ancient Catholic mystic, Brother Lawrence, as “the practice of the presence of God.”  In the final analysis, isn’t walking with God, like Enoch did in the Old Testament, really all that matters?  What could be more important than this?

9.  Then, what do you believe?

Not much, I suppose.  For example, when someone says, “I believe in God,” I wonder what they mean by that.  Does it mean they believe in the existence of God?  Well, so do I and, if surveys are accurate, so do most Americans.  But, I feel no need to try to “prove” God exists.  It can’t be done anyway.  I find it far more fulfilling to spend my time getting to know this God whom I to exist.   I have long suspected that the real reason religious people try to “prove” God exists is because they’re secretly afraid she doesn’t.  You only ever “believe” or “defend” those things about which you are uncertain.  If you knew God, what would there be to either prove or defend?  I wish only to cultivate God’s ineffable presence within my consciousness and so remain in that Presence continually.  It is there I am at peace.  It is there I experience the joy that is, as Saint Paul put it, “unspeakable.” It is there I find my thinking changes, my living takes on meaning, and my fear of death dissolves.  If this is not what the New Testament mean by “salvation,” and what the Easterners mean “enlightenment,” then what is it?

10.  What do you mean by the words “post-Christian world?”

When I was young, all of my neighbors were Christian. Even those who were not regular churchgoers regarded themselves as Christian nonetheless.  Furthermore, virtually everyone thought of America as a “Christian” nation.  Today, however, the little world in which I grew up has changed.  Your neighbor now might just as likely be a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Hindu, or even an atheist.  Near our house in Louisville, Kentucky, for example, there is a service station where I regularly fill my car with gasoline.  Recently, I made a stop there and discovered there were new owners, an Indian man and his daughter.  As we got acquainted, I observed the tilaka on his forehead, the round, red dot that symbolizes the “third eye,” associated with meditation and enlightenment. I asked if they were Hindu.  “He is,” answered his daughter, as she gestured toward him.  “But, I’m a Muslim.” I remember thinking to myself, “This is the world in which we live.”  If humanity is to survive, religious people must actually start practicing the very things their faith professes – love, peace, and acceptance of all, those like you, those different from you, and even your enemies.  While virtually every conflict throughout history, down to and including the present, has been religiously inspired, this insanity must end if humanity is to survive.  In this regard, the Dalai Lama was right when he said, “When there’s peace among the religions, there will be peace in the world.”

11.  What do you believe is wrong with Christianity?

G. K. Chesterton purportedly said, “There’s nothing wrong with Christianity; there’s everything wrong with Christians.”  It is the Christians within Christianity who have been the source of much human division, destruction, and human and planetary suffering. Throughout history, for example, Christians have repeatedly labeled, judged, and sought to destroy their perceived enemies.  Furthermore, they have even acted this way toward those within their own faith tradition.  It is insanity and it must end.  There is room enough for everyone on this planet.  But, until Christians actually live as Jesus lived, treat others, but especially their enemies with openness and respect, and make room even for those who choose to have no religious affiliation, the conflict will not only continue, it will escalate.  All labeling and judging must stop. All this nonsense of believing, “We’re right, others are wrong!” “We’re God’s chosen, others are not!” must cease.  There will always be many different religions, even many subsets within the same religion.  Or, to put it another way, there will never be just one way of understanding or knowing Eternal Truth I call God. If the present divisions within Christianity alone have not made it abundantly clear to you that humans are incapable of subscribing to the same religion, even to the same beliefs within the same religion, then there isn’t much I, or anyone else, could teach you.  So, there’s nothing wrong with Christianity.  There’s everything wrong with those of us who call ourselves Christians.  We must change but change can only occur within.  And no inner change will ever take place until each Christian makes the decision to “follow” Christ—really follow Christ.  Make this your ambition.  Not only will you change, but your world will change, too.

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.

Most likely.  But, this much is certain. Virtually every religious tradition has coined words and concepts to tell the story of their experience of transcendence. But, no one word or concept could ever fully capture whatever it is that happens in the human experience, the consequence of which leaves one radically and forever different. Where the world comes alive to you; where all humans, indeed all sentient beings, are suddenly sacred to you, regardless of their color, nationality, or religion; where you know and feel your own infinite worthiness; where there is profound joy, sometimes expressed as laughter, but always somewhere in the background of consciousness, a feeling of utter satisfaction with who you are and the way things are.

I love the way the Buddha himself (whose name, coincidentally means, “Awakened One”) expressed what I am saying when he was once purportedly asked, “What do you and your disciples do?”

He answered, “We sit; we walk; we eat.”

The inquirer was perplexed. “But,” he objected, “Doesn’t everybody sit, walk, and eat? What’s so different about that?”

“Yes,” replied the Buddha. “It is true we all do this. But, when we sit, we know we are sitting; when we walk, we know we are walking; when we eat, we know we are eating.”

Isn’t this what it means to be awake? Enlightened? Born again? Doesn’t it mean you know–that is, you are aware, conscious, alive to the world around you?  To be fully in the present moment?  It is. To experience the Inexpressible, to know the Unknowable, to live and walk with an awareness of the Someone who, as I prefer to call her, is God – that One who is nearer than the air you breathe. Who knows? Perhaps she IS the air we breathe, just as she is part and parcel to the other “ten thousand things” Lao Tzu called them.

Remember the man born blind to whom Jesus gave sight one unsuspecting day (John 9)?  When the authenticators of proper orthodoxy questioned the transformed man about what it was that had happened to him, the best he could say was, “I was blind, now I see.”

For those who see, that explanation is enough. For those who don’t, it’s never enough.

So, how does one become Enlightened? Awake? What is the “way” to being born again, as Christians put it?

1. First, there is no way to Enlightenment?  Enlightenment is the way.  Do not make an effort out of what is your natural state of felt oneness with the Eternal.  Deepak Chopra stated it something like the following in Why Is God Laughing? “When you stop struggling to know God, the grace of knowing dawns.”

2. Second, train yourself to be inside each moment.  But, don’t make an effort of this either.  Just know, the moment you are aware you’re not in the moment, you are in the moment.  That’s all it takes.

3. Finally, the fastest way I’ve discovered to either of the two suggestions above is to practice meditating.  Twenty minutes in the morning, and again in the evening, should be sufficient.  In meditation, do not fight the plethora of thoughts that will invade your mind, even as you attempt to free your mind of thinking.  Accept whatever your experience is like. Be content.  Expect nothing.  But, at the same time, keep practicing.  Eventually, your mind will quiet down, relax, and you will enter and emerge from a state of stillness the likes of which will be the transformation you seek.  This is what Jesus meant when he said, “Ask, and keep asking, seek, and keep seeking,” because those who do “find.”  It’s not that God is reluctant to be known or that our persistence convinces the Divine of our seriousness.  It is the discipline of asking, seeking, and knocking that prepares the mind, as a farmer does the soil, for the harvest that will come.  And, it will come.

I even had a few questions I wanted to ask Dad, too. Like, “Where are you?” “Are you dead or alive?” “If you’re alive, where are you?” “Will I ever see you again?” “I tried all my life to talk to you, to feel you were listening to me and, on the day you join my church, you up and die? What the hell is that?” “Is this whole thing a cosmic joke, or just an illusion?” “What was it like to die?” “Painful?” “Fearful?” “What will death be like for me?” “Will I be afraid?”

I lived in a kind of spiritual limbo for several years following his death. It was not until the afternoon of my awakening that I began to see how his death, indeed how everything in my life, had been a portal into Presence. The words of Jesus would finally make sense: “I am the door.”

Though at first we typically resist them, a crisis, any crisis, is a doorway Life opens to us. Given the nature of our conditioning, however, it often takes a crisis to awaken us. For some who are deeply entrenched in conditioned religious thought and expectation, or whose egos are fixed and strong, it may take a series of crises to wake them up. You have perhaps known someone who experienced a crisis, only to have it followed by a series of additional crises of equal or greater severity. Who knows but what they needed them. Yet, even with crises, some people never get it.
Pam, my wife now of several years, insists on setting her alarm clock to wake her up at 6 A.M. She seldom plans to get up, however, until 7 A.M.

I have often asked her, “Why not set the clock for 7 A.M., instead of being awakened several times, only to hit the snooze again and again?”

Her typical response is, “Because it takes four alarms to fully awaken me.”

Next time you hear of a four-alarm fire, you will know that the severity of fire is so great that more than one truck and one team of firefighters is needed. You will also know it took both the death and the resurrection of Jesus for those closest to him to wake up to his spiritual identity and to that of their own. Although he had said, perhaps over and over again, “I am the light of the world,” and “You are the light of the world,” none of this began to dawn until the darkness of his death.

As my own eyes began to open, I noticed a profound difference in how I responded to every event in my life, no matter how inconsequential. For example, I used to resist anything I interpreted as an obstacle upsetting my happiness or interfering with the pursuit of my goals. Shortly after the awakening, however, I boarded a commercial airline destined for Atlanta. It was 7:45 A.M and we were behind schedule by thirty minutes already. Presently, the pilot informed us, due to an electrical problem, the plane would be delayed even longer and could possibly be grounded altogether.

Before the awakening, I would have been frustrated by this kind of minor disruption, even inclined to take it personal, as if airline officials were plotting a way to complicate my life. The resistance would have manifested itself as complaints to myself and to passengers seated around me. If none of that was sufficient, I would call someone on my cell and complain.

This time, however, I didn’t resist. Nor did I complain. I was noticeably surprised at myself. I saw it as an opportunity, almost as if it was supposed to happen, the reason for which was mine to discover. So, I watched and listened. I became present, so to speak, and looked for the message from beyond, or a stranger I was supposed to meet. I reached for my notepad and began writing of my experience. You are reading its results. Perhaps this happened to me for no other reason than you might read about it now. If you watch, you are likely to see what you’re destined to see. Who knows? If you are awake, you will know.

Where could you possibly go to find a healthier, happier, and more stress-free way to live than this? If you have not yet awakened, it is understandable why many of my words seem odd to you. You perhaps feel inner resistance to some of them, too. But, as you awaken, you will know for yourself the truth in these words. You will cease to resist what is given to assist you in knowing God.

By resistance, I am not suggesting that you lie down and let life step on you. Nor am I saying you pretend to be happy about everything that shows up, although the New Testament does say, “In everything give thanks.” Some things are difficult to accept and a few things are very difficult. But, on the spiritual path, you will begin to instinctively know, since nothing is ever accidental, anything may serve as a portal into Presence. Your destiny could not unfold without the appearance of these things. In other words, everything serves a higher purpose. There is a beautiful way Eckhart

Tolle makes this same point in A New Earth. He writes: “Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at this moment.”

More profound words have seldom been spoken. When you remember them, as well as apply them to your life, they have the power to transform both how you receive and how you respond to everything. No less equal in beauty, and more familiar to Christians, are the words of Saint Paul, “All things work together for good to those who love God.” If this is true, why resist anything?

The sudden and unexpected end of my father’s life was the surprising and unanticipated beginning of my own. How could I resent something as amazing and perfect as this? The self-confusion, as well as the questions and doubts, have disappeared. Sure, I still question things, but there’s none of the background cynicism, the latent resentment, or existential fear like before. There is only a profound awareness of Presence and, with it, gratitude and joy. These remain to this day.

The Law of Attraction has its roots in quantum physics. Simply put, the law states that your thoughts dictate your reality. Like everything else, thoughts are made up energy waves that attract like energies in return. Positive thoughts, for example, operate at higher energy or vibrational frequencies. So, when you think positive thoughts, you both broadcast and receive, or attract, positive results. Conversely, negative thoughts vibrate at lower energy frequencies. When your thoughts are charged with negativity, you get negative results.

Essentially, Saint Paul pointed to the same spiritual law in his Letter to the Philippians. Although he knew nothing of either quantum physics or the Law of Attraction per se, he wrote:

“I’d say you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse.”[1]

In other words, today’s thoughts manifest tomorrow’s realities. The Buddha himself said, “All that we are is the result of all that we have thought.”

The Law of Attraction operates in this world with as much reliability as the Law of Gravity. The former is a spiritual law, the latter a physical. While neither can be seen with the naked eye, their effects are witnessed and even somewhat predictable.  For example, the Law of Gravity makes it possible to predict with uncanny certainty what will happen if you leap from the fifty-fourth floor of high-rise in Manhattan. The Law of Attraction makes it possible to predict the kind of life you will live by the kind of thoughts you think.

If you think angry thoughts, for example, it shouldn’t surprise you to frequently find yourself in volatile, even hostile situations.  You’ve heard of “road rage?” Angry motorists triggering or, you might say, attracting a similar rage in other drivers.

Take another example. If you think your life is not going to work out for you, why would you be surprised when it doesn’t? What you expect, you experience.  When you begin to realize that this is how life works, you’ll get real cautious about the kinds of thoughts you think. Why? Because, as Wayne Dyer puts it, “You’ll get what you think about whether you want it or not.”

The Law of Gravity makes possible life on this planet. But, it’s also the law that brings down a plane whenever there’s a loss of power. There’s an equally unattractive side to the Law of Attraction, at least where the ego is involved. Some practitioners of this law, for example, make the mistake of believing it guarantees that, whatever they want and are willing to give their undivided attention, they will get.  They believe, if they hold the thought of what they want in their minds with resoluteness and have no doubt whatsoever, what they want is on its way.

Just as no Christian can use Jesus’ name to get anything he or she wants, you cannot use the Law of Attraction to land a career, the house of your dreams, the career position, the income you desire, and so on. While there’s nothing wrong with wanting to improve your life or your life situation, whenever ambition is driven by ego, then the desires usually become self-serving, self-centered and self-obsessed. Neither God nor God’s laws can be so manipulated.

“What is ego?” you ask.

The ego is a little monster who resides within the psyche of every person. No one is without one.  It is problematic and dysfunctional—problematic because it is the principal cause of human unhappiness and discontent; and, it is dysfunctional because it is only interested in its-self.  In its more extreme forms, ego manifests as insanity.

It was not that many years ago when religious people were prone to label persons who had very dysfunctional egos as either insane, even demon-possessed.  Since they had no other way of explaining strange and aberrant behavior, they assumed these people were under the control of an evil power they called Satan, or the Devil.  We know now, however, that Satan is really a kind of alter ego or the dark side of one’s personality.

This alter-ego, or the Devil, has many other names, too.  In Islam, for example, it is called Iblis.  It was Mara over whom Siddhârtha Gautama finally prevailed at his spiritual awakening under the Bodhi Tree.   Because he successfully triumphed over his own alter-ego, The Buddha, which means Enlightened One, has been the source of spiritual inspiration to millions of people.  What many believing people in my own religious tradition do not know is that they, too, have an alter-ego, a little demon inside each of them, and it is dysfunctional, too, even insane. The difference is only in the degree of insanity.

So, here’s the bottom line.  Whether it’s something you “wish to attract” as a pseudo-religious person or “pray to receive” as a person of faith, whenever your ego is present, and it is present more often than it is not, the Law of Attraction is interrupted.  That is, it is corrupted and the law ceases to operate as you might desire.  The same happens to the efficacy of prayer when those who pray do so in an attempt to manipulate reality.

James, author of a New Testament book that bears his name, understood this. While he did not know to use the words ego or Law of Attraction, he was well acquainted with the realities beneath and beyond those terms. He wrote, “When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives.[2] He might have put it this way: “When you want something and believe you’ll get it, either through prayer or focused thinking, but you do not receive it, there’s a simple reason why: it is because your wanting and craving is only for yourself.”

“Then, how can I know when ego is present?” you ask.

This and a host of other questions related to the ego, I’ll answer very soon.

[2] James 4:3, NIV

One day, the rabbi took Jacob aside and said, “Jacob, why do you suppose Christians make it a habit to tap the side of the saltshaker while Jews always tap the bottom?”

Certain the rabbi was going to join him in ridicule of Christians, Jacob was more than ready to play along. “No, Rabbi, I do not know. Why do Jews tap the bottom of the saltshaker while Christians tap the side?”

“To get the salt out!” answered the rabbi.

There are many ways to tap the shaker, but the purpose is the same—to dispense salt.

Ask the followers of almost any religion what is the purpose of their religion and they will say the purpose is to guide them to know God. They may use different words or ideas to say this, but it is essentially the same purpose. Even in religions like Buddhism, where there is no belief in a Higher Power per se, they still speak sometimes of the “Universal Mind.” What is that, if it is not the same Reality toward which the words and names that others use point, too?

Similarly, a spiritual seeker in Christianity is really no different than a spiritual seeker in Islam, Taoism, or Hinduism. All want to know God, the higher self, or to reach what Hindus call Samadhi, which is “bliss consciousness,” what Christians may call, “salvation,” or “God-realization.” In other words, everyone wants to be complete, to be happy, and to alleviate human suffering, which The Buddha showed us is mostly self-induced anyway. In other words, we all seek the same thing. We just know it in different ways, based on our cultural, social, ethnic, and religious conditioning.  Since everyone is seeking God-consciousness, sometimes confused with “happiness,” then you can understand that every religion has evolved to help facilitate this purpose.

Yet, throughout the history of humanity, religion has been the prime cause of most human division and human and planetary destruction. If this is not mad, what is it?  Throughout the history of my own tradition, for example, Christianity has been either a Divine blessing or a demonic curse. Embarrassing to admit, it has been the latter far too often. If the human species is going to survive, it is imperative we make room on this little planet for everyone—that we have respect for all religions, as well as those who choose to have no religion.

Even as I say all of this, however, I realize, until a person wakes up, this will likely be more than they can accept. Until they experience a shift in consciousness, making it possible for them to see everyone and everything through lenses clear of conditioned thinking, then they will resist virtually everything I written so far. This is true whether they be a Christian, Muslim, or atheist.

If I have learned anything over the years, it is that every religion, in its own unique way, has something important to teach us about Ultimate Reality, or what I like to call the sacred art of knowing God. Even those who profess no religion at all may be able to teach the rest of us something about this Universal Intelligence, Consciousness, Being Itself or, as I am accustomed to saying, God.

I love the story I read of a Frenchman who approached the Dalai Lama after he had given a lecture in a city in France.  He said, “Your Holiness, I loved your words and I’ve decided I want to convert to Buddhism.”

In great wisdom, however, the Dalai Lama answered, “Why Buddhism?  Why would you wish to convert to this religious tradition?  You are in France.  In France, you have Christianity.  There’s nothing wrong with Christianity!”[1]

There isn’t, is there?  No more so than there’s anything wrong with the myriad of other paths one might follow toward the evolution of Divine consciousness.  It’s time humanity stops the insanity of thinking “We’re right, you’re wrong!” “We’re in, you’re out!” “We’re the chosen ones, you’re not!”

Just as is everyone,

You were born to walk with God;

So, why would you walk alone?