Dr. Steve McSwain | The Art of Leadership | Professional Coaching | Nurture and Care of Your Soul » consciousness

Describe your “spiritual awakening,” as you call it.

Dr. Steve McSwain — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 00:22:48 +0000

It was a Sunday afternoon. I had not gone to church that day. In fact, I had not gone to church with any regularity for years. I was reclining on the living room couch, watching with the left hemisphere of my brain a PBS television special, and daydreaming with the other. I don’t recall being in any particular frame of mind, but I certainly wasn’t anticipating what happened next either.

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.

The Day I Woke Up, Became Enlightened, Was Transformed, Awakened: I'm not Sure What to Call It

Dr. Steve McSwain — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 13:10:26 +0000

I had reclined on the living room couch, picked up the remote, and began surfing the plethora of television programs, most of which are repetitive and useless. I paused from channel-surfing just long enough to listen to the opening remarks of a popular psychologist on a PBS special. His name? Wayne W. Dyer. Though I knew of him only vaguely, I remembered he was the author of several bestselling books and one in particular that had propelled him to a level of notoriety few authors ever attain. You might recall the book was Your Erroneous Zones.
I can remember when it was first released back in the late seventies. Though it got a lot of press then, I refused to read it. As a young theologian doing graduate work at what was once a highly regarded seminary, I had judged Dyer’s book, as had many others I think, as a sleazy book on sex. The title was a dead give-away. Not until several years later did I realized I had misjudged the book entirely. It was not a book about sex at all.
The first time I saw the book up-close-and-personal, my family and I were having lunch after church one Sunday in the home of a prominent church member. On her living room coffee table was a copy of Dyer’s book. I thought to myself, ―Why would our luncheon host be reading a book about sex? Surely, she’s more spiritual than that.‖ The irony in all of this that the real subject matter of the book is how to overcome some of the more common hang-ups we have in life—like that of judging people and situations, and both too quickly, before having all the facts.
On the Sunday afternoon PBS special, Dyer’s subject matter seemed benign enough. So, I decided to give him half a chance. I listened intently for several minutes. Many of the things he said seemed sensible, even applicable to one’s life. But, that’s about all I can say, because the
funny part to me is this: Now, I can’t recall a single thing he said. That’s not saying anything about his subject matter, but it’s saying everything about my readiness for what transpired next.
Sometime during the special, although I don’t remember when, an intense peace invaded my consciousness. I’ve carefully chosen each of these descriptive words. ―Intense‖ peace may sound like a contradiction. But, what I mean is, the unfathomable and profound calmness that swept over me was like nothing I had ever felt before. The living room itself took on a kind of surreal sense, too. It was as if I was in the room but not in the room at the same time. What’s more, this peace pervaded my consciousness. By that I mean, it was sudden, unanticipated and, therefore, outright surprising. I had not been praying for peace. I had not been searching for some assurance that my life mattered, either. In fact, I think I had resigned to living with a pretty cynical view of my own life as well as this world. But, instantly, the awareness of peace and purpose filled my consciousness. Nothing seemed negative, accidental, or wrong with either with me or with this world.
I have said it was joy I felt most profoundly but maybe it was gratitude I was feeling or a blend of the two. It’s really hard to explain. I do know it was not the laughter kind of joy, the kind you have after somebody’s told you a really funny joke or after you’ve had one too many drinks. It was just extreme joy and appreciation, not for anything in particular but everything in general. I don’t know how else to say it.
With the joy and peace came an inexplicable awareness of Life itself. This part is most difficult to explain. Whatever I say seems only to diminish some of the profundity of the experience. The few times I have tried to describe to others what happened to me, I get this feeling people are looking at me as if I’m Rod Sterling on a return trip from The Twilight Zone.
But, here goes it, anyway.
It lasted only a minute or two, perhaps a little longer. I can’t be sure. No matter how long it was, however, it was as if I entered a no-time zone, a kind of time warp or something. I became immediately aware of two dimensions of reality, the world I could see and the world I could not see. There was an awareness of the room around me and the objects in the room. But, I was also aware of another dimension, a kind of emptiness. That is to say, I became aware of nothing. There were no objects in this awareness but it felt to me just as real, maybe more so, than the material dimension or the room around me with walls and furniture and so forth.
Call it a glimpse of the spiritual world, if you will. That would be as good as anything I could come up with. But, I really don’t know what to call it. I just became aware, not only of the objects I could see around me, but of the emptiness out of which those objects appeared. In that awareness, I felt all of the things I’ve described already—intense joy, peace, love, security, and so on. But, even more significant this, I felt Presence in this emptiness. I know that makes no sense, but I have no other way of saying it.
Have you ever looked up into the heavens on a clear night and tried counting the stars or identifying the constellations? It has always been one of my favorite pastimes. So, while this may sound strange to you, ever since the transformation, I have found myself more attracted, even connected, to the nothingness that is our heavens. That infinite vastness of space without which no objects would appear.
For years, for example, I could look up into the heavens, and did so often, but all I would ever see was the stuff scattered throughout the heavens—the stars, the planets, the constellations, and so on. To do so was amazing to be sure. But, as awesome as it was and still is, it pales in comparison to what I now see. Since the transformation, whenever I look into the heavens, I see
infinity of Emptiness, Nothingness, or one could call it, Stillness. It’s as if, on that Sunday afternoon, I was given the gift of seeing everything in nothing.
The psalmist said, ―The heavens declare the glory of God.‖1
With all due respect to the psalmist, the heavens declare very little about God. You cannot look into the heavens and see God or every disbeliever in Divine Intelligence would become a believer. In fact, the opposite is most often the case. Those who seriously study the universe often become atheists or agnostics. In a recent report of The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, in collaboration with the American Association for the Advancement of Science, only a third of all scientists today even believe in God.2
Furthermore, if the heavens actually declared God’s glory, then everyone who believes in God would actually know God and be conscious of the Divine Presence. But, as it was with me, most believing people who say they believe in God only rarely ever feel connected or close to God. For me, the remarkable discovery I made was this: it was only I could see seeing nothing that Everything seemed to emerge.
This is why I find it bizarre whenever a person attempts to prove God exists, as do Christian apologists, as they are known. To me, it is just as futile to argue for God’s existance as it is to argue for the non-existence of God. On one hand, it is the admission by the Christian apologist that he’s unaware of the Reality he seeks to prove. It is an admission by the atheist, on the other hand, he is unaware of the Reality he seeks to disprove. You only try to prove or
1 Psalm 19:1
2 “Scientific Achievements Less Prominent than Decade Ago: Public Praises Science; Scientists Fault Public/Media,” Survey conducted by The Pew Research Center for the People and the Pew in collaboration with the American Association for the Advancement of Science, with commentary by Dr. Alan I. Leshner, CEO. For more information or a copy of the report contact Andrew Kohut, Director and Scott Keeter, Director of Survey Research at 202-419-4350 or visit http:///www.people-press.org.
disprove that which, in either case, you do not know. Christian apologists, as they are known, have done more to damage the cause of Christianity than they’ve ever done to advance the cause.
Here is the real truth:
 It is only after looking into the heavens and seeing Nothing that No-Thing becomes Everything to you;
 It is only after looking into the eyes of somebody whom the world says is a nobody that you see and know the Everybody in all living things; and,
 It is only after you can sit in a room, as it were, surrounded by walls and furniture, carpet and curtains—or, objects in awareness—and, simultaneously be aware of the space around them, that the Empty Space itself becomes the Eternal Source to you.
When this is what you see, then you will understand and know for yourself what happened to me on that Sunday afternoon.
Buddhists would call my experience a satori. Well, if that’s what this was, then maybe I haven’t lost my mind. But, even if I have, I’ll take this insanity any day over the kind I lived in for nearly three decades. This has been, and continues to be, infinitely more wonderful than anything I’ve ever known before. I woke up to Life and have remained so ever since. This is why the word awakening seems to come closer than any other in capturing the essence of what happened to me. It was sacred experience, too, an unexpected instant of profound insight and awareness, and more hallowed than any I had ever known in church.
Yet, the whole thing is a bit comical, too. Right after it happened, for example, the first thought I had was, ―How will I tell anybody about this?‖
I wanted to tell someone. It was too splendid to keep to myself. Yet, it was too ordinary in the way it transpired, too.
―Why couldn’t this have been more spectacular?‖ I thought to myself.
Most of the really great religious leaders, Divine avatars, spiritual masters and teachers had their satori in the midst of a great crisis of suffering or during some horrific tragedy or drama.
Take Saint Paul, for example. His satori came with blinding lights and strange voices on his way to Damascus where he had planned to make more trouble for early followers of Christ.3
It was during the Hindu-Muslim conflict in Calcutta, India, 1946, a conflict that brought unprecedented bloodshed, starvation, and death that Mother Teresa had ―her call within the call,‖ as she later described it. That moment of intense suffering transformed not only her life but its direction, its focus. The rest of her story is a history known by virtually everyone.
In his quest to find the meaning of life, and freedom from suffering, The Buddha himself left his royal life and became a mendicant instead. For years, he lived on the edge of society, nearly starving on several occasions as he fed off the scraps of kindness people tossed his way. Only after six rigorous years as an ascetic did he finally attain Enlightenment.
And, who doesn’t know the story of Jesus’ own wilderness struggles for forty days and forty nights?4
So, against this backdrop of dramatic spiritual awakenings, I sat on a living room couch, holding a remote in one hand, a drink in the other, and half asleep during a PBS special on television. Hardly a hallowed setting for a holy satori!
I saw no bright lights. The earth beneath me did not shake. And, I heard no strange or loud voices, either. Instead, a quiet stillness slipped into the room like a cat without notice. But, as it did, I woke up. In an instant, I was more aware of my surroundings than I had ever been before. What’s more, the space or emptiness within the room was just as alive to me as the
3 Acts 9:3ff
4 Matthew 4:1-11
objects in it. Out of that space of awareness, I sensed a Presence nearer than the air itself. In fact, it was as if, when I breathed, I was absorbing the very Emptiness that surrounded me.
I admit it was strange, but it’s even stranger to try and explain to someone else. In that moment, I knew that, no matter what happened in this world, or what happened to me, everything would be O.K. That my life, my family, indeed, everything in this world was just as it was supposed to be. Nothing was missing and everything would be provided at just the right time. Since then, this knowing has fluctuated with intensity but it has always been with me.
This was a new way of thinking for me because, for much of my life, I had felt as if nothing was right in this world and that nothing was right about my life, either. I had not only made many mistakes but, sometimes, I felt as if I was the mistake. And, as far as the world goes…well…I thought it sucked, was capricious and unfair, and that there was very little anybody could do to change any of it.
Whatever happened to me, I knew that life from that day onward would be wonderful to me. I sensed a shift in my mind and I knew I would no longer look or think about anything in the same way as before. That is perhaps the most remarkable long term change I’ve noticed.
The cynicism left me, too. I was done with negativity. I had no idea how I would stop being that way, but even that didn’t concern me. I knew whatever changes I would make would come naturally and at the right time. I don’t know what else to call this but a profound spiritual awakening. The consequences have been bewildering but beautiful.
In one sense, the changes were instantaneous. But, in another way, the awakening initiated a process of change that is still going on to this day. Maybe what I experienced was the very thing I had been telling others about for decades but only vaguely knew about myself. I don’t know and, frankly, I don’t care. Whatever it was, it must surely be what Saint Paul was describing as, ―the renewal of mind.5 Like scores of other people, maybe you, too, I had been a Christian, a believer, for years. But, apart from churchgoing and trying to be a decent church-going person and, later, the best church leader I could be, I cannot say my thinking or living was any more fulfilling or any different than unbelieving people.
As my thinking about everything began changing, however, I started to simultaneously notice a shift in my feelings, too. Almost all the time now, I am at peace. There’s a contentment I feel, and a level of self-acceptance and self-assurance, I’ve never known before. All of this has been supplemented by joy and happiness, qualities of the human experience I had known before, but only ever briefly. Now, however, joy is my normal state of consciousness.
I realize how remarkable, perhaps even unbelievable, all of this must sound to you and, of course, it is. But, it does not mean that my world has become some kind of enchanted fairytale. Nor does it mean that I have achieved a level of spiritual awareness that puts me in the ranks of other spiritual avatars in history. I use words like ―awakening,‖ ―enlightenment,‖ ―redemption,‖ and so on, but only because each of these words contain a picture, an image that describes some little aspect of my otherworldly experience. For me, it’s not unlike a gemologist attempting to describe to a blind person the clarity, cut, as well as the colors, hues, and tones, she might see while observing a multi-faceted diamond. No one word can say it all. But, all of them express something of the Mystery that is inexpressible.
5 Romans 12:1-2

The Awakened Life: Enoch, Archetype of the Sacred Art of Knowing God

Dr. Steve McSwain — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 20:51:52 +0000

“And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.”
– Genesis 5:5

“An infinite God…does not distribute himself that each may have a part, but to each one he gives all of himself as fully as if there were no others.”
– A. W. Tozer

A God-awakened life is a transformational shift in human consciousness that brings the sacred Presence into immediate awareness. In this awakened state, there is a ubiquitous awareness that Intelligence suffuses all living things. This awareness is not hypothetical or speculative, but real. Awareness of Intelligence or Presence makes you conscious of the fact that, what seems real-the material world around you-is really a passing illusion and what seems unreal-the spiritual world-is actually what’s real and eternal. That is, it’s not what’s seen, but what’s unseen that is most real. Saint Paul expressed it beautifully: “The things we see now are here today, gone tomorrow. But the things we can’t see now will last forever.”

If you are waking up, a shift is taking place in your consciousness even now. You are becoming more and more aware of yourself-that is, your own feelings, hopes and dreams, as well as disappointents and failures, and there is an acceptance of all of it. You feel no need to argue with what is. Rather, you are at peace with yourself and your reason for being in this world.

You’ve ended the madness of looking for yourself outside yourself-in things, relationships, a career or calling, roles, functions, a belief system, and so on. You know that any of these has the capacity of adding richness to your life, but none of these could ever be your life. Furthermore, instead of just one or a few other persons, you sense a deep connectedness to all sentient beings. The prejudices, stereotypes, opinions, and beliefs about others, part of your conditioned upbringing, are coming into the light of your consciousness. You are more aware of your conditioned responses to people and circumstances and, therefore, capable of changing what needs changing. What should disappear fades away. What should expand does so, too. None of it happens overnight but, on the awakened, spiritual path, you are yourself amazed at how much more at peace you are with life itself. You are living what Jesus described as “the abundant life.”

The abundant, God-aware life is perfectly illustrated in the life of Enoch, an enlightened spiritual master who perhaps lived thousands of years ago. Early Jewish and Christian saints, including many of the early Church Fathers, regarded Enoch as an enlightened soul whose writings were sacred. In spite of this widespread acknowledgment, however, by the fourth century, his works had been excluded from the Canon of Scripture, or what we know today as the Bible. This is most regrettable as Enoch’s example of the enlightened life holds the secret to life and death. Enoch lived as God desires all to live. He died as God desires all to die. But, because his writings have not been widely accessible, his example has been virtually hidden from countless generations.

Enoch has much to share with us. Our Jewish ancestors knew this, which is why, long before Jesus, and for many years after him, Jewish and Christian saints venerated Enoch. This is accentuated by the fact that there are only two persons in the Bible credited with having “walked with God,” a phrase which is the Biblical way of referring to an awakened, enlightened, or God-aware life. They are Noah and Enoch. That alone is puzzling enough to warrant an investigation. To walk with God. What does that mean? Is this simply an anthropomorphic way of describing a spiritual life? In part, but it is patently more than this, too. The inference is, between Enoch and God, a depth of intimacy existed unknown to almost everyone else, either before or after him.

There was a time when intimacy prevailed between God and humans and between humans and all other sentient beings. But, in Jewish mythology, something was lost in creation. When the Serpent, whom legend has called Satan but we now know as the dysfunctional ego, lifted its noxious head, its toxic venum contaminated human consciousness of the Divine. What was once a magnificent, effortless attachment to God was severed by the ego. God was successfully edged out of human consciousness.

The story of Enoch is, therefore, a story of recovery. What was forfeited by Adam and Eve in the creation narratives was reclaimed in Enoch. This is the point the writer of Genesis is making by the words, “Enoch walked with God.” The previous reference to “walking” in the Book of Genesis tells us God walked alone. While God once walked in harmony with Adam and Eve, separation became the order of the day.

Enoch broke that cycle, however. What his predecessors and contemporaries could not do, and most of his successors have not done since, Enoch did. He lived in spiritual union with Eternal Presence. And, the good news is this: If he did, others may too. Enoch is a universal archetype of the sacred art of knowing God. If anyone was ever awake, it was Enoch. The remarkable way he lived, and the equally remarkable way in which he died, holds the secret to living and dying today. Though relegated to place of obscurity for centuries, his legacy is instructive to the spiritually discerning. Your interest in him is the next step you’re destined to take in your journey of your own awakening.

Enoch lived as God would have you live—in unity consciousness with Being itself.
Enoch died as God would have you die—with satisfaction, contentment, and no fear.

Enoch was born, lived, and died the way God had originally planned for everyone—that is, until the ego contaminated the human condition, making birth painful, life problematic, and death what the New Testament calls “the last enemy.”[1]

So, how might you wake up?

Go within. That’s the real tabernacle, temple, or worship center. Jesus said, “The kingdom of God is within you.”[2] You will not find this kingdom anywhere else. Channel the desire you feel to know God into a journey into the inner shrine of stillness, meditation, and peace. “You are the temple of God,” said Saint Paul, “and God himself is present in you.”[3] Words do not get much clearer than this. It is this unseen temple of the heart where you touch Source and tame your ego-self. All outer temples, shrines, churches, and altars are mere reminders that the pathway to Life is the pathway within. It is there you enter the real sanctuary, experience real Sabbath, and enjoy Source itself.

Just as you cannot know God in a collection of beliefs or doctrines, no matter how “right” your religious tradition insists they are, so you cannot know God in a church, temple, or mosque, no matter how emotionally-uplifting it may be. It is true that God may visit, surprise, or awaken within you in any of a million different ways—in a worship service, through the reading of sacred scripture, during a confession, or while pondering a religious doctrine or belief. But, it is also true that God may awaken in you while on a golf course, in the midst of a crisis, or while doing nothing at all, except reclining on a couch watching television.

[1] 1 Corinthians 15:26, KJV

[2] Luke 17:21

[3] 1 Corinthians 3:16

[1] Genesis 5:24

[2] Genesis 3:8

[3] 1 Corinthians 15:26, KJV

[4] See Genesis 5:18-24; Jude 14-15; and Hebrews 11:5

[5] The books attributed to Enoch are known as 1 Enoch (or, Book of Enoch), 2 Enoch (or, Secrets of Enoch) and 3 Enoch (or, Mystical Enoch). Early Christians of the second century were familiar with these writings and many consider them sacred, including Church Fathers like Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Origen, Clement of Alexandria, and Tertullian. By the fourth century, however, the Book of Enoch was excluded from all Christian lists of those books which would comprise what is commonly known as the Bible today. In no way, however, does this discount the significance of Enoch’s life or his death. In fact, regarding his death, his experience of it was so rare and different, virtually everyone since then has mistakenly concluded he did not experience death at all. He did die, however, just as everyone dies. But, the way he lived and the way he died were preserved for a reason. It is in the story of Enoch that you find the secrets that can transform the quality of your life and solve the quandary of your death.

Why the "Law of Attraction" Doesn’t Work for Most People

Dr. Steve McSwain — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 13:35:42 +0000

Some persons are practitioners of what has become widely known as the Law of Attraction. This is a spiritual and universal law to be sure. But, it’s hardly “the secret” that a recent book by that title would suggest and it’s hardly a new law. It’s been around for a long time, although it, as with the name for God, goes by many different names. The Law of Attraction is known in the New Testament as the Law of Believing, or the Law of Asking and Receiving. One can find some form of this law in virtually every culture and religion.

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.

[1] Philippians 4:8-9

[2] James 4:3, NIV

"God Has No Religion!"

Dr. Steve McSwain — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:44:19 +0000

I once read of a rabbi who corrected a young, arrogant student named Jacob who loved to make fun of Christians. He regarded Christians as ignorant and ill-informed and Christianity as an absurd religion.

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?

[1] André Comte-Sponville, The Little Book of Atheistic Spirituality, trans. by Nancy Huston, (Penguin Books: New York, NY, 2007), pp. 39-40.