Crossroad Centre Antigua

The End of the Search for God

By: Greg Liotta, MSW
Primary Counselor at Crossroads Centre, Antigua.

“Statements and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authour and not Crossroads Centre.”

Part 1:  The End of the Seeking

Occasionally I receive letters from students seeking discourse on spiritual matters. All express one common frustration: the struggle to find – and connect with – their Higher Power.  An age old problem, and not just for seekers in recovery. The search for God has consumed men & women for many millennia, but for those working the steps, there is a unique urgency to it. The following letter is my reply to one young man in early recovery who was seeking his Higher Power:

Dear Friend, before you begin, you are going to have to go inside your mind and unlock all the little boxes you’ve got set up in there.  You’ve got to open the boxes called “should” and “expectations”, “can’t be”, and “the way it used to be”.  All those little boxes that say “God is here, not there”, “God looks like this, not that”. But most of all, you’ll have to open up those boxes that say, “no”, “not me” – and the mother of them all “I’m not worthy”. The fact is, all those little boxes are THE hindrance to clear vision.  It’s like you are trying to watch the sunset behind a giant truck that’s been sitting there accumulating trash your whole life. If you are going to search for God with any earnestness, the question is: What are you expecting?  Do you really, truly expect to find “God”, or are you just going through the motions, hoping for a glimpse maybe, but not really expecting to find that treasure? What ideas do you drag around in your mind about your own worthiness?

In your mind, how small is the box you’ve got “God” in?

How small is the box you’ve got yourself in?

Get all your limiting ideas out; write them down, and then THROW THEM AWAY.

If you really mean business here, you’re going to have to be realistic: neither the idea, the name, the form, nor the nature of God can be contained in a box. Neither can you be.  Nothing in the universe is static. The universe itself is constantly expanding, shifting, evolving, adapting, and changing. It is beyond our grasp. As such, we must be willing to consider that so too is God. We are talking about the infinite, that which is indivisible, beyond comprehension, beyond structure, beyond limitations. Therefore, if you want to catch this fish in your net, you’re going to have to cast it wider than you ever have before.  You’re going to have to open your mind to any and every possibility, to consider what your mind might consider unthinkable.  Allow yourself to consider the heretical, to get beyond the limiting messages and ideas in your mind, in order to get a whiff of the Absolute. Because, more than likely, it’s right under your nose and you can’t see it. St. Theresa ofAvila once said, “all concepts of God are like a jar we break”. Do you have the courage to break your jars?

She said, “A thousand souls hear his call every second, but most every one of them looks into their life’s mirror and says, ‘no, I am not worthy to leave this sadness’.

I know this dance. At one time I had similar yearnings, but truth be told, most of the time I was half-stepping it. I dove in and out (mostly “out”) of deep spiritual practice for 30 years before finally leaving “the world” to pursue God with earnestness for a spell. Over the course of 30 years I studied the Holy Bible to the Gnostic Gospels to the Upanishads. I fasted dozens of times; meditated for hours a day until visions came (usually they didn’t); purified in scores of sweat lodges, pouring water for myself and anyone who would come; chanting mantras for hours on end; practicing shamanic rites and studying with Lakota holy men; fasting in solitude on a mountain while chanting zikurs with a Sufi master; years practicing hermetic & metaphysical arts, as well as rituals with Puerto Rican Santeros; initiation with a siddha yoga master; initiation with a Sufi master; years of satsang with a Master in Charleston; and finally, a year long sabbatical in an ashram.  It was there I dove deep, chanting millions of ancient prayers.  There I met many holy sages and saints, and ultimately received mantra initiation from the living (“hugging”) saint, Mata Amritanandamayi Devi. And do you want to know what I found with all of this? I found NOTHING.

Okay, not really. It did change my relationship to my mind. Beyond that, I had a few peak experiences, which is all good, if “experiences” is what you’re after. But as far as “finding God”, I simply discovered this:  God cannot be “found” in all of that.

The moment it dawned on me was quite mundane, not very exciting or mystical at all.  No dazzling blue lights or angels with harps. I always thought it would be dramatic, but nothing like that happened. All I was doing was sitting in the immigration office waiting for my name to be called one day, ho hum, when it hit me like a ton of bricks: you cannot get God’s attention by kneeling on rice, fasting for weeks, and chanting louder or longer. God doesn’t fall for that kind of effort. It just exhausts you until you finally surrender.

Sitting there that day it dawned on me that I am already THAT which I have always been searching for.

And

The search

Ends

When you realize

THAT.

My friend, God cannot be found by “searching”, but of course, you must search your butt off to discover that. This is the paradox.  Indeed it is the futility of the search that leads one to this understanding. Searching, seeking and striving are built into the process. As Rumi said, “(Comfort yourself) until you ache, until you ache, then come to me again”.

The Buddha discovered this: leaving his wife and child and journeying through the jungle fasting and enduring austerities was not necessary. All that running around and effort has its value. It builds character, but it won’t lead you to the Promised Land.  Because the Promised Land isn’t “out there”. Fact is, God is not “lost” and does not need to be sought or “found”. God is so close you can’t even see it, but instead of opening your eyes to the obvious, you turn yourself into a “seeker”. You try harder to be “good”, to change, and to remove your “defects of character”. Because in one of the little boxes you carry around inside, you’ve got this belief that your relationship with God is dependent on whether you’ve been “good” or “bad”, “naughty” or “nice”.  So you keep seeking. Indeed, to “seek” enlightenment is the TRAP. Get free of that trap as soon as possible! To “seek” enlightenment is to actualize the illusion that somehow God is “lost”, and you have to “do something” to find him. No. There is nothing you can “do”.  It’s not about “doing”. It’s about “BEing.” And what can you be other than yourself?

THE MYTH OF WORTHINESS

I pray that you search and seek and strive until you become utterly hopeless, defeated, and lay down your shovel for once and for all. Stop digging in all these places for some mythical lost treasure. I pray that you finally surrender to the ultimate reality, and remove the veil from your eyes. The Koran says there are 70,000 veils between man and God. The veils are really just ideas. They are the result of a global spell cast over the collective of humanity, made up of nothing more than one flimsy idea:  God is “out there”  not “HERE and NOW.”  This lie is thrust upon each child as soon as he/she can breathe:  “you are separate from God.”

Then, the moral and behavior code is formed:  “…but if you behave well, you might return to God someday. If you are good after a lot of hard work proving your “worthiness”. If you behave badly, you will not receive God’s love, and there are certain things in particular that God hates so much that, if you commit these “sins”, he will NEVER look at you again.  Even God’s love has limits.”  God’s love has limits?  Really?  I want a love that knows no limits. A Love that says “yes” to all that is. God

Is not playing ”hide and go seek” with you. The idea that God is ”hiding” and needs to

be ”found” is THE profound illusion of humanity. It is the Matrix of our age, the Little Blue Pill. One by one we spit it out and reach for the Red Pill, if lucky.  Eventually, one comes to the realization that all the searching, seeking, striving, strategizing, and all the austerities in the world will not and do NOT lead you to God. You can read all the Wayne Dyer books and take all the yoga classes and retreats you want. Spend your whole life searching, striving, TRYING, until you find out…God’s not “out there”.  You can fast for days, chant for years, and say five zillion rosaries.  You can do 500 meetings in 90 days, have the 12 apostles for your sponsors, and it still will not lead you to God.  All of that drama is merely part of the process of discovering where God ISN’T.

What would you say to a man sitting in a puddle flailing his arms and crying out, “Help, I’m drowning!”?  All he has to do is relax, sit up, and breathe, right?   Instead, like millions of others, he flails his arms and makes so much noise in his seeking that reality sits there completely unnoticed. Like the plain-looking girl at the dance.  Everybody wants the flashy one that’s a hot mess.   It’s like a fish swimming around asking, “where is the water? I will not be complete until I find the water. Alas, I will never be worthy of water.” Yet he is thoroughly made up of water. I was once such a fish.  Drowning in my own ignorance.

Trying to make myself ”worthy”.

You do not need do ANYTHING at all, for the truth is that God is love, and this love is beyond conditions.  It can never be withdrawn or withheld from you. This is a love that you are made up of.  There is nothing you can possibly do to “lose” it.   It simply IS. Do not minimize the Absolute by suggesting that he/she/it is so petty that you have to DO anything before you are “worthy” of that.  Know that you and God are indivisible. God’s love is manifest by your very existence, and there is no separation between you and THAT. Where can you and this moment possibly end? It is only your mind that creates the illusion of separateness from this moment. It is not possible to “earn” the moment. The moment is here to be experienced by all living things. Deal with it, or run from it.  But it never goes anywhere.

God does not require us to “be good” to earn his love. “Worthy” has nothing to do with it.

You simply are THAT, already.  Right now, here, in this moment, you are that which you seek.  Open the box and let it be.

For questions or comments, feel please feel free to contact the author directly:  GregL@CrossroadsAntigua.org