Seeking God

I lived overseas for many years, mostly in Asia. Living overseas changes a person, and I have to say that I have some un-Orthodox ideas about spirituality, religion, and God. I believe fervently in a spiritual side of life, but I refuse to be drawn into defining it by standard means. I would go so far as to say that I doubt there's a single person on the face of the planet who really knows what the spiritual side of life is exactly like.

When I read Indian spiritualists and mystics, I find a great deal of truth, so it was with relish that I accepted a couple of books of poetry when a friend was moving. Imagine my surprise that the author, Adyashanti, was a Caucasian American, living in the Bay Area. I have found a great deal of truth in the poems and sayings in the book My Secret is Silence. One stanza I especially like ends a poem:

Has it ever occurred to you
that you are seeking God
with His eyes?

I fell asleep last night repeating that question to myself. I also asked myself whether I would act differently if I believed it. The answer is yes.

Don't get me wrong. "I" am not God. I do not believe that I am God. I don't really even know what God is.

Here's what is right. God is. I don't know where God's boundaries are, but I find it hard to fathom that God has them. That being the case. What is divine and what is profane?

In Oedipus at Colonus, the blind former king Oedipus goes out in search of his own tomb. Unguided, he leads those who follow him, and a messenger recounts, "But then after a moment, with no word spoken, we saw him salute the earth and the sky, home of the gods, at the same moment." In one motion, a man links all that is sacred with all that isn't. With a salute, all becomes one. It takes an action from a human to accomplish this.

There's something in the salute by a blind man that binds the sacred and the profane. There's something in the act. Human action has the capacity to bring God into the equation.