God and spirituality

Ken Orchard reflects on his personal spiritual experience

I experience ‘God’, mostly, in three different places. I experience it in other people, I experience it in myself and I experience it in the wonder of the universe. But of these three places, I experience it most commonly in other people and in my relationships with other people.

For me, when I connect, awarely, with others at a deep and meaningful level it is a spiritual experience. This deep connection feels more than ‘the normal’. When I connect deeply with others it feels as if we are functioning at our very highest level; our maximum human potential; the most loving we can possibly be. For some reason I feel a need to attach religious terms to that; I feel a need to call it ‘God’ or ‘spirituality’. It seems I can’t quite believe that something so amazing could be ‘just’ human.

The second most common place that I experience God is when I really connect consciously with myself. When I use the word ‘God’ in this context, or the phrase ‘that of God within me’, I think I am referring to my own higher self; my best potential. Again, I seem to feel the need to attach religious terms to this connection. I find it difficult to believe that it could be ‘just’ me – that I could be that amazing.

The third place that I experience God is when I consciously connect with the wonder of the universe. In this instance, ‘God’ is a word for me to describe the mysterious energy that makes the world work: the energy behind the natural laws, which make a seed grow into a specific and amazing plant and which make the earth spin on its axis and circumnavigate the sun; the energy which makes me breathe, heal my own wounds, orgasm, see, smell and hear.

Maybe all the ways in which we experience what we call, ‘spirituality’ or ‘God’ – a gathered Meeting for Worship, good sex, great music, personal meditation, nature and so on – are about deep connection with this ‘God energy’, wherever we find it. I think the word ‘spirituality’ is simply a word used to describe the process of connecting to ‘that of God’.

I believe ‘that of God’ is present within every part of creation – every flower, every star, every stone, every animal, every person… and me. And when I connect – really, consciously connect – with any of these, I am connecting to the God within them and I am filled with awe and amazement.

Yes, I feel a need to attach religious terms to that connection. Yes, I feel a need to call it ‘God’. How could I not?

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Comments

Very nicely put. I agree that if we have ‘that feeling’ within us that is drawn to spirituality, then our spirituality finds its presence and makes us aware of it in so many things that we do.

By spider10 on 29th September 2016 - 13:22

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