God Is Part Of You
The God Within You
I was with a friend last week, riding shotgun in his car, as we headed out west to see a piece of real estate he had purchased. I asked him how we were doing for time, and he said he needed to be back bylate afternoon for his Buddhist gathering.
We got talking about Buddhism, and I told him that even though I was born a Buddhist and still am one, I'm more spiritual than I am religious. I told him about an experience I had when I was at Tony Robbins'Date With Destiny a few years ago. I told him that when I was there, I had a spiritual connection with God.
I told him how I felt God within me, saw myself through His eyes, heard His words in my mind,and all the emotions that I was capable of came rushing like water bursting out of a dam. Standing there in that hotel conference room, tears ran down my face uncontrollably, it was an experience that nowords in the human vocabulary can describe.
He was in awe.
"I wish that everyone, in their lifetime, gets to experience that connection with God at least once," I told him. "It was... amazing."
The next morning, I logged onto my computer and saw an email from a member of The Dirty 30s Club. It was an email about the Cherokee Indian youth's rite of passage (which I shared in yesterday's RememberingYour Spirit). When I read the story till its end, I knew that I had to share my personal story about my experience with God in this week's post.
After coming back from Date With Destiny in April of 2008, God has been at the forefront of my mind. In all my years of growing up, I always felt that God and I were separated - that we were two differententities. I had this idea that He was up there somewhere and I was down here, a mere mortal, trying to make sense of everything on my own, trying to understand why He created me, why He put me on this earth, in this time.
I had never felt God anywhere, even though I believed that He existed. I used to have all these questions about life thatI kept asking Him, but He never answered. Sometimes I would lay awake at night, wondering the things I used to always wonder, and I wished that He would give me all the answers. He never did.
In my years of suffering, I used to ask God, "What have I done to deserve this?" Every time I asked that question, I could feel a rush of sour sensation up my nose and tears started welling up in my eyes.
I used to rationalize and console myself by thinking that it was God's way of making me stronger. I used to think that He had wasted space on this earth by creating me and that someone else, who is moredeserving of life, should have existed in my place. That was my belief until Date With Destiny.
At Date With Destiny, I had a spiritual connection with God. For the first time, I saw myself through His eyes. He was looking at my three-year old self, standing in the courtyard of my late grandmother'shouse, feeling lost and alone even though there were people around mepeople that I knew: my parents, aunts, uncles and cousins.
When I saw myself through God's eyes, I could hear Him thinking when He thought, "If only you knew. Whenever you feel alone or in pain, just ask, and someone will show up." That was the first time I haveever felt God within me. And as my life flashed before my eyes, tears started streaming down my cheeks when I realized the truth of His words.
He was right. In every moment of my pain, someone did show up and made me feel better. All this time, I had thought it was just pure co-incidence. Maybe that was why He thought, "If only you knew." Maybe thatwas why I cried every time I asked Him, "What have I done to deserve this?" Because God and I are one. He felt everything that I felt.
I realized then that the God within me has always been answering my questions; only I was too blinkered to realize. I kept waiting for Him to speak to me but all this time, He was talking to me throughthe people He brought into my life. He was talking to me through the desires He put in my heart. And when I reached the end of my rope, He brought an intervention to set me free from the bondage I created for myself.
I have never been particularly religious. I subscribe to the belief that my religion is a way of life. I never associated my relationship with God as one that was born out of religion, largely because we arenot taught about God in Buddhism. God was someone I adopted into my life because my mother used to threaten that God would punish me if I did bad things.
Now I sincerely believe that God and us are one - there is no distinction between us. Just like how we have parts of our parents in us, we have a part of God in every single one of us. Now I believe thatwe are exactly who and where we are meant to be at any point in time. We just need to have faith that we are all part of this grand plan for the greater good, even though it doesn't seem to be that way sometimes.
And I truly believe that God is that part of us that is us at our best - when we are most honest and authentic with ourselves, that is us at our purest - without judgment, fear, anger, doubt or sadness.
And when you feel that there is no hope, just remember that God will not give you the desire to soar without first giving you wings.
Copyright © 2011 Chiao Kee Lim
Chiao Kee Lim is the owner of the copyright to this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any for or by any means withoutthe prior written permission of the author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form other than that in which it is published. Any reproduction, amendments, edits and/or re-posting on any other medium apart fromthose authorized by the author will be dealt with under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
Chiao Kee is a three-time award-winning author who won her first award at the age of 16. She is the President and Founder of The Dirty 30s Club - a blog that promotes self awareness and personal empowerment through stories and personal reflection, packed with a generous dose of humor and fun. Since its launch in September 2010, the Club has had visitors from 111 countries,with its popularity on the rise due to the high quality of its content.
She is a passionate student of personal development who started her journey in 2007 learning from world experts such as Tony Robbins, Bob Proctor, T. Harv Eker and Blair Singer in the areas of personal growthand the psychology of peak potentials. She has recently completed work on her book "What My Mother Never Taught Me -The 7 Things I Wish I Had Known About Finding Happiness."
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