I do feel something, but now it’s more like an energy than a presence, and it’s internal, not external.

As to the question does this invalidate some of my previous views of spirituality, I guess I’d have to say yes and no.

Yes to the extent that previous words, concepts, and images no longer really resonate. Words like “Christian,” “Catholic,” “Trinity,”"Heaven,”"Buddhist,” etc. seem kind of like a distant memory.

But No, because I’ve known for a long time that it’s not about belief, and I’ve tried to not believe in my beliefs too much.

I’m just curious. I do experience God as a presence and can’t imagine any religious or spiritual approach that doesn’t in some way aim toward connecting with that presence. But I’m not interested in pushing one approach as right or wrong. My experience is that the moment you take up one view as right or wrong, the divine comes along and lets you know you don’t “get it” just yet.

Just a few various thoughts and questions for you.

Great site.

Direct link to mp3 of a prayer on the liturgy of Oct. 1, Jesuit method of prayer
http://www.pray-as-you-go.org/mp3/PAYG_081001.mp3

I very much like “The Cloud of Unknowing”, the Zen of Christianity which is finding expression in “Centering Prayer” in the modern world.

“Our intense need to understand will always be a powerful stumbling block to our attempts to reach God in simple love [...] and must always be overcome. For if you do not overcome this need to understand, it will undermine your quest. It will replace the darkness which you have pierced to reach God with clear images of something which, however good, however beautiful, however Godlike, is not God.” – The Cloud of Unknowing -author unknown.

All I can say, is that the conceptions, pictures, and even experiences we have of God all are incomplete because our attempts to grasp them are with our limited, subjective perception. They should be treasured, yes, but not mistaken for the inexpressibleness of the Mystery that provides every moment of existence.

I wonder if you have ever come across the writings of James (Jim) Arraj – http://www.innerexplorations.com He writes extensively on the relationship between Christianity, Eastern Mysticism, Jungian Psychology and other wonderful subjects.

In some of his writings he discusses the relationship between Hindu/Buddhist encounters of the non-personal Brahman and Christian encounters of God as Loving other. He and others have put forward the proposal that the Hindu/Buddhist experience is the encounter of God as the Ground of Being/Existence. At the point where all of creation is given existence by God they are all One and the same (In a panentheistic way – though I do not state this as well as he does) and so God and Self and everything else is experienced as One – Everything – Nothing. However, this is not the only or even the most important/highest of mystical experiences. Rather, God, experienced as a loving other is the Biblical model of our relationship with God and the experience of most/all Christian mystics even if they do have some nondual experience of God as the Ground of Being.

All human experience of God is through divine manifestations… the energies of God. These are felt in infinite ways and levels, from admiring the beauty of a sunset, to human love, to the experience of God’s presence in a personal way, even to the hypostases or personae (wrongly translated “persons”) of the Trinity.

The essence of God is what’s behind all the masks. It’s indescribable. Beyond thought or concept. To speak of it is to immediately lie about it. And there it’s neither personal, nor anything else. But from that infinite Emptiness, “reality” flows. That is the mystery.