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When I was six years old, I met my stepmother who introduced me to Catholicism. I was mesmerized by the chanting and bell ringing and thrilled to meet people who believed in ghosts. For the first time I learned that there were names and concepts for the visions and experiences I had. Until then I thought I was the only person who had a mystical feeling. And not knowing the word “mystical” I just thought I was weird – maybe I was. The long version of that story is recounted in my ebook.
I grew up in the United States, so I had heard the names God and Jesus before. My grandparents were nice Methodists and took me to a pancake breakfast now and then. But no one talked about God – maybe a vague warning from time to time as if he were a policeman. I met the Blessed Mother for the first time in a little small-town Catholic Church filled with flowers. And I collected any image of Her I could get my hands on. I don’t always think of Her specifically anymore, but when the going gets tough and I need to, as they say, “get out the big guns,” the Virgin Mary never disappoints. She doesn’t usually give me what I ask for, but she always gives me what I need.
Still, I didn’t turn out to be a very good Catholic, for a variety of reasons. One of the main reasons is that as a teenager, I prayed to Jesus and asked him to tell me if he was the unique Son of God. And I believe he told me that he wasn’t exactly that – that Catholics have a path but not the only path to God. I don’t mean to say that I don’t think Jesus was special – I absolutely do. But I just determined that God is greater than the Catholic Church, however beautiful the buildings and pomp the rituals.
Later I went on to learn from and enjoy, but not join, a variety of religions and philosophical belief systems. The most important thing I’ve learned from those experiences is that at the heart of all religions, the truth mystics from all paths uncover, is the principle of unity. Mystic spirituality does not interpret Jesus’ words, “I am the way the truth and the life…” literally, but metaphysically. And in the metaphysical community Jesus did not say, “I am…” but rather, “I AM…” A very important distinction as the words I AM are an acknowledgment of the divine consciousness dwelling within us. Connecting with it is our path to truth and life.
The most clear and vivid explanation of how unity works comes from my favorite Vedanta teacher Swami Tadatmananda, who uses the metaphor of how a spider spins his web from his own body. The spider doesn’t gather netting to make the web, rather he brings it forth. And when he’s done with the web, he “swallows” it, taking it back into himself. In the same way, Ishvara (the name Swamiji uses for God the creator in this metaphor) sends us out from himself and at the end of our life brings us back to himself.
Jesus, in the Book of John, prayed that all of his friends would realize their unity with God. He described the principle:
I in them, and You in me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.
I first learned about Buddhism in college as part of my Religious Studies minor. (Full disclosure: that is also the extent of anything I have resembling credentials to write on this topic.) But I wasn’t drawn to my understanding of Buddhism at that time. I learned that the Buddha was an atheist, and the goal of enlightenment was to escape samara, and cease to exist. That may or may not be a fair interpretation, but I did not find it appealing. It didn’t even make sense to me, given my mystical awakening that had occurred long before I knew to strive for it. So I left Buddhism in the classroom for the time being.
Many years later I discovered a different way of summing all that up. I’ve always believed God is in, with, through, and all around every object, person, animal, and empty space. The closest proper term for that conceptualization is panentheistic. I’ve never encountered a mystic or mystical tradition that doesn’t also view the manifest world as such.
And while I was learning from Buddhist teachings during my 8 week mindfulness training, I discovered our commonalities are greater than our differences. Buddhism teaches there are three poisons, and to deliver oneself from them, there are three antidotes. The antidote to greed is generosity; antidote to hatred is love; and antidote to delusion is wisdom. While meditating on this one day I realized those states of mind are not separate. Rather they exist on a continuum. And it occurred to me that there is no fundamental difference in my belief that everything is sacred and the Buddhist belief that nothing is sacred. Two sides, same coin. Many paths, one destination.
How do you conceive of unity? If you ended up here because you want to start a spiritual journey, I have some tips to combine spirituality and practice here.
And for the love of God, if you blog on WordPress, how do you convince it to indent the first sentence of a paragraph, use a uniform font, leave two spaces when you click the space bar twice or do any number of basic things that you might want to do when writing? Sometimes it just randomly does things correctly of its own accord. But this entire post formatted itself in this insane manner without any help from me – my apologies and thank you for reading it anyway!