I see my soul, my essence, as grounded in oneness with one thing bigger than myself. I most frequently name that “one thing larger” God or the Divine. But there’s a complete vary of different phrases that match too—like Supply, Oneness, God, Allah, Nice Spirit, the Infinite Discipline, love or Love, common power, a better energy, the quantum discipline. The huge vary of spiritual and non secular traditions the world over all have completely different names for this one thing larger, and every title speaks to specific understanding of it. (Should you discover discord with this final thought, lookup the time period spiritual pluralism, one other eye-opening idea I realized about in graduate theology faculty.) Every of those phrases could be correct, however every can also be restricted. It displays only one perspective, one side, or one sort of expertise of the larger one thing. The extra I stroll with people who find themselves exploring their religion, which means, and objective and eager to really feel extra totally alive, the extra I feel our phrases can solely start to the touch on what that one thing larger is like. The entire of it’s in the end unnamable.
Should you’re simply getting used to the concept of being a part of one thing bigger or larger than your self, don’t fear about what to name it. Don’t get hung up on what others name it both. Language is limiting.
What’s necessary is to be open to the sensation of it. The place, when, and the way have you ever felt a way of being linked to one thing larger, a way of being interconnected with others, a way that you just’re not alone even whenever you appear to be? Should you can, recall a time you felt this fashion. Perhaps you had been on a night stroll, watching the sundown over the water. Or maybe you had been strolling on a lakeside path, and also you had been greeted by a household of small birds scurrying towards the water. Or perhaps you had been outdoors and felt a heat breeze carrying a aromatic lilac scent and noticed small flowers floating within the air.
As you image that scene, are you able to open once more to the sensation tone in your physique, to a resonance with one thing extra? What does it really feel like? A way of power? A deep figuring out? A glimmer of one thing past? A way that there’s a presence with you?
Once more, don’t fear in regards to the language. Simply really feel it.
Perhaps you expertise a deep pulling of ah. Perhaps you are feeling a way of one thing larger, and perhaps an expanded, fuller breath is available in. Perhaps you breathe within the preciousness of simply this second. Perhaps you are feeling such as you’re settling right into a deeper, fuller house inside your self.
Maybe any held worry drops away, and also you simply know that on this second all is okay. A wonderment comes by means of you, or a pulsing aliveness strikes by means of your physique. You’re feeling an interconnectedness with all. A sense of oneness and heat fills your physique.
Or perhaps a sense of coming dwelling surfaces, the mirror is obvious, and also you perceive why you’re right here.
I expertise this sense as an inner vibration that quivers inside me. I additionally expertise it as love. To me, our soul, our essence, appears like love; the felt sense of oneness and interconnectedness I really feel by means of my soul appears like love; the one thing larger appears like love.
These are all examples of what one thing larger might really feel like. What does it really feel wish to you?