I began this quest with a muddle of ideas that didn't fit with one another. My religious background hadn't prepared me to understand scripture as metaphor. My sense was that what we know about the natural world should fit what we believe in the spiritual realm. Anthropomorphism -- using human images for God -- didn't cut it, but I didn't have other metaphors. I wanted to know how the universe works. I wanted to know what is supremely significant and ultimately real (a definition of God). And if I couldn't find an acceptable definition, then I wanted to find metaphors and analogies that fit what we know about the natural world and the human condition.

Ultimately, there is mystery. There is mystery about what existed before, and what brought about, the Big Bang. There is mystery as to the nature of the big, Big, BIG picture of how the universe works. There is mystery about how this piece of the universe that I Am works. Although we have reduced the unknown as we increase the known, mystery remains, because humankind, however intelligent, educated, and equipped with sophisticated instrumentation, is limited in its rational ability to access ultimate knowledge. And some ultimate knowledge is, in my view, only accessible by non-rational means.

Scientists search for the single theory or process or particle that will explain everything. They extrapolate and theorize from what is known, and they experiment, in an attempt to push back the boundaries of mystery. Mystery remains, and the quest continues.

The quest for understanding the human condition is less exact; theories and doctrines are available for the choosing; scholars experiment, extrapolate and theorize; individuals move toward self-understanding through experience, observation, intuition, meditation, religious practice, therapy, dreamwork and other disciplines. For me, the concepts of Carl Jung work best.

These quests are like the spiritual quest in that the rewards are in the journey rather than the destination. My knowledge of how the universe works is limited, but it is sufficient to let me look for parallels, metaphors, analogies, consistencies that help me to make as much spiritual sense as possible. I can't eliminate mystery, but I can formulate a set of beliefs about it that work for me.

Here is some of that process:

In the physical universe, what we experience as matter, including ourselves, actually consists of particles, so minute that they have no radius, moving within empty space, and governed by 'laws' of electromagnetism, gravity, and what physicists call strong and weak forces. The same principles apply to the very largest and the very smallest of physical phenomena.

In the organic realm, there are principles and processes that govern such factors as evolution, growth, diversity of species, genetic coding, photosynthesis, and cellular structure, and allow for mutation and adaptation. Deepak Chopra, in writing about how the mind-body relationship facilitates healing, suggests that the intelligence and energy of the healing process reside within and around us in much the same way as physical forces and organic processes exist within and around all that they govern.

My picture of the cosmos, then, is one in which there flows in and around and through all physical phenomena the energy of gravity, electromagnetism, and the strong and weak forces; for all living organisms, add the basic biological processes, including the healing process that Chopra describes; and for human beings, add the life force of creative love that acts in the service of health and wholeness. I equate health and wholeness with spirituality. (We've moved, of course, from empirical knowledge and scientific theory to intuitive knowledge, belief, faith.)

Creative love is our basic nature, our essential being. It is experienced by individuals in physical and emotional healing, in the quality of relationships, and in the wisdom of dreams. It is experienced collectively in archetypes and in other facets of that unified vision that Jung called the collective unconscious.

When I view the natural, organic, and human manifestations of the universe in this way, I experience a sense of Oneness that I have longed for but not found. I feel empowered as I participate fully in the magnitude and magnificence and mystery of the universe. I believe that I have full access to that spirit and flow of creative love just as I participate fully in the action of gravity and benefit fully from the basic biological processes. ["God" has, for me, until now, been Other. No matter how much I have tried to conceive of the Kingdom of God within or the Inner Light or the Christ within, at best I have felt like a dim reflection of something external and much greater. That is, when I think of God, I find myself caught up in dualistic, rather than unitary, thinking. Some persons appear to be empowered by entering into a relationship with a perfect being to whom they ascribe human characteristics; I don't. That image diminishes me.]

So what I am now able to state is a milestone for me -- seeing the universe working through a set of principles, laws, processes that govern everything that happens, the psychic/spiritual as well as the physical and organic -- seeing the Oneness of it and myself as one with it. I am not the first to relate gravity (along with other forces) with creative love: Brian Swimme (The Universe is a Green Dragon: A Cosmic Creation Story, 44-47) speaks of gravity as "a mysterious attracting force, the basic binding energy found everywhere in reality," and he calls it "love in its cosmic dimension." Each of these flowing forces -- creative love, each physical force, and each organic process -- is a presence and a power, and each is available to us unconditionally, affecting the just and the unjust alike. We don't earn them; if we can find ways to counter them, and we do, then we must accept the consequences. They act around and through us. They are unrelenting resources. They are constants that are beyond our control; we can only choose the degree of harmony with which we cooperate with them. This is the way Chopra identifies the healing process: it is within us, waiting for our willingness to let it work. I see the soul-making process in the same way: we respond to the creative love that acts for our health and wholeness; it is a force for good. My answers are to be found within me, just as I am.

Can't I just say, "God is love," and get on with it? Maybe I can, now that I understand it this way. I can, that is, up to the point where we endow God with personal qualities that suggest that God chooses which prayers to answer, or when a person is to die, or which side should win a war. Such love is not unconditional, and my preference is to get away from those traditional ways of speaking that suggest some whim in the way the universe works.

Jesus must have had a marvelous earthly father as his model for God as Father. For me, God as parent does not portray unconditional love. Neither does it accord with what else I know about the universe. But I can say, "Gravity is," "Genetic Coding is," "Healing Power is," "Creative Love is," and in that sense I can say, "God is," meaning these central powers of the cosmos -- plus a modicum of mystery. And I can say, "I am," meaning that I have full access to all of those powers and presences in my own life.

My task in life is to express the creative love that I am. It is the task of integrating my shadow side, i.e., those parts of me that have been ignored, undeveloped, or repressed, with the rest of who I am. It is the task of developing both the anima and the animus and giving full and balanced expression to them. It is the task of becoming as healthy and whole, and therefore as spiritual, as possible. It is the task of becoming aware of how the universe, in its physical, organic, and personal aspects, works, and working in harmony with it. And if I have other lives, past and future, then I understand the task to be continuous from one life to the next. The issue of reincarnation is part of the mystery, along with the possible existence of guardian angels and spirit guides.

We have role models -- Jesus, Lao Tzu, Buddha, Gandhi, and others who show us what it is to be fully human. For me, to be fully human is to be fully divine. Human/Divine is one of the dualisms that I would resolve in favor of Oneness. I, too, can experience that Oneness. Jesus suggested that he is not unique in his divinity when he told his disciples that they would do greater works than he had done (John 14).

The Vision of Oneness --

I am one with the physical universe. I share in its atomic structure and in being subject to its natural laws.

I and everything I become are further articulations of the primal fireball (Swimme, 60). I am both a product of evolution and a creative factor in its continuation.

I am one with the environment, with all life. I share in all of the processes that affect other living beings.

I am one with all humanity. Neither gender, race, religion, ethnicity, national origin, economic status, sexual preference, nor any other form of human diversity can destroy my sense of oneness with all.

I am one within myself. I am most fully human when mind, body, and spirit, anima and animus, are healthy and fully functioning.

Ethical sensitivity and action flow from the awareness of Oneness. If there is an ethical imperative, it is not to serve, and certainly not to control others, but to develop my potential for creativity and love to a level of overflowing. The ethical requirement is to be fully human. It is to turn within and find that I am, in essence, creative love that seeks its expression in all relationships.

[I believe that "evil" acts can be understood as the energy of love misdirected or blocked by those barriers to love -- fear, guilt, hate, inferiority -- that were learned at our mother's knee, where her love was, in turn, blocked by the dysfunctionality she experienced in her childhood. This generational process continues until there is a breakthrough of awareness sufficient to alter it.]

Inspiration for my views is drawn from several religious traditions. I am attracted to Taoism for its ethic of simplicity, patience, and compassion, for its emphasis on living in harmony with the Tao (the way the universe works), for stressing the futility of trying to control, for its counsel to look within for answers to life's questions, for its emphasis on the journey rather than the destination, and for its avoidance of dualistic thinking. I find much of the same in Tibetan Buddhism, along with its emphasis on finding the sacred in the ordinary and on the development of conscious awareness through meditation. I find a wonderful sense of oneness with the natural world, and an accompanying environmental ethic, in Native American religions.

To be sure, I can find most of this in my own Judeo-Christian tradition, but it takes a lot of sorting and culling. I understand that the Bible is an anthology of religious ideas and a record of the evolution of religious and ethical principles, and therefore that it is not all of consistent value as a guide for contemporary living. Some of the Old Testament reflects patriarchal and tribal exclusivism that is superseded by the teachings of Jesus. Within the New Testament, there are some wonderful passages in the Epistles of Paul, along with some others that show considerably less Christian insight. (See Spong, Rescuing the Bible From Fundamentalism for a discussion of Biblical inconsistencies, and for the problems he finds in Paul's writings.)

The Gospels contain their own problems, primarily around the issue of which parts are authentically the teachings and works of Jesus and which are not. The Five Gospels, which includes "The Gospel According to Thomas," is the work of the Jesus Seminar which has spent several years with the task of clarifying which of the words of Jesus are most likely to be authentic, which he is less likely to have said, and which were added by authors and editors to serve other agendas. I also like Stephen Mitchell's The Gospel According to Jesus, in which he brings his skills as scholar, translator, and poet to that same effort to present the authentic Jesus.

SOME BOOKS THAT I FIND USEFUL
Bolen, Jean Shinoda -- The Tao of Psychology: Synchronicity and the Self

Capra, Fritjof -- The Tao of Physics: An Exploration of the Parallels Between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism (especially the first 81 pages)

Capra, Fritjof and Steindl-Rast, David -- Belonging to the Universe: Explorations on the Frontiers of Science and Spirituality

Chopra, Deepak -- Ageless Body, Timeless Mind: The Quantum Alternative to Growing Old

Colegrave, Sukie -- By Way of Pain: A Passage into Self

Funk, Robert W., Hoover, Roy W. and the Jesus Seminar -- The Five Gospels: The Search for the Authentic Words of Jesus

Hoff, Benjamin -- The Tao of Pooh

Hollis, James -- The Middle Passage: From Misery to Meaning in Midlife

Kabat-Zinn, Jon -- Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain and Illness

Kasl, Charlotte Davis -- Many Roads, One Journey: Moving Beyond the 12 Steps

Lederman, Leon, The God Particle: If The Universe is the Answer, What is the Question?

Mitchell, Stephen -- The Gospel According to Jesus: A New Translation and Guide to His Essential Teachings for Believers and Nonbelievers

Moore, Thomas -- Care of the Soul: A Guide for Cultivating Depth and Sacredness in Everyday Life

Muller, Wayne -- Legacy of the Heart: The Spiritual Advantages of a Painful Childhood

Pearson, Carol -- Awakening the Heroes Within: Twelve Archetypes to Help Us Find Ourselves and Transform the World

Small, Jacquelyn -- Awakening in Time: The Journey from Co-dependence to Co-creation

Small, Jacquelyn -- Transformers: The Therapists of the Future

Spong, J. S. -- Rescuing the Bible From Fundamentalism: A Bishop Rethinks the Meaning of Scripture

Swimme, Brian -- The Universe Is A Green Dragon: A Cosmic Creation Story

Tao Te Ching -- the Stephen Mitchell translation

Thich Nhat Hanh -- Peace is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life

Welwood, John (Ed.) -- Ordinary Magic: Everyday Life as Spiritual Path

Zukav, Gary -- The Seat of the Soul