Eventually I came to learn that God can be found in many places. Love has no religion, and no religion can have a monopoly on God. God can’t be limited to a religion or a church, but can be found in the hearts of anyone who has the love of God inside of them and a never ending desire to share that love with everyone else.
— Excerpted from The Truth as I See It: A Collection of Spiritual Writings by Adam Soto (p. 37)
A man traversed land and sea to check for himself the Master’s extraordinary fame.
“What miracles has your Master worked?” he said to a disciple.
“Well, there are miracles and miracles. In your land it is regarded as a miracle if God does someone’s will. In our country it is regarded as a miracle if someone does the will of God.”
– Anthony de Mello, One Minute Wisdom
I was happy to learn that there were many people who had experiences similar to my own. Although I didn’t agree with everything I read, I always tried my best to keep an open mind and learn as much as I could. Slowly, over time, I began to see that what I had experienced with God had been experienced countless times throughout history. People, I learned, had been trying to describe what they felt to be true for thousands of years, and I was shocked to see how similar even some of the oldest accounts were to my own.
Growing up as a Christian, I was even more surprised to see how rich other faiths were in their descriptions. I had always been taught that Jesus was the “only way” to God. Without the testimony of Jesus, it’s quite possible that I never would have come to know God myself, and for that I am eternally grateful, but I’m just as grateful to God for showing me the many other beautiful horizons. It wasn’t easy letting go of some of my dogmatic beliefs, but I put my faith in God. I stepped into the river of spirit and trusted where it was going.
My experience of God was one thing; I understood it, but I still could not articulate it. I knew I was getting closer. After all, every river eventually leads to an ocean.
— Excerpted from The Truth as I See It: A Collection of Spiritual Writings by Adam Soto (p. 37)
And so I began a journey in search of experiences similar to my own; not for validation, but for accounts of those who could say what they experienced better than I could. What I knew to be true was hard to express in words. Words couldn’t capture what I had experienced with God that special, beautiful day and the many days since, and I now know that they never will. Words are imperfect, but they’re the best tools available to us to try to share what we feel.
The path I followed was random, but it was also more than that. At times it felt as if I were being guided by the Spirit of God. I was drawn to writers who were free-thinkers, who told it how it was regardless of what anyone else thought of them. Coming from a family of free-thinkers, I’ve never been afraid to form my own conclusions on things. To follow the spirit within is not a sin in my eyes; that’s the part of us that’s most connected with God. Where else would one look to find the truth … to be unified with God?
— Excerpted from The Truth as I See It: A Collection of Spiritual Writings by Adam Soto (p. 36)
“Many paths lead to the peak of Mount Fuji, but the goal is the same. There are many methods of reaching the top, but they all can bring us to the heights. There is no need to battle with each other — we are all brothers and sisters who should walk the path together, hand in hand…”
– Morihei Ueshiba, The Art of Peace
Source: http://www.aikidofederation.com/about-aikido/selected-teachings/
Question: Why don’t more people think about God and religion for themselves?
Answer: In the end, I suppose it all hinges on where we start from. At some point in my journey with God it became clear to me that the purest way to know God would be to start with my personal experiences first and build from there. That meant letting go of any descriptions of God that contradicted these experiences (and, of course, using logic and reason, including spiritual logic and reason). To do that I had to undo any previous programming or indoctrination that I’d already been exposed to. That’s not an easy thing to do, and the very idea of it terrifies most people.
The reality is, most people are very insecure about their beliefs. I feel that the majority of people don’t know and can’t envision any other way to approach God and spiritual matters than the way they already know. Also, they don’t want to be an “outsider”; they want to be a part of an organized religion for the sense of community they get from being part of the group. (Community usually is, or can be, a positive thing; I’m not knocking that.)
As I illustrate in my writings, most people want a doctrine or set of beliefs that is already figured out for them. They start with someone else’s ideas or experiences of God and build from there. Therefore, their starting point is always from someone else’s point of view, and has, in many cases, thousands of years of dogma and tradition already built into it. If that’s the way someone wants to go about it, that’s their choice, and they’re free to do so. But what happens when some of our most basic questions about God and existence are asked and thought about starting from the ground up, without any preconceived notions?
That’s why I have such a hard time with religion. Most of it is based on hand-me-down theology. Very few people think about God and existence on their own. They limit their understanding to a very strict set of unquestionable ideas, and never test these ideas against all available evidence.
Maybe I’m right, maybe I’m wrong, but that’s The Truth as I See It.
But the most important thing I learned from hearing other people’s ideas about God was that what we believe makes a difference in how we live and think in relation to God and those around us. It showed me that a model of a loving God was more able to produce loving people, full of charity and grace, while a model of a vindictive God brought with it, in many ways, more harm than good, producing people of a more harsh and sometimes unforgiving and unaccepting nature.
It was clear to me then that in order for me to grow and move forward on a spiritual level, I would need to leave behind any kind of thinking that portrayed God in an unloving manner. The God I had come to know was full of love, mercy, and understanding. Anything that portrayed God differently did so contrary to my own experience. What I needed then, I knew, was to let go of dogma and tradition and explore love for myself.
God, I had faith, would lead me to the truth.
— Excerpted from The Truth as I See It: A Collection of Spiritual Writings by Adam Soto (p. 36)
Three little boys are in the schoolyard bragging about their fathers. The first boy says, “My Dad scribbles a few words on a piece of paper. He calls it a poem and they give him $50.” The second boy says, “That’s nothing. My Dad scribbles a few words on a piece of paper. He calls it a song and they give him $100.” The third boy says, “Hey, my Dad scribbles some words on a piece of paper, calls it a sermon, and it takes eight people to collect all the money!
Source: http://www.enlightened-spirituality.org/Spiritual_Humor.html
Discussing the Bible with people brought with it many mixed opinions. On the one hand were those who felt as I did, confused by some things but finding relevance in the Gospels, while on the other hand were those who seemed to concentrate more on “The Cross” and “The Blood of Christ.” While both viewpoints were interesting, it was hard for me to accept that a God so full of love and grace would require a blood sacrifice as a way of atoning for the sins of mankind. In my view, that kind of atonement was neither loving nor forgiving. It required that someone had to pay, and in that case, couldn’t really be considered forgiveness at all. It resembled more of an “eye for an eye” philosophy to me than it did a “turn the other cheek” philosophy.
— Excerpted from The Truth as I See It: A Collection of Spiritual Writings by Adam Soto (p. 35)
“The time of business does not with me differ from the time of prayer, and in the noise and clatter of my kitchen, while several persons are at the same time calling for different things, I possess God in as great tranquility as if I were upon my knees at the blessed sacrament.”
– Brother Lawrence
Source: https://www.bmcm.org/inspiration/thought-day/the-time-of-business-does-not-with-me-di/
Mind / Purpose / Truth 