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The White Hindu has moved! This blog is no longer updated, but Ambaa is still writing The White Hindu every weekday at Patheos.com.

Sunday, April 10, 2011

The Presence of God

No matter what I go through in life, no matter the pain or the joy or the brain chemistry being messed with by PMS, I always feel a solid presence beside me.

I'm wondering if this experience is unusual or if it's what most people feel and maybe label it differently.

I constantly feel a conscious force around me, particularly just to my right side, but it spreads out from there to encompass everything. It doesn't look like anything, and yet it almost has a personality in my mind. I direct a lot of conversation in my thoughts towards it.

Because of this presence I feel self-conscious even when I'm alone in my apartment. I know there is something always listening. Not in a creepy or upsetting way, just in a way that I can see how crazy I'm being because there is a calm and unflappable aura next to me that reflects back to me how I look.

In the past year and a bit as I've mourned the loss of my dear friend, I've been overcome by tears. I tend to cry a lot and it embarrasses me, but I don't feel in control of it at all. However, this crying is huge shaking sobs that I wouldn't want anyone to ever see. I do it in my car or alone in my bed at night. Even then I feel that presence and it looks at me gently, but it knows that grief is temporary, that death is not real, and that these gut-punched, can-barely-breathe sobs that give me headaches are not the ultimate reality.

Never, never, never have I had a time when that feeling of a presence nearby has been gone. I felt it when I was a small child and played by myself for hours and hours. I've always felt it and maybe that's why faith comes as naturally to me as breathing.

I recognized this feeling in Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor* (one of my all time favorite writers). Her character has a different response to it than I do. "[Jesus moves] from tree to tree in the back of his mind, a wild ragged figure motioning him to turn around and come off into the dark..." Hazel Motes feels that Jesus is haunting him, a figure in the woods, always just behind him. He is determined to reject this figure that follows him.

On the other hand, I have always felt that presence as comforting, strong, steady, and loving. I don't know what it is or why I feel it, but I give it the name of God and no amount of despair in my heart ever causes it to waver.

*[This book is very complex and cannot really be broken down and analyzed without spending months at it, so I'm skeptical of the summaries and reviews I see of it online, I feel that they are mostly all missing the point. O'Connor is a very unusual writer and her work defies easy description.]

4 comments:

  1. You are blessed, I am usually only aware of the presence of God when I concentrate on it and calm my mind. On occasions I have become spontaneously aware but not often. I never feel that the presence has gone, I know that if I calm myself and concentrate it will always be there.

    I am not sure what it means that you experience this presence to your right hand side, but I would talk to a yoga teacher about whether it indicates an inbalance in your nadis (spiritual currents).

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  2. I fully understand this feeling. I have also always felt as though there was something 'protecting' me.. even as a small child. I 'see' and feel energy as well.. its something that I didn't realize other people couldn't do until I got older & was informed that it was "weird" and that I should keep it to myself. Spirituality comes very easily to me as well.. its why I immediately connected to witchcraft & Goddess worship when I was younger. Sadly, a well meaning friend & a difficult time in my life resulted in a short but painful trip into Christianity that all but removed that "comforting" feeling up until my 'finding' Sanatana Dharma & I started doing japa meditation.

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  3. Very interesting, Tandava, I never thought to look into what caused the right side part. Thanks!

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  4. I also feel this way when I am singing, doing japa or mantra. It is always at my right side and I also talk to it, thank Him for always being there. After caring for terminal clients for over a decade...I saw things which make me absolutely believe in those helpers.

    The Devas watch over us so carefully, lovingly...guiding us all our lives.

    Of this I am so sure.

    Om Namah Shivaya<3

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