Really? Not even God?  Surely, this person was not suggesting that God sometimes fails?

Yes, come to think of it, I suspect God does. From the beginning, didn’t creation become one colossal failure?  And, centuries later, Jesus shows up. Even if you believe that he showed up on this earth as one sent by God to take on himself the failure of humanity and so die in your stead (something I once believed and many in the Christian community still do), I have often wondered how I could look at his life or study his teachings and draw any other conclusion than that his life, too, was a colossal failure. He once said of himself, “I have come to seek and to save the lost.”

Well, did he succeed? No and yes. What do you suppose his agony was in the Garden on the night before his crucifixion? A celebration of his successes?  Wasn’t it the agony of defeat, even death…his own? But, of course! He knew this. The tide of popularity had swelled into a drowning wave of pain and rejection. He was in sheer agony. He, too, had failed, having not achieved what he hoped.

Or, was it a failure?

I have learned something important in a grace-awakened state of consciousness, which I describe at length in The Enoch Factor. There’s a difference as wide as the Grand Canyon between failing and being a failure.  Most of my life, I have lived with the feeling of being short-changed, as if I was just one step away from achieving whatever the ego in me had imagined was necessary to award me fulfillment, a sense of completion, a kind of endless personal satisfaction.  I don’t know how many times, for example, I’ve had an ingenious idea only to pick up the paper and read about some wag in Utah who had beaten me to the draw, made his fortune, and all pertaining to the same damn dream I had.  For much of my life, I have lived, not only with the reality of failing, but the feeling as if I am a failure…even a loser. Unless you’re like me, you can only imagine how awful it is to live your life standing as it were at the precipice of success while the ego taunts you like a teenage bully, “Failure!” “Phony!” “Loser!”

Seems hard to believe, doesn’t it? Oh, I know some of you read my musings, look at my website and think, “Wow, he’s made it!” Made it? You don’t know what haunts me at night.  You have no clue the profound feelings of inadequacy that dog me day.

Gratefully, I have learned what it is–it is the ego in me. And that’s how the little monster himself beats you up almost continually. Living with him can be, in the words of St. John of the Cross, “the dark night of the soul.”  I would be insane today were it not for the fact that in my spiritual awakening I have seen in Jesus’ own failure a glimmer of personal hope…a pathway to my own destiny.  Yes, I suppose, in one sense, Jesus failed, as did the Buddha. For years, he searched, sacrificed, and tore at his soul to find solace, serenity, satisfaction. Then, unexpectedly, one night under the Bodhi tree, a miracle happened. Liberation from the internal monster was its reward.

In the miracle that is the Universe, what I refer to as God, to fall is to find yourself in a destiny you never dreamt of before. On such occasions, failing could only ever mean you’re fragile…you’re human…and, you’re in need of something, or Someone, grander than yourself to do in you what you cannot do for yourself–transform you into that which you truly are, not a trophy case full of forgotten accomplishments, not a “success” with the cars, or houses, or Oscars to prove it. No, but someone infinitely more wonderful than anything that would award you pleasure today and pain tomorrow. No, where Grace takes you is to a finer destiny indeed.

And where is that?

You’ll see. Just wait. You’ll see. Or, maybe you’ve seen it already. That little place deep inside you that begs exploration.  You’ve been listening to the degrading voice of the inner ego long enough. And when you tire of him–and, you can be sure, YOU WILL tire of him–then your journey will begin.  For as one spiritual teacher put it, “When the search for God ends, the journey WITH God begins.”

This voice that calls out, ever so lightly, is unobtrusive…almost inconspicuous. It is, in the words of the Psalmist, “a still, small voice”…waiting patiently for an opportunity.

There is no judgment in her voice, only joy; No criticism in her tone, only encouragement; no failure in her plans; only a future.  YOURS, as a matter of fact! Blessed holiday, my friend!  Grace is born!

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.