R. William DaviesThe Universal God: The Search for God in the Twenty-First Century Volume 1
For most of my life, I have been on a spiritual quest. As a child, questions arose within me that I could not answer. I could not understand why; if Jesus loved all the children of the world, why would Christian children alone be the ones that he would save? If God is our Father, why is He Father to Christians only? He surely had to be everyone's Father. At that time, I had no answers, but my list of questions kept growing within me. By the time that I began my college years, I finally was able to formally begin my personal 'quest' and the search for those answers. This began a lifetime passion. My journey brought me to: Christian Mysticism: Henry David Thoreau, Walt Whitman, Meister Eckhart, St Anthony, Thomas Aquinas, Thomas Merton, William Blake, Joseph Campbell, W. Summerset Maugham; Buddhism: The Four Noble Truths, The Eightfold Path, Zen Buddhism, J. T. Suzuki, meditation, walking meditation, Koan meditation, running meditation, Dalai Lama, Tibetan Book of the Dead, more meditation, Pursuit of Bodhisattva, Mind Science; Zoroaster; Kahlil Gibran; Houston Smith; Joseph Gaer; Vedanta Teachings: The Bhagavad Gita, The Upanishads, Eknath Easwaran, Mantra meditation, Karma Yoga, Bhakti Yoga, Raj Yoga, reading meditation; Lao-tzu, Tao Te Ching, I Ching; more meditations; Sufism, Hafez of Shiraz, Maulana Rumi and still more meditation. On this 'mish-mash' of a 'spiritual journey', many things came together and made sense; but other things continued to be contradictive and confusing. Then Meher Baba entered my life. As I began to read, study and meditate upon his teachings; all my contradictions and confusions disappeared. His teachings fill in the missing blanks and made this journey become whole and fulfilled. He brought coherence and structure to my search. The conundrum that a 'spiritual journey' requires is that the journey must be made internally, within the seeker's 'mind' and 'soul'. The truths and insights gained are often difficult to articulate outward. Spirituality drives the seeker to focus one's consciousness inward. Life itself, however, intervenes and requires that it is lived out in the opposite direction. We are of the world and life's journey must be lived 'out there' in that world. In the living of my life: I am married with two grown children and four grandchildren. I graduated from college with an undergraduate degree and a masters' degree in Economics. I spent most of my professional career working in a variety of jobs that required analytical, statistical and writing skills. I am now retired. I have found that my greatest joys in retirement have been found in spending time with my wife and playing with our grandchildren and our dog. Retirement, however, has also allowed me to reflect upon my 'spiritual journey' and to begin deciphering and organizing the contents of that journey. This late life inspiration has given me the opportunity to bring out that which I had held privately within me for so long. Through the writing of this "Universal God" trilogy, I am hoping to share with you the reader what I have learned from this 'spiritual journey' that has consumed so much of my inner life.
