It is interesting how easily ascetics can become spiritual icons. We see someone who has withdrawn from ordinary society, abandoned material comforts, and devoted life to prayer or contemplation, and we assume that separation itself represents spiritual maturity. Yet life away from the daily commotion can also remove many of the conditions that reveal who…

We are here to experience life—to smell the roses, walk along a beach or through a forest, embrace one another, and feel the quiet wonder of connection. Life is not simply something to complete; it is something to enter, feel, and participate in. Yet when we lose sight of the journey, other priorities begin to…

Come along with me on a provocative journey. For the purposes of this journey, you are the Traveler. You represent any one of us who has awakened inside existence and begun asking questions about what this strange experience of being human actually means. You bring with you everything a human being brings: memories, beliefs, fears,…

Adolescence is often the first great awakening of the individual self. The child who once accepted the world largely as it was presented begins to step back from it. Something new becomes apparent: I am not only thinking; I am aware that I am thinking. I can examine my thoughts, question their origins, and compare…

Sitting in a coffee shop, I was reminded of just how powerfully culture shapes us, especially through social media and the internet. People may appear to be sitting quietly by themselves, yet each person is connected to an almost endless stream of voices, images, opinions, advertisements, anxieties, and expectations. The room may be calm, but…

Omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient are words humanity has used in its attempt to describe God—the Divine, the Absolute, the reality beyond every boundary we can imagine. These terms arose when the universe was understood as a comparatively small and orderly place, with heaven above, earth below, and God presiding somewhere beyond it all. Science has…

One of the things that has fascinated me as I have thought about the human journey is how dramatically the world has changed simply because we have become better at getting from one place to another and at sharing what we discover. For most of human history, people lived in relatively small worlds. Geography mattered.…

The idea of a cognitive castle may be one of the strongest metaphors for life’s journey. It suggests that the mind is not a single room containing a collection of beliefs. It is an architecture constructed over a lifetime. Some rooms were furnished by family before we were old enough to choose the furniture. Others…

Over the last several years, I have encountered ideas that, once put in motion, began something I never really anticipated. They caused me to re-examine what I had come to believe about life, God, myself, and what it all means. Fortunately that is what ideas do when we actually allow them to work on us.…

It’s interesting to think about how something as simple as a relationship with God can gradually become something very different. Perhaps it begins with an experience. Someone encounters something they understand as Divine—a moment of profound awareness, a sense of presence, an answer to a question, an inner knowing, an experience that changes the way…