I am no one important to the world (I am but a humble yogi). Yet I am the most fortunate of God's creatures. Who is more blessed by God's Grace than I? Surely no one. Others may hold high office or great wealth, or power, or social status. Others may have great learning and intelligence and even wisdom. But surely few have been answered at every turn, in the most immediate way, for every fervent prayer and wish to know the Truth.

    So many confirmations have come to me of God's existence in reality, of His compassion for a lost soul with a child's heart, his generosity in revealing to me the transcendent joy that is His gift to us. I cannot explain why the spiritual journey is more arduous for some than for others like myself, but God-realization is not an impossible ideal, only attainable through self-abnegation, asceticism, or strict religious discipline. It can be attained by anyone willing to abandon preconceptions and conditions, and open oneself to a wide-open Universe of possibility.

    God is not limited to the concepts religions impose on Him. Any set of theological beliefs specific to a particular religion will fail to encompass the reality of God. A true seeker will accept that he does not yet know what God's reality may be, and must enter into a process of allowing it to be revealed in whatever form that reality may take. Acquiring God-Consciousness to any degree is an attainment resulting from prayer to the unlimited, Universal God, and the practice of mysticism-allowing the mysterious to remain so. The spiritual phenomena that are the essence of the God experience are best absorbed whole, without intellectual analysis, without the intrusion of dismissive or judgmental thoughts. Naturally, many interesting thoughts come out of the mystical experiences of deep meditation, but whenever we are in the midst of observing them, within our own internal, conscious awareness, it is the quiet mind, suspending both belief and disbelief, description, opinion, analysis, and so forth, that takes full advantage and absorbs the spiritual nourishment coming through the pipeline from God's realm.

   In other words, let it be what it really is; let it reveal its true nature to your inner observer, and you learn at the same time your own true nature. The formless and chaotic energy manifesting inside your own skull, separate from conventional modes of thought, carries the secret code messages from God that will transform your consciousness from its limited, individual state into the Consciousness of Truth, connected to the Universal Consciousness and to those of all other, similar seekers in the world.

   The key to this endeavor is to learn to practice deep meditation. There are a number of techniques in the repertoire of Hindu/yogic and Buddhist/Zen disciplines. Seek out a guru, swami, or yoga teacher to get you started. If you are already meditating, more power to you. Don't be discouraged, don't fight it, don't judge your experience or lack thereof. Stay with it. Remember that it's not about becoming something that others want you to become, but about your transformation from an egoistic false identity incapable of joy, into who and what you really are, deep within--joyful, purposeful, and content.

NAMASTE

Yogi da