By David Bruce Hughes

Religion is commonly understood to be the highest field of action available to human beings. In most people’s conception, practice of religion leads to higher states of being such as enlightenment and liberation. The reader may very well ask, “What could be beyond religion?” The simple answer is: God.

Only God can be beyond religion because even in the best conception of religion—when God Himself creates a religious path and hands it down to Humankind—inevitably, we imperfect humans subsequently introduce distortions into the process. And in the case of religions created by human beings, the distortion is present from the inception.

I am not advocating doing away with religion (although we would not be much the poorer without the man-made variety) for a very good reason. Religion is necessary to educate us in the concept of relationship with God. Religion provides a framework—conceptual, philosophical, social and practical—where we learn, first that we have a relationship with God, and then gradually understand what that relationship might be like. In this way we are gradually prepared to have a direct, personal relationship with God ourselves. So religion is an absolute necessity.

My concern is that religion is both limited and limiting. It does not and cannot encourage us to step out from behind the thoughts and forms of relationship with God that previous authorities on the subject have created, and forge a relationship with God that is uniquely ours. In fact, all religions of which I am aware insist to varying degrees that their adherents follow in the footsteps of the founders, and other authorities and leaders of the particular sect.

This is all well and good as far as it goes; in my opinion it just doesn’t go far enough. No religion or religious system of thought could possibly anticipate the amazing variety of individual human experience or collective human invention. Did any of our religions, for example, predict the Internet? Contemporary people exist in such novel conditions that the religious systems of the past often fail to speak to their spiritual problems and support their spiritual needs.

So it should not be surprising that as time goes on, an increasing number of people cease to identify with a particular religious sect or path and instead, opt to forge a personal relationship with God on their own. However, such a path is extremely difficult. It goes against all the mental and emotional conditioning that we have received from our previous religious training, and thus creates the additional problems of guilt and alienation.

But why should it? The great founders of religious traditions, like Jesus, Muhammad and others, had direct and lucid relationships with God. What is to stop any of God’s creatures from addressing their Lord directly? More, what is to prevent Him answering? God is omnipotent by definition. He can do anything He wants, whether it conforms to our human ideas of religion or not.

One reason traditional religion wants to keep its members from approaching God directly is, of course, organizational self-preservation. If enough followers discover that to reap the benefits and rewards of the religious life, they don’t require a huge building staffed with well-paid professionals, organized religion as we know it is doomed. So preachers naturally send the message that their flock needs them. Whether they do this deliberately or not is beside the point. But history shows us that religion resists the idea of direct contact with God in favor of acting as mediator between God and His people.

The early Christian Gnostics believed that one could receive illumination and inspiration directly from God. In fact, Paul received a vision of Jesus that converted him from a powerful antagonist to a powerful preacher of Christian thought. However, later Christian authorities outlawed Gnostic philosophy and practices in the early Church, to the point of putting to death thousands of Gnostic ‘heretics.’ Now as modern religious scholars increasingly point out, today’s Christian teachings owe much more to Paul than to Jesus. Yet, a person showing up on the doorstep of most churches today claiming to be a direct apostle of Jesus by mystic revelation would hardly be welcome to share his experience with the congregation.

Now I am not suggesting that everyone go out and revive Gnosticism—the last thing I am championing is the establishment of yet another ‘ism’—but I do want to emphasize the bias inherent in our religious institutions against the idea of personal, direct experience of and relationship with God. Part of this bias is traditional, part doctrinal, and part due to the conservative nature of conventional religious and social institutions, which need to foster groupthink as a means to their very survival. Individual relationship with God is a threat to them, if only because it means less money in the collection plate and more varieties of conceptions of God.

So there is a great deal of resistance to the idea of a direct personal relationship with God. Many religious groups even teach that there is no need for us to know God directly, because some Savior has already done everything required for our spiritual salvation and edification; all we have to do is believe in and follow them.

This idea may sound plausible until we remember that the save Savior taught us to address God as ‘our Father.’ Do we know any parents who would rather have someone else—no matter how well qualified—raise their children without any contact with them? If God is the universal Father of all beings, surely He wants to have intimate personal relationships with His innumerable children. This simple commonsense idea argues strongly against the doctrine that a direct personal relationship with God is unnecessary, and mediation by a priesthood is God's will.

Now that I have made my point about the limitations of religion, I will stop criticizing it. For to paraphrase Shakespeare’s Marc Anthony, I come not to bury religion, but to praise it. Religion is a prime necessity of Humankind; in fact, the practice of authentic religion is the only thing that prevents human society (in the true sense of the term) from degenerating into a pack of uncivilized humanoids that live only to satisfy their physical senses at any cost.

Nevertheless, to actually discover God for ourselves we have to go beyond the limitations of religion. For to find God for ourselves, we have to let go of second-hand notions and approach Him without preconceptions. Religion is a good primer on God, for it teaches us what some other very qualified people in the past have discovered about Him. However, if we are to continue growing spiritually, at some point we have to renounce—with all due respect and appreciation—the assistance of the structured religious path and draw near to God directly on our own.

All the great saints of the past, above and beyond their mature accomplishments in religion had a direct personal relationship with God. Indeed, this is part of what it means to be a saint. Everyone who wants the best benefits of spiritual life for himself can and should expect to develop to the point where there is no intermediary required between themselves and God. Actually this state is available to anyone who desires it and is willing to work toward it with diligence and self-discipline.

Where is God?

People often ask me, “Where is God?” I tell them that before we can see God we have to understand ourselves. Our spiritual self-conception is totally wrong. For starters, we are not these temporary material bodies. We do not have souls; we are souls. We are eternal souls who have temporary bodies, minds and senses. The chief symptom of the presence of the soul is consciousness.

Unfortunately, most people today accept the mistaken notion of reductionist materialism that consciousness is a byproduct of the function of the brain. However, this mistaken notion is a belief masquerading as an empirical truth. Since consciousness is spiritual, there is no way to establish its presence of absence by material scientific instruments. Therefore, the materialistic theory must remain an experimentally unproven—and unprovable—article of faith.

Yet, we all experience ourselves directly as eternally existent and conscious souls. The very fact that we are conscious is direct and obvious proof of the existence of the eternal soul. The reason we do not remember our conscious existence before this body existed is that memory is a function of the mind, and the mind is a part of the temporary material body. When the body dies, the mind dissolves and we lose our memory of that body. People retain memories of their past lives only in exceptional cases.

From the point of view of the soul, the material world is ‘out there’ through the senses. It is far away from the soul. The mind feels a little closer, as if it is ‘in here’ with the soul. Yet God is even deeper inside our soul. He is ‘in there,’ within the very heart of the soul, at the very core of our being. This localized aspect of God is called the Supersoul. The presence of the soul and Supersoul animates the body and creates the mind by using the brain to interface the spiritual energy of the soul with the material body.

That God is found within us does not mean, as some philosophers misinterpret, that we are ultimately God. What it does mean is that subjectively, from the point of view of the soul, God is always present within, always available for communication with His spiritual children. ‘The Kingdom of God is within you.’ If we are not aware of God within our selves in our present state of consciousness, it is because we are too conditioned or fixated on the external senses.

However, God is ever aware of us and our inner thoughts. Even if we forget our previous existence, He remembers and reminds us how to achieve our intentions and desires. He is our eternal Friend and Teacher. All knowledge, memory and forgetfulness come from Him. He is always speaking to us, guiding and teaching us, but most of the time we cannot hear His voice directly.

To communicate with God, and especially to hear His voice within, we have to become aware of ourselves as spiritual entities and detach ourselves from the material senses. This is commonly understood to be the function of meditation and other spiritual practices like austerity, fasting and prayer. There are many styles and forms of meditation, but the type of meditation most effective for discovering God with is the Holy Name of God.

The Holy Name of God is a mantra that one chants, either aloud or silently, that ultimately reveals God’s presence within. There are many thousands of Holy Names of God. You may use whatever Holy Name you have faith in. For example, Christians may chant Jesus Christ, Hindus may chant Rama or Krishna , Mohammedans may chant Allah, etc. By chanting the Holy Name of God, we call out to God as if to get His attention. We also attune our mind and consciousness to His spiritual voice and prepare ourselves to hear His voice.

God’s sweet voice is not material, but spiritual sound vibration. It is not heard with the ears or even with the mind, but directly by the soul. Meditating on the Holy Name of God trains us to hear spiritual sound vibration. The Holy Name of God is never material, because it has no referent in material existence. God is never dependent on the material energy; on the contrary, the material energy is completely dependent on Him. Therefore spiritual energy is superior to material energy, and God is the source of both.

The fully self-realized soul hears God’s voice at all times. This wonderful state is possible for everyone, and it provides the solutions to all our problems and worries. When we are in touch with God, we are constantly in the powerful Holy presence of our original Father and Friend, the all-powerful Supreme Personality of Godhead. He reveals all the secrets of spiritual advancement to the aspiring soul who seeks Him out in the inner core of his being. He showers us with His ecstatic Divine Love and fills our heart with causeless bliss, wisdom and detachment.

All these wonderful results do not happen in a day or two, but are the result of years of devotion and patient inner work. Yet, the Holy Presence of God makes all our problems melt away and gives us the spiritual satisfaction that we crave, but eludes us in material life. Certainly, if we want to be happy, we must take shelter of the Supreme Lord, as we understand Him, in a direct and personal relationship. Otherwise, as I pointed out above, there is no meaning to God as the Father of all.

Therefore while we must take knowledge, help and support from religion, we should also know that religion is not an end in itself, but a means to an end. That end, praised and glorified in all authentic scriptures, is nothing less than recognizing our eternal relationship with our Creator. This can only happen if we go beyond the limitations and forms of religion and directly approach the Lord in the heart. Religion is just a prelude to the real adventure of spiritual life: love of Godhead.