I see my soul, my essence, as grounded in oneness with one thing bigger than myself. I most frequently name that “one thing higher” 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 Area, love or Love, common vitality, the next energy, the quantum discipline. The huge vary of spiritual and religious traditions the world over all have totally different names for this one thing higher, and every identify speaks to specific understanding of it. (In case you discover discord with this final thought, lookup the time period spiritual pluralism, one other eye-opening idea I discovered about in graduate theology college.) Every of those phrases is perhaps correct, however every can also be restricted. It displays only one perspective, one facet, or one type of expertise of the higher one thing. The extra I stroll with people who find themselves exploring their religion, which means, and goal and desirous to really feel extra absolutely alive, the extra I feel our phrases can solely start to the touch on what that one thing higher is like. The entire of it’s in the end unnamable.
In case you’re simply getting used to the concept of being a part of one thing bigger or higher 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 related to one thing higher, a way of being interconnected with others, a way that you simply’re not alone even once you appear to be? In case you can, recall a time you felt this manner. Perhaps you have been on a night stroll, watching the sundown over the water. Or maybe you have been strolling on a lakeside path, and also you have been greeted by a household of small birds scurrying towards the water. Or perhaps you have been outdoors and felt a heat breeze carrying a aromatic lilac odor 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 vitality? A deep understanding? A glimmer of one thing past? A way that there’s a presence with you?
Once more, don’t fear concerning 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 concern 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 are feeling an interconnectedness with all. A sense of oneness and heat fills your physique.
Or perhaps a sense of coming house surfaces, the mirror is obvious, and also you perceive why you might be 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, seems like love; the felt sense of oneness and interconnectedness I really feel by means of my soul seems like love; the one thing higher seems like love.
These are all examples of what one thing higher may really feel like. What does it really feel prefer to you?