The search for authentic spiritual awareness represents one of humanity’s most profound quests. Yet for many, this journey becomes clouded by layers of inherited beliefs, cultural programming, unresolved traumas, and psychological patterns established in childhood. Understanding how we develop awareness of the divine—and distinguishing between genuine spiritual insight and conditioned responses—requires examining the complex interplay between early influence, cognitive development, and authentic spiritual experience.
The reader will note that I place much emphasis on our conditioning throughout this chapter. These repeated references are not oversights on my part but instead are nudges to those who would practice mindfulness into its fullest healing expression. True spiritual awareness emerges not from accepting inherited beliefs without question, but through careful examination of how our earliest experiences shape our understanding of the world, and the sacred. Our stubborn minds were made to be powerful instruments for supporting existing personal narratives and agendas, so until we develop the necessary insight to overcome these internalized obstacles to freedom, we will be held back from attaining liberation from its pillory.
I challenge all of us to move beyond the comfort of familiar religious and cultural frameworks and venture into the sometimes-uncomfortable territory of genuine self-inquiry. As mindfulness practitioners, we must be able to recognize ALL of our advisors, be they external or internal, unconscious or conscious, well-meaning or disruptive. And, coupled with an ancient spiritual technology, practicing the Presence, we are about to undertake a journey guaranteed to bring a new understanding and experience of life to all the brave souls who undertake these processes.
The process of developing authentic awareness of the one true God demands courage to question our most fundamental assumptions about spirituality, reality, and our place within the cosmic order. It requires recognizing that much of what we consider “spiritual truth” may actually be the product of psychological conditioning rather than direct divine experience.
Children enter the world as open vessels, their consciousness largely unformed regarding theological concepts. While they carry the genetic inheritance of human evolutionary development and basic instinctual patterns, their conscious understanding of spirituality begins as what psychologists describe as a “clean slate” in terms of religious and cultural conditioning.
The primary architects of a child’s initial spiritual framework are their immediate family members, beginning with parents and extending to the broader family system. These early influences wield enormous power over the developing consciousness, often establishing patterns that persist well into adulthood.
Stories abound of very young children, just beginning to develop language skills, reporting conversations with God, Jesus, or other religious figures. While some interpret these accounts as evidence of inherent divine connection, a more nuanced understanding reveals the profound influence of family conditioning on the child’s developing awareness.
Early spiritual experiences are often a reflection of a child’s deep immersion in their environment. Rather than serving as direct divine communication, they may stem from a child’s natural propensity for magical thinking and their ability to interact with the intangible. Whether it’s through imaginary friends, cherished dolls, or religious figures presented as both real and reachable, young minds know how to weave connection and meaning into the unseen.
My early years were shaped by a profound sense of loneliness. My parents, consumed by work, hadn’t the time to provide the constant emotional presence I yearned for. Perhaps that void explains why I didn’t speak until I was four years old, inhabiting a quiet inner world instead. It was during these formative years that Percy, my doll, entered my life. Percy didn’t just sit on a shelf gathering dust; he spoke to me. To a boy who felt abandoned, Percy became the voice of reassurance and acknowledgment that others might associate with divinity. He didn’t just metaphorically speak to me; he represented validation, telling me I mattered when I desperately needed to believe it. Percy filled the role of confidant and protector, much like how religious concepts or figures often comfort other children, and their parents.
Interestingly, Percy’s voice opened a floodgate. After a series of those Percy monologues, the power of language roared to life within me, and I began speaking voluminously. Words tumbled out, along with a torrent of thoughts, ideas, and even odd prescient experiences. I found myself suddenly able to draw meaning from objects around me in ways I had no business understanding as a four-year-old. My grandfather’s rocking chair, ancient and worn, told me stories of its past, its energy laden with history, as though my soul momentarily glimpsed its essence through some sort of psychometric intuition.
The sheer volume of new thoughts and language was overwhelming, even for my parents. Though they had pleaded for my first words for years, my father soon found himself exasperated, overwhelmed by the surge of conversations and ideas I was eager to share. What had once been a source of concern for him soon became a source of bewilderment.
This dramatic shift is one of the most remarkable aspects of consciousness. Was Percy truly an act of imagination, or was he a divine spark igniting my consciousness, awakening an awareness that had lain dormant in silence? The experience raises profound questions about the interplay between the onset of verbal abilities, imagination, spirituality, and the development of self-awareness.
Can a word, or a series of words heard internally or listened to from an outside source as it becomes linked with some sensorial immediacy, genuinely birth our sense of self?
Helen Keller would answer a resounding YES. It was not until she associated the word “WATER” symbolically spelled out on her hand by Anne Sullivan with the experience of water, drinking and washing with it, that her sense of self and a new self-organizing principle evolved from the chaos within her mind.
This profound question cuts to the heart of human consciousness, inviting us to explore the intricate dance between language, cognition, sensorial experience, and our perception of self. The question isn’t merely academic—it probes the essence of what it means to be human.
The mystic writer in the book of John in the Bible proclaimed:
“The Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us”.
Those with spiritual and intellectual discernment understand that the “the Word” does not just refer to Jesus of Nazareth, but also to you and me.
What “Word” made you first come alive?
What “Words” keep you engaged and excited about this magical, mysterious life of yours?
Language is often thought of as a tool for communication. Yet its role as a sculptor of the mind is far more pivotal. From the first “mama” or “dada,” language doesn’t just teach us to name objects; it serves as the scaffolding for our understanding of the world and our place within it.
In contemplating the origins and growth of the self through language, we are invited to reflect on our journeys of self-discovery and growth. How do the words we use shape our perceptions and interactions? What narratives are we constructing about ourselves and our place in the world? How are our narratives influenced by trauma, archetypes, and unconscious and/or collective influences operating below the threshold of conscious awareness?
Jean Piaget’s groundbreaking work on cognitive development illuminates how children construct their internal models of reality. According to his theory, children actively build understanding through stages, using sensory experiences and social interactions to create frameworks for interpreting their world.
These cognitive schemas, formed during crucial developmental periods, become the lens through which individuals process new experiences throughout their lives. When spiritual concepts are introduced during these formative stages, they become deeply embedded in the child’s foundational understanding of reality.
The process involves two key mechanisms: assimilation, where new information fits into existing mental frameworks, and accommodation, where existing frameworks must be altered to incorporate new information. When spiritual teachings are presented as unquestionable truth during early development, they often become so deeply integrated that questioning them in adulthood triggers significant psychological resistance.
The human mind possesses a remarkable capacity for accepting repeated information as truth, regardless of its actual validity. This psychological phenomenon extends far beyond religious belief into all areas of human conditioning, from childhood education through political ideology to personal identity.
One revealing memory I still have is from a 4th-grade science class, where the teacher wanted to teach us the power and value of direct observation. He placed a metal object on a burner, heated it, and then placed it into the water, where the uneven cooling distorted it. We were to describe in written form what we witnessed, and, in a rare experience for me, I had no words. I looked at another person’s paper to see what they saw. What I did in this situation is a microcosm of the process that most of humanity engages itself within the shared or collective Consciousness. If we don’t directly experience something, we rely on others’ interpretations and, after a while, mistake their assumptions and judgments for our own or even for the “truth.”
A secondhand life experience awaits all those who rely upon others’ experiences and narratives for their own self-concept. And illusions can take the whole mind hostage if not recognized and reined in early. So can overtraining and over conditioning of the young mind. The problem is often overzealous parents and the culture maintaining their vision of what truth and conformity should look like.
Until we become fully conscious people as independent though collaborative human beings, other people’s stories and garbage gets backfilled into the holes and empty spaces within our own narratives, becoming embedded within us, with the unexamined stories adding to our internal confusion and chaos.
Some aspects of life elude our ability or willingness to effectively communicate around them. Those who have experienced childhood trauma and/or are now experiencing PTSD know this intimately. The experiences do not get incorporated into our personal stories and thus add to suffering and to the collective conspiracy of silence where issues are never addressed or healed.
Have you ever considered that the unresolved emotional traumas of your past might be silently dictating your present? In the labyrinth of human consciousness, hidden wounds manifest as mini personality centers within our energy fields, influencing our thoughts and actions from the shadows. These are not mere metaphors but real phenomena, recognized increasingly within the holistic health and wellness community. Gabor Mate and the process of compassionate inquiry and Dick Schwarz and the therapeutic approach to internal family systems both have been transforming fragmented personalities into whole beings in remarkable healing experiences.
We must be aware of the influences of unresolved traumas, educational and religious conditioning, or intrusive and controlling authority figures, that steer us away from the healing journey that we all are required to take to fully embrace our innate wholeness.
When statements are repeated frequently, such as negative self-talk generated from early wounding, or by trusted authority figures during formative years, they activate internal defense mechanisms that work to maintain their validity. The mind begins organizing experiences and interpretations to support these inherited or acquired beliefs, creating an internal ecosystem that resists contradictory information.
This process demonstrates how cultural and religious programming can become so deeply embedded that individuals experience it as natural, inherent truth rather than learned conditioning. The danger lies not in any particular belief system, but in the unconscious acceptance of ideas without critical examination.
Individuals who have been most deeply conditioned often become prime candidates for further manipulation through political and religious propaganda. Having learned to accept authority-based truth claims without rigorous questioning, they may repeatedly find themselves drawn to systems that promise safety and purpose while demanding surrender of critical thinking.
This vulnerability stems from a fundamental disconnection from one’s authentic nature and capacity for independent discernment. Recovery requires developing the ability to distinguish between inherited beliefs and genuine personal insight. Recovery requires building a foundation of truth and then reassembling our new spiritually awakening personal narrative upon that structure.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1).
Words born of woundedness, despair, tribalism, and cultural conditioning bring minimal healing opportunities. Words born of conscious unity with God bring love, hope, gratitude, empowerment and interconnection with all beings.
Your authentic relationship with the divine awaits a sincere inquiry and commitment to truth.
Take the first step today.
The world awaits your healing Word.
Finding Peace Through the Practicing the Presence of God
“Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”—Jesus of Nazareth
To reclaim our divine inheritance and become like little children, we must first reconstruct our sense of self. This process begins by establishing a foundation of truth, upon which a renewed identity can be built. If you remember Piaget’s stages of cognitive development, this correlates to the accommodation phase, where we shift our mental frameworks or create new ones to assimilate new understanding. For modern mystics-in-training, this is the essence of practicing the Presence.
Many of us, as seekers of spiritual growth, have dedicated years cultivating what can be referred to as a personal “consciousness of truth”. This often includes accumulating spiritual knowledge from favorite teachers and writers, using certain pre-programmed prayers, chants or mantras, dabbling in mindfulness practices, and developing beliefs we think are more elevated than the conditioning we have shed. However refined these adjustments may be, they risk becoming another cage for the mind. Similar to rigid religious training, even elevated spiritual understanding can tether us to limitations if we identify too closely and too long with them. What is truth today may become another form of limiting conditioning tomorrow. Therefore, we must create a new consciousness that quiets the mind enough to allow our native unconditioned awareness to transcend those limitations.
But what is the nature of the Presence that will serve as the lattice for a regrowth of our sense of self, the self that can develop sufficient humility to let the Universe shine through it?
Let us consider the possibility of an infinite divine consciousness. There will be certain logical implications emerge that challenge conventional religious thinking. A truly infinite God cannot be confined to particular locations, situations, or groups of people. Such a consciousness would necessarily be everywhere or nowhere—there can be no middle ground.
Religious practice can often reinforce these barriers when interpreted narrowly, dividing humanity into fragmented groups. However, spiritual reality transcends boundaries, revealing itself across diverse cultures and traditions. Divine truth is not confined to any single approach or doctrine but operates universally.
From this perspective, wherever conscious beings exist, divine consciousness must also be present, while remaining primarily unconscious and rarely accessible to non-practitioners of truth. This understanding suggests that rather than seeking God “out there” through external practices or intermediaries, spiritual development involves recognizing and aligning with the divine presence that already exists within and throughout all experience.
This recognition requires moving beyond the dualistic thinking that separates “you” from “me”, “sacred” from “ordinary,” “spiritual” from “material,” or “divine” from “human.” Such distinctions may serve as useful cultural sensibilities or teaching tools, but they ultimately limit our capacity for authentic spiritual awareness, while encouraging the mind to overwork itself while endlessly categorizing and ordering these dualities, and vainly trying to make sense of them.
We all have a direct experience of the human mind that rarely rests. Our untamed minds churns through thoughts, worries, plans, and memories in an endless cycle that can leave us feeling disconnected from the deeper currents of existence. Yet within the practice of cultivating God’s presence lies a profound pathway to inner stillness—a vast space that transcends the limitations of our conditioned thinking and opens us to the miraculous nature of being itself.
God is this vast space within our minds, and within consciousness itself, that is not burdened with the illusion of duality. If we say that God “sees”, all that God ” sees” is itself, for otherwise God would no longer be infinite, but just a fragment, which makes the proposition that an infinite God exists untenable.
Authentic spiritual development requires moving beyond the conditioned mind—the collection of inherited beliefs, cultural programming, religious training (if any), psychological patterns, and the action of duality that typically govern human experience. While this conditioning serves important social functions, it can become a barrier to genuine spiritual insight when accepted unconsciously.
Traditional religious education, whether through seminaries, theological schools, or cultural transmission, provides valuable historical and intellectual framework for understanding spiritual concepts. However, this knowledge remains limited by the perspectives and conditioning of those who transmit it. Even the most learned religious authorities operate within the constraints of their conditioned understanding. Their insights, while potentially valuable, cannot substitute for direct personal experience of divine consciousness.
Moving beyond conditioned spirituality requires practical methods for developing authentic awareness, the primary one I would like for you to consider is practicing the Presence. The practice of God’s presence begins with recognizing the three fundamental pillars supporting God consciousness.
If God is real, God must be omniscient (all knowing), omnipresent (all present), and omnipotent (all powerful). These aren’t merely theological concepts—by practicing these three fundamental practices of divine presence as lived truths we can reshape our entire approach to consciousness.
- God’s omniscience means that all knowledge, all understanding, and all wisdom already exist within the divine consciousness. When we align ourselves with this truth, our anxious searching for answers begins to soften. We start to trust that intelligence far greater than our limited perspective guides the unfolding of existence.
- Omnipresence reveals that God’s consciousness permeates every moment, every breath, every seemingly ordinary experience. Nothing exists outside this divine awareness. This understanding gradually dissolves the illusion that we are separate beings struggling alone through life’s challenges.
- God’s omnipotence reminds us that infinite power underlies all manifestation. Not the kind of force that dominates or controls, but the creative energy from which all possibilities emerge. Recognizing this power at work in our lives allows us to release our compulsive need to manage every detail through mental effort alone.
Practicing the Presence is an ancient spiritual discipline that offers more than temporary relief from mental chatter. It provides a doorway into pure awareness, where the boundaries of personal identity dissolve into something infinitely greater. Through understanding and experiencing God’s omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent nature, we discover a quietude that allows us to witness existence from an entirely transformed perspective.
The journey toward genuine God consciousness requires developing sophisticated discernment between authentic spiritual insight and various forms of conditioning, projection, and wishful thinking. This discernment grows through sustained practice and honest self-examination. Much of what individuals interpret as external spiritual experience actually reflects internal psychological patterns projected outward. The “enemy” we perceive in others often represents unrecognized aspects of our consciousness. Similarly, the “God” we worship may reflect our highest aspirations rather than direct divine encounter.
This understanding does not invalidate spiritual experience but rather calls for greater sophistication in interpreting such experiences. Authentic spiritual insight typically involves recognition of unity and love for all beings rather than reinforcement of separation and judgment.
Every reaction to external circumstances offers information about internal states of consciousness. Paying attention to these reactions—particularly strong emotional responses—provides valuable data for understanding personal conditioning and psychological patterns.
An important question stimulating insight and personal exploration becomes:
“What is it within me that is causing this disproportionate reaction to what I am witnessing?
This self-awareness becomes a tool for spiritual development as individuals learn to distinguish between reactions based on past conditioning and responses that emerge from present-moment awareness.
While organized religion can provide valuable community, ritual, and philosophical framework, authentic spiritual development ultimately transcends any particular religious system. This transcendence does not require abandoning religious practice but rather holding such practices lightly while remaining open to truth from any source.
We must remember that even our new and improved understanding of life and spirit is a lens that clouds over time, and we must be ever vigilant to keep our lens clear. Ultimately, we use our consciousness of truth to bring the peace and stillness to the mind necessary to liberate the awareness that no longer needs to be tethered to concepts, words, or thoughts.
Through practicing the Presence and continuous spiritual inquiry, we can contemplate profound questions about the nature of suffering, the existence of sin, and our role in contributing to pain or healing in the world. Without the continuous awareness of God’s infinite consciousness, we remain subject to the divisive and destructive patterns that perpetuate suffering.
Embarking on Your Own Journey of Discovery
The journey toward authentic spiritual awareness offers no quick fixes or guaranteed outcomes. It requires patience, commitment, and willingness to embrace uncertainty while developing trust in your capacity for divine insight. Yet for those willing to undertake this adventure, it promises the most profound and lasting transformation possible—the recognition of your true nature as an expression of infinite consciousness itself.
Developing authentic awareness of the divine represents the most important journey any individual can undertake. This journey cannot be completed through intellectual study alone, though such study may provide valuable preparation and context.
The path requires courage to question inherited beliefs, patience to develop new capacities for perception, and commitment to sustained practice even when progress seems slow or unclear. Most importantly, it demands honesty about personal motivations and willingness to release attachments to particular outcomes or experiences.
Begin by examining your current beliefs about spirituality and their origins. Which ideas were inherited from family, culture, or religious authority, and which emerged from personal experience and insight?
Develop habits of questioning and critical thinking while maintaining openness to spiritual insight. This balance prevents both cynical rejection of authentic spirituality and naive acceptance of unfounded claims.
Practice daily awareness of divine presence, regardless of your particular theological framework. The practice of God’s presence isn’t reserved for advanced spiritual seekers or religious professionals. It’s available to anyone willing to shift their attention from the content of consciousness to consciousness itself. Begin by simply acknowledging God’s presence throughout your day through regular periods of quiet reflection and attention to the present moment.
Notice how this acknowledgment affects the quality of awareness. The practice of God’s presence invites us beyond all conditioning, even spiritual conditioning. As we learn to rest in divine awareness, both our old patterns of human limitation and our newly cultivated God consciousness begin to quiet. Neither rejection nor attachment to thoughts becomes necessary. Instead, we discover a natural settling that occurs when consciousness recognizes its true source.
This quieting doesn’t happen through force or suppression. Rather, it emerges as we become genuinely fascinated with God’s presence operating through every aspect of our experience. Our attention naturally withdraws from the commentary of the thinking mind and becomes absorbed in the immediate reality of divine being.
When thoughts arise—whether limiting or elevated—practice seeing them as movements within divine consciousness rather than products of “your” mind. This subtle shift in perspective can transform your entire relationship to thinking and create space for the profound stillness that naturally exists within awareness. When the conditioned mind grows still, something extraordinary becomes available: the direct perception of existence as miracle. Not miracle in the sense of supernatural events, but the recognition that ordinary awareness itself represents an incomprehensible wonder.
The simple fact that consciousness exists, that perception occurs, that love and beauty can be recognized—these become sources of endless amazement. We begin to see that what we previously dismissed as mundane actually pulses with divine creativity. Every breath, every heartbeat, every play of light and shadow reveals itself as an expression of God’s presence.
This witnessing happens naturally when we stop trying to improve or understand our experience and simply rest in awareness itself. The mind that once seemed so central to our identity becomes just another phenomenon arising within the vast space of divine consciousness.
Perhaps the most profound aspect of this practice involves the gradual dissolution of personal identity into infinite identity. This expansion happens gradually and gently. This doesn’t mean losing our human personality or becoming dysfunctional in practical life. There’s no violence to the ego, no dramatic destruction of personality. Instead, personal identity simply becomes transparent to the infinite identity that was always its true foundation. We experience a boundless true nature that extends far beyond the limitations of individual selfhood.
As we consistently practice God’s presence, the sense of being a separate person struggling through life begins to fade into the background. What emerges is an identity that encompasses all existence—not as a mental concept, but as a lived reality. We realize that what we are has always been infinite, and our personal story represents just one tiny expression of this boundless being.
The invitation here extends beyond temporary peace of mind to a fundamental recognition of what we truly are. Through the practice of God’s presence, we discover that the quietude we seek isn’t something we achieve—it’s the very ground from which all experience arises. In touching this truth, we find not only the peace we’ve been seeking but the infinite identity that has always been our deepest reality.
Remember that this practice deepens through consistency rather than intensity. Brief, regular moments of consciously resting in God’s presence often prove more transformative than lengthy spiritual efforts that reinforce the ego’s sense of being the one who practices.
You are now a “God in Training”, until you come into complete awareness of the presence of God as your consciousness. For, in truth, God is the very nature of your being, but the one true God has been overwritten by trauma, and your familial, cultural, and religious programming.
With the tools of mindfulness, meditation, and practicing the Presence, human consciousness receives the ultimate tune-up.
Welcome to life, and death, on the Universe’s Infinite Bandwidth
