I Once Was Lost But Now I AM Found
I’ve spent the last 3.5 years of my life feeling lost. Lost, in the sense of feeling very alone in a perceived experience of isolation that…
I’ve spent the last 3.5 years of my life feeling lost. Lost, in the sense of feeling very alone in a perceived experience of isolation that even my closest loved ones could not breach at times.
It started after a long, stable season of comfortable confidence and uncharacteristic contentment in my life, knowing who I was and what I was doing here. But one day in November 2019, that all shifted. Sudden feelings of lostness, accompanied by paralyzing insignificance, enveloped me — a familiar feeling from childhood that I thought I had overcome many years prior.
I remember that day. I was in my new home environment on our picturesque, tranquil, mountain top property in Puerto Rico, where I should have been suspended in an ocean of purposeful bliss after a season of significant accomplishments. But instead, I dissolved into a puddle of existential crisis.
I have had similar astounding momentary shifts at a few key points in my life, some positive, some negative, but always a precursor to some impending requisite metamorphosis.
As I often do when life questions arise, I went to nature, hoping to find answers and reassurance. I sat on the rooftop of our guest casita, looking out over the jungle below, hoping the trees would quell the tide of fear circling my heart and mind. But what I witnessed only echoed my fear. I saw thousands of nameless, faceless trees, melting into the landscape of the jungle. No one felt concern for them in their significant, life-threatening struggles with hurricane force winds, excessive heat, torrential rains, or termites that chipped away at their life force day after day. No one came to their rescue. No one even saw them.
The jungle, silent and impersonal, mirrored its bereft reply to me that day. A tree lived and died without any notice or concern from anyone. When it died, it fell over and got swallowed whole by the jungle within days, no one the wiser.
This was a soul-crushing moment from which I could not easily rebound. It introduced a new, uncommon experience of frequent anxiety along with a dawning awareness of separate consciousness, preventing me from feeling whole or safe in this world.
Fear of Getting Lost
I have noticed the extreme phobia to the unpleasant notion of getting lost many people experience while deconstructing their religious beliefs. They fear losing their way on this uncustomary, spontaneous route of freedom, not trusting their own heart or inner journey to lead them somewhere good, safe, and true. This fear is part of the human struggle, especially during a time of discovering that most of the answers you thought you could stake your life on are bogus and untrustworthy. Part of the reason why so many people fear getting lost is because…they already feel lost and they don’t know when or how they are going to find an anchor.
All of this makes me ponder, what does it mean to be lost? Where in the world did we get this separation or “lost” consciousness, and all of the trepidation, loneliness, and massive feelings of isolation that come with it? Why does this concept carry so much weight in the human psyche, wielding so much control over our experience? Most importantly, is it avoidable? The dictionary defines lost as:
unable to find one’s way; not knowing one’s whereabouts
unable to be found (e.g. missing, disappeared, forgotten)
(of a person) very confused or insecure or in great difficulties
denoting something that has been taken away or cannot be recovered (e.g. dead, bygone)
having perished or been destroyed (e.g. eradicated, annihilated)
Interestingly, the etymology of the word lost comes from an old German word meaning “to divide, or cut apart.” In essence, to be separated from a whole.
Enter the double slit experiment. This might be the most important discovery in the quest to bridge the gap between science and spirit, and for evidence of our creative power, purpose, and indelible belonging in this universe.
Researchers found during this experiment, that molecules of light (photons) behaved differently depending on whether they were being observed or not. When being observed, they behaved like particles. When not observed, they behaved like a wave.
What this means relative to our discussion, is that all matter is conscious, and it can shift in essence between appearing as individual, separate parts, or as a unified, glorious whole. This realm was created in such a way that the unified whole was able to split itself apart (in theory) so that each part might experience itself in a local space-time reality, in its own unique, individual way. This is the Transcendent (Wave) God, becoming the Immanent (Particle) God in order to experience itself, in this case through dualistic relativity (hot-cold, sad-happy, rich-poor, etc). The particles are only perceiving the illusion of separation, not any kind of objective reality of it. We can no more be separate from God in the inclusion of the ALL, than the particles of matter can be separate from the wave from which they emerge — and to which they return.
When we grasp this infinite, inherent connectedness that we have to our Divine origin, this is Christ Consciousness. This is where we engage our “I Am” presence as co-creators with God. This is where we find unlimited potential and unity in an eternal dance with our Divine Family. This is the ultimate lesson in non-dualism.
The Role of Religion
The earliest meaning of the word religion (re-lig-ion) is difficult to ascertain. It may have meant “to bind (again).” For some (e.g. Richard Rohr), this meant to bring together, to unify, to re-bind our consciousness to the awareness of our Divine connection. Unfortunately, it appears to have morphed into an evil twin, conveying “bondage” and “obligation.”
Religion, with all its possibly good intent, became the great enforcer of dualistic, divisive consciousness — that we are separate from God and each other and therefore, cannot be trusted. Bondage indeed! Yet, the objective of the reliable passages of the Bible (not tainted by human agenda and influence) is to shine a light on our dualistic consciousness in order to bring us back Oneness with God and others. To “sin” is to commit an act against another that results from our separate consciousness, defying the Golden Rule. Repeated many times throughout the New Testament is the admonition to love our neighbor as we love ourselves (unity consciousness), which fulfills the whole law and is all that is required.
Religion became the medium of controlling people with fear, by making them perceive their lostness in this world — their particle, their aloneness, their separation, and insignificance. It did the opposite of what it should have done for individual and collective consciousness.
Dualistic-reinforcing religion lied to us, giving us half of a story: that I am separate, a thing, a particle. They did not tell me I am a microcosm of the I AM, the Wave, the full creative potential of All That Is. They wronged us to the fullest extent by breeding a anti-gospel of disempowerment!
Who is the I AM?
Exodus 3:14: And God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM…This is what you shall say to the sons of Israel: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” An important distinction that I learned from non-dual Kabbalistic (Hebrew Speaking) teachers is that this verse has been incorrectly translated. It should read, “I Will Become What I Will.” This is the introduction of the Immanent God, the not-yet-perfect God, showing up in and through creation to have an experience of becoming perfect (in love). Every time you say, “I am…this, or I am…that,” you are expressing your creative potential in this world by differentiating yourself as what you have created yourself to be. This is why affirmation statements that include what you WANT to be are so important. They resonate a creative impulse in your subconscious mind that begins to align your particle self to that belief or ideal. This is why it’s important not to over-identify with those things you don’t want to be (“I am clumsy” or “I am dumb”), but rather you want to keep your I AM (Immanent God becoming through you) focused on what you want (“I am intelligent, I am always guided and protected!”).
Found
Lost, in regard to a human (or a soul), is merely a subjective, disempowering, baseless ideological construct by a few power-hungry men throughout the centuries that were trying to sell mental and spiritual bondage to the masses (Egypt, anyone?). Just look at those associated words in the dictionary: dead, annihilated, eradicated, forgotten. Nobody wants any of those things to happen because we are wired to want life, belonging, meaning, remembrance, and significance.
As we covered in the last entry on this topic, nobody can ever be objectively lost in a finite, contained system (the world, the universe). As an example, I may lose my way according to a map, or I may fail to attain a designated destination, or I may “miss the mark” according to an arbitrary standard set by a person or system outside of myself. On the other hand, I am always somewhere. Just for the fact that I can, at any given moment, recite the words out loud, “I am,” demonstrates that I have not been lost. From some higher perspective, I am findable, and I am recoverable, at least to myself.
These days, I am recovering myself day by day. My anxiety and depression have improved immensely ever since discovering so many self-empowering thoughts and strategies. I’m pulling my own self out of the gutter — as my own savior — which I believe will have more lasting and meaningful results throughout my remaining days on earth, and beyond. I now know that I create my reality, and I’m creating something beautiful for myself.
As for the trees…I know that each one is “home” for untold numbers of jungle birds, bugs, bees, and critters. Every tree in the jungle matters. And they are loved. Every morning I look out over the expanse, and I send all the trees and all the beings that live there my love. I see them, and they see me. Life is a beautiful dance.