Interesting how the world’s religions all talk about the relationship between God and man in terms of face to face communication and yet why is it that this mood seems narrowly confined to special saints and highly esteemed prophets and not to the everyday man.

“At this point Muhammad went beyond heaven and met Allah face to face. The prophet had a relationship with Allah in the mood of friendship. Muhammad continues by describing how Allah put his hand between his shoulders, and gave him divine wisdom……

The Torah mentions how the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to a friend. (Exodus 33.11)….

In the Torah it also mentions that Sarah had a relationship with the Lord like a mother. It mentions that God would appear to Enoch and Abraham and they would have wonderful ongoing exchanges…….

In Christianity, great mystics like St Teresa of Avila and St John of the Cross did not just refer to God as a light or sound, but they had personal experiences with the spiritual realm and with God as a lover.”

Could the secret be that these individuals were determined not to be fobbed off with the general concept that God was very distant, swathed in light, thunder and lightning, an aged being with an immense white beard, all detractors to the very concept that God is as actually as close as a whisper.

Teresa of Avila was very aware of the closeness of her Lord – He was in conversational proximity. She was certainly not one to be put off from achieving goals for the Lord either. She willingly obliged in purchasing property to further the Lord’s cause and demanded that He came up with the purchase price immediately! She spent an equal amount of time berating Him for giving His followers such a hard time thus, she said, limiting the number of those He could call friends. Of her many inspired writings “The Interior Castle” is a profound work which shows the goal of her life’s mystical journey to be finally united in spiritual marriage with the King of Glory.

“As mentioned, the spiritual world is full of activities centered on loving exchanges with the Lord. Existence means functioning and interacting. The ultimate expression of all such functioning and interaction is love. Love involves service. Love does not simply mean knowledge about someone, nor does it just culminate in salvation. Once again, love means service. All the activities in the spiritual world are based on service to the Lord.”

How do we ordinary people proceed on this mystical journey? How do we advance upon our spiritual path toward the goal of increased love and service to the Lord? What do we need to understand?

“A key emphasis in scriptures from various paths is developing our relationship with God. Unfortunately, people often have limited information about the object of their love – God’s likes and dislikes, His activities, His abode – and how to connect with the Lord.

To begin with, all paths fall into four philosophical categories:

Materialism Basically an atheistic philosophy, it holds that a human being is nothing but a physical entity without a soul. Life is viewed as simply a matter of eating, sleeping, mating and defending…..

Voidism - According to this philosophy, material involvement produces anxiety, material relationships bring pain and material pursuits cause stresses, frustration, and depression. This philosophy tells us what reality is not but there is little information on what reality is…..

Impersonalism - moves us outside of the material arena and into cosmic consciousness or samadhi. In this consciousness, people experience the universality of all creation and feel a certain oneness with God, thinking themselves to be God. The focus is on merging into God’s energy and on becoming one with the light of God. It explains only one dimension of God and is thus incomplete….

Personalism - Beyond cosmic consciousness is the opportunity for personal exchange with the Lord.

“What kind of techniques can we engage in that will reveal to us these loving experiences that you talk about?

A powerful technique is calling on the names of God. All of the major scriptures of the world emphasize the calling of God’s name. The names of God have a profound effect on the material energy. They act like a weapon, cutting out much of the contamination that stagnates the consciousness. The names of God have the ability to convert material energy into spiritual energy. They have the ability to invoke the presence of the Lord.”

Opportunities abound, techniques are being made available. If we endeavour we too can learn what it means to have the grace to meet God, face to face also! So Spiritual Warriors like you and I can follow in the footsteps of amazing people like Abbess Hildegard of Bingen who while writing of her visionary experiences, says we need to learn to be “a feather on the breath of God”.