The Transition from the Journey to God to the Journey in God

A non-dual understanding of Reality is at the very heart of all the enduring Faith Traditions but mainstream teaching within these traditions is almost entirely dualistic. We can nurture a hunger, a deep intuition that many have, of an underlying oneness to Reality. with its profound implication for how to live and to lead.

Most religions provide a spiritual path that points its followers toward the Source, the First Cause, the intelligence, and love behind the Universe.

In many cases, however, there comes a point in which the path and the community we so love, has limited our spiritual development. There is a sense that something is missing. There is more to it and it requires going beyond the current expression of that spiritual community.

It is the desire to move beyond the journey to God, to the journey in God.

It is the desire to go beyond the understanding and experience of God as ‘Other’. There is a hunger for the end of psychological suffering that accompanies the belief in being a separate ‘me’.

Most of us have an intuition of an underlying oneness to reality.

As this transition takes place, questions arise such as, if God is the underlying reality of everything, then it doesn’t make sense that there is a ‘me’ separate from that Reality. If God is omnipresent, then there is no room for a separate me alongside God. If there were any reality alongside God, then God would not be God.

If God is the ever-present underlying reality of everything and everyone, then the awareness, reading these words, must also be God’s infinite aware being. There can be no separation.

That’s the beginning of the journey in God…. It begins as we open ourselves to the possibility that the awareness, I, perceiving this human experience, is God’s very presence.

There is value in the journey to God because it helps to undermine the ego. There is less psychological suffering, however, the belief in being an ego, a separate self, is still present. There is a longing for God that can’t be fulfilled from within the paradigm of separation. What we want is happiness and peace, an end to separation.

The Direct Path is not a religion. It is an understanding that arises from experience. It is an investigation into what we are, not from hearsay or reading, but from our own direct experience. There are hints of it within most world religions and there are those living from this realization both inside and outside spiritual communities. Many remain within their beloved communities but their experience and understanding have moved beyond the message that is typically preached.

When we have lived for decades believing in separation, it takes time to unlearn the habits of thinking, feeling, relating and acting formed through that belief. However, when we live from this new possibility in all aspects of our lives, those habits begin to dissolve and new habits take their place.

Notice the freedom from worry, guilt, shame, and resentment if there is no separate self. Notice the absurdity of the feeling ‘I’m not enough’ over our failures. Notice what this does to any resentment or blame we may carry toward our parents or our past. Notice how we relate differently, knowing we share the same aware being.

Over time we begin to stabilize in the peace of our natural state, God’s presence.

The belief that humans have awareness is the core of this misunderstanding. We don’t have consciousness. Even when we first became open to the direct path, in most cases we still assumed humans are conscious. We assume humans are aware and that awareness is a property of being human.

A significant shift takes place once we recognize, only awareness is aware. Our knowledge of awareness, is awareness’s knowledge of itself. Awareness is the one that is aware …the one that knows itself and the world… The very awareness through which each of us is aware of these words, IS the only awareness there is.

With that understanding, begins the journey in God.

As Francis Lucille once put it, “The Good News is that we are what we are. We may think we are something else, but sooner or later, what we are will prevail… So don’t worry.”

We are always, already and for all time, all right. Our very being is happiness and peace… That’s what we are, even when an old habit, a remnant from separation, temporarily veils it.

We don’t have to try to be aware. This sacred Presence is what we are.

Devotion, worship, and prayer are not inconsistent with this understanding for with it, there naturally arises the experience of humility, gratitude, and awe. The experiences of beauty and love are celebrations of this underlying Oneness. Meditation and other forms of contemplative prayer are resting in and as God’s presence.

The non-dual Christian theologian and mystic Meister Eckhart expresses it like this, “If the only prayer you ever said was thank you, that would be enough.” As we give thanks, giver and the receiver are the same!

We are the knower of our human experience, aren’t we? What then is a human being? As Rupert Spira so effectively put it, the human body-mind is a temporary localization of Infinite Aware Being. All sentient beings are instruments through which God sees the world as Him/Herself.

We are God’s Presence here!

Note: Much of this article is a repurposing of what I gained from an extraordinary YouTube conversation between Rupert Spira and Swami Sarvapriyananda. I have used it to clarify the transition from the journey to God to the journey in God. To sample this dialogue, go to the YouTube video and forward it to the 3-minute mark. The next 15 minutes are remarkable. If that speaks to you, you will enjoy the rest. Love, Rick