The Holy Experience

Of course, we are all deeply saddened by the fires in California, and the prayers of every person are sent to those who have been so devastated by these extraordinary events. I continued in this space yesterday a series of blogs on The Holy Experience, and this seems a very important time to present this material, as the world around us experiences so many challenges.

I wish I could tell you that in the years that followed my descriptions here yesterday, I had a wonderful and fulfilling experience of God. I did not.

My first obstacle was my father. When I told him while I was in the 7th grade that I wanted to enter the seminary he made it clear to me in no uncertain terms that that was not going to happen.

“You’re not old enough to make that decision,” he told me. “When you are, we can talk about it.”
I now understood what that was all about. At the time, I did not. I saw my father as cruel and even “anti-God.” I could not understand what he had against my entering the seminary.

In the 7th and 8th grade of Catholic parochial school the priests and nuns really start talking up the priesthood to the guys. If a fellow has any kind of piety at all, this can suddenly start looking like a very attractive option. In my case, it had become something that I had to do.

The sisters all agreed that I had “the calling.” I served at Mass every morning, and it was not lost on the priests and nuns how earnestly I prayed, how I had completely memorized the altar boy’s responses in Latin, and how I had “taken” to the whole business of God and the Church.

My father was clear that it was the business of these schools to steer as many young boys into thoughts of the seminary as possible. Dad knew that I knew nothing of females—and he was also smart enough to understand that until I did, any decision about moving into a line of work that required me to be celibate all my life was premature.

He was, of course, dead right. Somewhere during the eighth grade I saw my first picture of a woman without clothing. I know, I know, that was late, relatively speaking, in the life of a boy, but you have to remember that this was in the Fifties, and things were a lot different then. A year later, as a freshman in high school, I actually saw a real, live girl naked. She, too, was a high school freshman, and we had gotten into a little mischief together. Nothing serious, really. Just a little show-and-tell. But it sure took my mind off the priesthood.

Still, I remained enamored of religion itself as an institution. I may not become a priest, I thought, but I will always be devoted to God.

It didn’t take long for me to realize that I was not going to find it possible to remain devoted to God through organized religion. Many peoeple have, of course, and so this is not an indictment of religion. It is simply that I could not find my own way to the Holy Experience, I could not get in touch with the Transcendent Reality, through this vehicle.

Religion, to me, presented too many complications, and I experienced the Transcendent Reality as Without Complication. Indeed, it was Utter Simplicity. Religion, to me, generated too many conflicts, and I experienced the Transcendent Reality as Without Conflict. Indeed, it was Total Peace. Religion, to me, offered to many contradictions with my own inner truth, and I experienced the Transcendent Reality as Without Contradiction. Indeed, it was Absolute Harmony.

Utter Simplicity, Total Peace, Absolute Harmony. That is how I experienced God. Religion did not. I soon found this out.

The how’s and why’s of my personal experience do not seem so important now. It seems sufficient to note in broad general terms that the singular difficulty I had with religion was its insistence on teaching of a needy God—indeed, an angry, vindictive and violent God—who was going to punish me for my sins—and, indeed, punish all the world.

I simply did not experience God in that way. Chalk it up to my mother’s early teachings, perhaps, but for some reason my internal guidance system kept steering me away from such an idea about God.

I searched everywhere within the religions of my culture, but could find no place of comfort. Then I explored the religions of other cultures. Still no simplicity, peace, and harmony. Finally, I left religion altogether.

It would be a quarter of a century before I returned to a deep and abiding faith in God, born of a new understanding of God that changed everything in my perception of who and what God is.

How that came to pass is described in Conversations with God – Book 1 and in the semi-autobiographical Friendship with God. The simple and peaceful and harmonious answer I came to is articulated wonderfully in What God Wants.

So what have I learned through my conversations with God, my friendship with God, and my experience of communion with God?

I have learned what the Holy Experience is. And I have learned how to move into that experience at will. I have not yet learned, however, how to sustain it. I can’t see to “hang onto” it through the whole of my life. Indeed, I’m not even sure if I want to.

All of this is what will be discussed here in the days ahead, on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays. And all of this discussion will, I hope, help you in moving closer to your own experience, in unveiling your own truth, about these things.

I should like now to begin this discussion with my definition of the Holy Experience, which kind of seeped out of me unexpectedly only recently, as I was responding to a question emailed to me by a man in Maine. Let me share with you here that question and answer, and you’ll see what I mean.

(The question at first seems to have nothing to do with the topic at hand. But wait. It was in the process of responding to the question that my definition of the Holy Experience popped out. See what you think.)

Hi Neale...I have been struggling recently with what "mission" means in a pluralistic world. Mission has had so many different objectives through- out history—converting others to the "true" faith; extending God's kingdom; doing justice for the poor and marginalized, etc.

Our world seems very near-sighted when people consider their faith the "true" faith and others as condemned to Hell. Since all of us have a somewhat different conception of what "faith" means, what is each person's responsibility to other peoples- both people of other faiths and people of no faith?

Should we try to show others what we consider "true", or should we only try to share with others, learn from them, and build reciprocal friendships? What does it mean to be a person of faith- ie. Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, or otherwise- in a pluralistic world?
Thanks for any comments or insights you may have Neale!

Matt, Natick, MA

Dear Matt...The only True Mission is the mission of the individual soul. Every other mission is an extension of that. The mission of the individual soul is to know itself as it truly is, in its own experience. This is accomplished by creating itself as that. Life is not a process of discovery, it is a process of creation.

The hitch here is that, in Ultimate Reality, it is not possible to create anything, because everything that ever was, is now, and ever will be has already been created. So the Process of Creation turns out to be, after all, not actually Creation, but Perception. It is about seeing what has always been there, knowing what has always been true, and experiencing the Only Experience There Is. We call this, loosely, God.

The challenge here is that one cannot experience The Only Experience There Is if it is, in fact, the only experience there is. This is because...