If you are having trouble experiencing God’s love, that’s a frustrating thing. I don’t know how many times I used to feel distant from God, or have heard people feeling “spiritually dry”.
Good news is, the solution is quite simple. I’ll share what I’ve learned from pursuing and studying the presence of God.
What is God?
It is important to understand some philosophy on who God really is. Many people feel distant from God’s love, because we’re taught things about God that just aren’t true.
First, God is not some being in the sky that may or may not show up when we pray. From what we know about neuroscience, evolution, and interspiritual philosophy, we now know that what we experience as God, is actually just our own higher consciousness.
Christian scripture does point to this:
- “We are made in the image of God”
- “God is a very present help in trouble”
- “the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters”
- Jesus saying, “I and the Father are one” (Jesus’ consciousness was God’s consciousness)
- Christ “is before all things and in him all things hold together”
- “From him and through him and to him are all things”
All of this points to God being primarily a spiritual energy that pervades all things. Energy medicine shows that energy does pervade all things, through both electromagnetic and possibly quantum fields. It is proven that our hearts emit an electromagnetic signal around us, and that reality bends to the will of universal consciousness. Neuroscience shows that what we experience as God is actually when our sense of self, space, and time dissolve – an experience at the root of all spiritual traditions.
That means that the love of God – of universal consciousness – is here, within us, and pervading all things. The universal energy that binds, creates and animates us, is God’s love in action. It is present and it is available to us, at all times.
When we understand what God is and where God is, our ability to experience Its love becomes much easier.
“The chief thing that separates us from God is the thought that we are separated from Him.”
Father Thomas Keating
“The chief thing that separates us from God is the thought that we are separated from Him.”
Thomas Keating
“We shall not cease from exploration
T.S. Eliot
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.”
How to Experience God’s Love
“We do not have to die to arrive at the gates of Heaven. In fact, we have to be truly alive. The practice is to touch life deeply so that the Kingdom of God becomes a reality. This is not a matter of devotion. It is a matter of practice. The Kingdom of God is available here and now.”
Thich Nhat Hanh
In the nondual teachings of Buddhism, Hinduism, and Christianity, we get in touch with God by getting in touch with our own awareness. When we express heartfelt gratitude for this peaceful awareness, we experience the loving presence of God.
We access the loving awareness of God through silent meditation. When we let go of our ego, thoughts, desires, and beliefs, we are able to access the awareness behind our thoughts. When we rest in this awareness, this awareness can expand and become infinite. Thus the omnipresence of God.
Thomas Keating“Silence is God’s first language; everything else is a poor translation.”
“All great spirituality teaches about letting go of what you don’t need and who you are not.”
Richard Rohr
“We need no wings to go in search of Him, but have only to look upon Him present within us.”
St. Teresa of Avila
It could be said that we feel God’s love by loving Its presence first. We love God’s presence, and that love returns to us. God’s presence is peace above all else – the peace that surpasses all understanding (Phill. 4:7). When we let go of our to-do lists, worries, anxieties, jealousy, strife, and ego, we’re able to access that peaceful, infinite awareness – without which we can do nothing (John 15). When we love that peace with focus and attention, that love returns back to us and we feel God’s love.
Letting go of our ego to abide in God’s awareness is a skill – a muscle we can strengthen over time, with practice. The union with God (the literal definition of yoga, by the way) that Jesus spoke of can become a daily, predictable reality. The presence of God is everywhere, all the time, for we are the very presence of God – made in God’s image. A day doesn’t need to go by of feeling “spiritually dry” or distant from God. We just need to practice our “letting go” muscles accessing our infinite awareness.
“The potential for human wholeness – or in other frames of reference, enlightenment, salvation, transformation, blessedness, nirvana – is present in every human person.”
Wayne Teasdale, The Mystic Heart
