My Own Religious Practices

This page may have been reached as a selection from the main "Acts of Love" page. In any case, it assumes you are familiar with what I mean by the general concept of acts of love as those activities that can lead to God, and that you now want to read about the particular activities that I personally pursue.

As I mentioned on my "Religious Activities" page, one effective form of prayer is that called the "practice of the Presence of God." This is my own most frequent form of prayer. I simply compose myself and think, "God within me," and usually experience a sense of peace, equanimity, acceptance and centering different from what I have come to expect from meditation. I can hope that this intimates the presence of God, but in any case I take it as a positive spiritual result.

In addition, I make a twice-daily rededication, which, functioning like a Christian's Lord's Prayer, is to me both a spiritual re-anchoring and, from long-standing repetition of its deliberately rhythmic text, a form of mantra exercise. I do various forms of spiritual exercise which are not specifically oriented to my religion, but with my religious goals in mind; most consistently, a mantra meditation of the Transcendental Meditation kind.

Returning to prayer, I will from time to time make a form of offering from whatever spiritual strength I have as a contribution to some person or group in peril or difficulty; I do this carefully, treating God not as a source to be entreated -- above all, not as one to be bribed -- but as a conduit through which I have faith that I can offer to share.

I have never yet had any kind of visionary experience beyond some episodes of intense awareness and of heightened beauty, coloration and definition in my surroundings. None of these involved chemical facilitation beyond whatever my body may have been producing at the time.

I try to keep the personal love in my life sincere and to remain cognizant of its potential to draw me closer to God as well as to my partner.

I have found a spiritual home and fellowship in a Unitarian church. It is under my church's aegis that I have tried to teach what I know of spiritual exercises. It may seem an unfamiliar concept to, for instance, Christians that there exist religious organizations such as Unitarianism where being a member of a church doesn't necessarily entail accepting a system of beliefs formulated by that church. However, there are such places, and I am comfortable saying that I am a Unitarian member whose religion is The Quest. There are web pages that can be visited for both my local church and for explanatory material provided by its North American parent organization, the Unitarian Universalist Association.

My four fundamental values -- life, truth, freedom and love -- fit into a round of seasonal celebrations in the climatic zone I live in, starting with the beginning of local Spring and ending with the beginning of local Winter. And the four types of evolution that I see in the origin and history of my planet up to this point -- the physical, biological, social and spiritual -- similarly go with the seasons themselves of Winter, Spring, Summer and Autumn. I have no problem with the minor adjustments to join in my society's conventions of having the Spring festival at Easter, the Autumn one at Thanksgiving, which has been set close to the equinox in the climate of my country, and the Winter one at Christmas. The celebration of Summer is admittedly a bit vague in my society, but is close to the national day of my country, so that will do. By happy coincidence, Christmas is a festival of love over much of my planet, and I take advantage of this to make it the celebratory highlight of my year. I have no problem living with the various religious meanings people around me may attach to it.

And of course I write these words. I hope that by thus sharing my ideas I can persuade others to do the kinds of things that can help bring God into the world.

Go or return to "Acts of Love" page to select one of the kinds of activity that I believe are such acts.