Santa Jose Meditation – After all these years, I have finally found God within
Sue / Real Estate Agent / Cupertino, California
When I look back at my life, I realize how fortunate I was in so many respects. Among those many things I am so grateful for, I am most grateful that I have finally found God within me.
Growing up in a stressful living situation where my parents fought almost daily, I would often lie in bed at night, and even before the age of 5 and I would ponder about why I had been born into such an unhappy family. I prayed to God every night – even though I didn’t know what God looked like or where God was – to please make it all stop somehow. I desperately wanted to be a happy, carefree child who wanted to be loved and feel accepted. And even at that tender age, I wanted to know the meaning and purpose of my existence. I wanted to know where people go to after they died, because truthfully, as unhappy as I was, I did not want to ever die.
Growing up, I attended Calvary Christian School and Temple Baptist School where I was taught about Jesus, love, forgiveness, and eternal life in heaven. We had Bible studies after lunchtime and sang hymns on Fridays. And during Bible study, we were always told that heaven exists within us and that God is within us. But quite honestly, I couldn’t see what they were talking about. No matter how much I memorized and recited the Lord’s Prayer, no matter how hard I prayed, I didn’t know what I was looking for. And as if I were someone keeping track of all the times I felt I had been wronged, I could not find it in my heart to forgive others.
In retrospect, amidst all the fighting, my parents must have also been yearning for peace. Over time, my parents, particularly my mother took me on Saturdays to the nearby Seventh Day Adventist Church and after several years, we began attending mass at the Catholic Church. As I sat through the many long masses on many Sundays, I still could not find heaven within.
And such is how I lived my life. Always praying, always searching. Reading many books. Attending various retreats. Going to many places. While I gleaned something new in each place, I was not able to fulfill the ultimate purpose of my search, which was to find God within me, to find heaven within me.
One fateful day, I had a chance encounter with this meditation through an acquaintance. As she told me that there was an actual way to find God within me, my ears perked up and right away, I attended an introduction at the meditation center. There, the helper explained why people cannot see God within. That it is because we are each living inside our own world that is inside of our own mind, and this fake world is made of pictures that we filmed of the world. So the mind of God was hidden by our own mind’s world. The way she illustrated on the board told said it all.
The method is to discard that false mind world of my own that I had made. And after doing this meditation, it finally happened. All those heavy things I had been carrying around in my heart and the weight of the world on my shoulders had finally been lifted. It was like the veil had been lifted and the dark clouds disappeared. And there, all along, was God. And heaven. It is within me everyday. And everyday I live in heaven while living. I am so grateful to this meditation and to Master Woo Myung for giving the key to find the truth within me.
