A reader writes:
Those who crave a true and unmitigated relationship with God will find a way to have it. Even when we have to walk away from the trappings and dogma of Christianity, a religion not given to embracing gay people, in order to do it. And so I have done – without losing any of my own sense of God in my life, a sense I've had ever since one November evening in 1975, when 15 year old me asked God to come into my life and I was flooded by a sensation I've never recovered from. I was born into a new "me" that I had ever experienced before. I've since learned that in India the sensation is sometimes described as having one's heart chakra open.
My relationship with God, is more important to me than anything else in my life, and yet I no longer know what I actually mean when I state that…
Another:
Closing the chat with the story of Fr. Mychal Judge's extraordinary life was apt. (I went to that Franciscan church for most of the years I lived in NYC, and it is a place full of powerful and humble spiritual leaders.) Fr. Mychal lived the Franciscan dictum: "Proclaim the Gospel at all times. If necessary, use words."
I have always loved that dictum. Another:
I wish you all the best on your personal journey. But this is what it is – what you describe is a deeply personal journey, a personal experience, a personal battle between desire and sense-fulfillment on one side, and a sense of higher knowledge on the other. This journey can happen in a religious context but it really has nothing to do with any particular religion.
Strip religion down to those teachings that have to do with ego and transcendence of ego and what you end up with is Eastern philosophy – a philosophy (a set of them actually), not a religion. What you describe will always be the path of the few – religions on the other hand try to make themselves applicable to many and in so doing, inevitably become what they are.
Since you mention it in your article: it is my understanding that you will never be able to truly love your neighbor if you do not come to know yourself. It is also true that you will never come to know yourself if you don’t love your neighbor (at least a little). Thanks for the good read and again, I wish you the best.
PS: I’m writing you from an ashram in India where I’ve spent the last 16 years pursuing these very same goals. I’ll be the first to admit that even if the mountain is one, the paths to the summit are many.
The Dish 