Michael, I begin with my understanding that the human being is a creature who longs for infinite intimacy with their beloved Source. The heart longs to love and be loved by the One who is Holy Mystery of boundless love. This longing stirs our being, our soul, to search for the truth of who she is, which can only be discovered within this most precious relationship. This is the heart of authentic spirituality at its most personal core. This spirituality has a myriad of beautiful expressions. One of which is that embodied in Jesus.

I invite you to consider the word “God” as a symbol that points to ultimate Reality. For Jesus, an Aramaic speaking Jew, his word for ultimate Reality was “Alaha,” which can be translated as Sacred Unity. His spiritual experience was grounded in his heart’s awareness that all was of the same Holy Mystery. His heart was not focused upon an external object. Nor a thing. His experience was of Reality as loving sacred unity; or to put it slightly differently, Reality as One. Nothing exists outside of and apart from Alaha. There are other names for ultimate Reality. In Judaism, YHWH, is the symbol often used. In Islam, Allah, the Infinitely Compassionate and Continually Merciful, is the Absolute. Indeed, although Buddhism is non-theistic, the Absolute is integral to its spirituality. Any authentic spiritual experience is rooted in a relationship with Reality, which is known by various names. Different religious cultures speak of and name Reality with different symbols, each with its own window into the groundless Ground.

Authentic spirituality, whatever its cultural and personal form, is Holy Mystery (for Jesus, Alaha) expressing or manifesting itself here and now in all arising forms. Inauthentic would be a fabrication or creation of the ego seeking severance from the Source.  I would suggest that “belief” plays a more minor role in the spirituality of Jesus than conventionally portrayed. Here, I distinguish “belief” (dealing with matters of our cognizing mind, such as creeds and doctrines) from “faith” (heartful awareness arising from our direct and lived experience of the holy, or boundless love).

Jesus was a mystical Jewish teacher, which means he taught based upon what his direct experience of Alaha was. His authenticity was rooted in the fact that his teaching was not speculative but the fruit of his heart’s practice of living a life in love with Abwun (his name for Alaha as loving parent and generous womb). The invitation embodied in Jesus is to learn to trust in your experience because you are discovering that the Source of being is Boundless Love. The Mystery of this Love is that it is the I of our own I, the heart of our own heart, the breath within our own breath. Jesus does not direct us to an object of belief; nor does he ask us to imitate him. Rather he asks us to turn our heart to our present experience and see if we can discover the beauty and love that is arising there as the face of God (for him, Alaha).

One final thought. If our personal experience is not to become distorted by unconscious drives and ego-centric demands, we will need the guidance of a spiritual community. It is in a healthy and grounded community of faith that our personal experience can be discussed and tested and guided by a respected teacher(s) and the other members of the group.

~ Kevin G. Thew Forrester, Ph.D.