Kissiah Young, MSW

Have you ever sat in contemplation of what it means to encounter God, given thought to what God is exactly, or who? The very concept of God changes depending on whom you ask, what religion you embrace, or what has been passed down from generations before. But have we actually encountered God, sat inside the soul that is God by sitting inside the soul that is us? We speak of there being no separation between God and man, yet when we think of God our heads look upward toward the vast skies as though God is there, or we stretch wide our arms crying out ‘Father why hath thou forsaken me?’ Has God forsaken you or have you forsaken yourself? You are able to point to yourself, and look yourself in the mirror, yet unable to recognize God, unable to point inward toward God or look at yourself and see God looking back. Disconnected. The message of God existing ‘out there’ in the world somewhere or high above the clouds is an illusion, a myth, a message of comfort like Santa Claus to a child. With inquiry we learn, we grow, and we expand beyond the myth and spiritual comforts in order to arrive at truth: God is wherever you are because God is within you; it is but a matter of encountering the God within. This togetherness—relationship between you and God—is an internal happening not an external one, yet you have been so conditioned to believe that in order to encounter God you have to go somewhere other than within. The conditioning has led us further and further away from truth, because it has led us further and further away from self, and it is when we encounter the truth of ourselves that we encounter God. When you look at yourself, see God. When you contemplate yourself, your actions and your inactions, contemplate God. When you sit with yourself, sit with God. Do these until you are only encountering God and the self disappears. This is the journey.