The divine is present within everything in creation. Yet most people are oblivious to it. Their awareness is trapped within the ego-controlled mind. So they perceive only forms and not the formless universal consciousness.
The ego creates a false sense of separateness between you and the divine. The ego is sustained by thinking. When under its control your attention is trapped in an endless stream of banal thoughts. Only when the mind is quiet can you perceive the formless within all forms. And this is the key to the spiritual journey.
Most people interact with their external reality through the thinking mind. The senses provide input into the brain, and it decodes what is perceived into conceptual thought. They have yet to experience reality in any other way. So they mistakenly expect their interactions with the divine to happen in the same manner.
They mistake their ideas about God for the truth. Yet ideas are nothing more than mental constructs that exist only within the confines of the mind. At best ideas can only point to the the deeper truth—the universal consciousness—that has to be experienced beyond the limitations of the thinking mind.
When filtering reality through the mind, you are unable to experience reality directly. The mind gets between you and what is happening. The spiritual journey is about freeing your awareness from the confines of the thinking mind and experiencing reality directly.
As you progress spiritually, the way in which you interact with life changes. Your thoughts gradually lose the ability to monopolize your attention. You learn how to observe your thoughts as they appear and disappear in your consciousness. And your attention is more often on the deeper reality.
The divine is not something that exists out there somewhere. You don’t have to wait until you pass away to come into contact with it. It is available to you here and now. You need only learn how to still the mind. And then you will be on the path that leads to liberation.
