My Spiritual Journey

Sometimes I wonder why I'm into all this meditation and spirituality stuff. I think it all started when I was very young. I just remember very distinctly I was sitting on our red rocking chair when I was around five or so and I closed my eyes and thought to myself, "What if there is nothing?" I sort of went into some kind of trance with that and got back an answer from the universe, "There is something."I opened my eyes and I was never the same again. I remember my mom telling me to repeat god's name when I'm in trouble. The only time I really did that was when I crossed a major road which I was forbidden to do. I crossed the road with my best friend to go to the Burt and Hallow drug store to buy candy. I started to believe in god when I prayed to him that I didn't get caught by my parents, and I never did get caught. At that point, god became just as important to me as candy.When I was thirteen or so years old I had another epiphany. I went to a Sikh camp where this guy who was a recovering drug addict told us how he replaced drugs with meditation and he got the same high as he did on cocaine. He said when he was on coke he loved everything and everyone, the same thing happened to him after meditating. I was blown away by this, you could get high and be happy by meditating? What? He told us the same thing my mom told me when I was growing up, repeat god's name over and over again. The name we use in Sikhism is Waheguru. It means wonderous guru I think. It's sort of a breathing technique as well, Waaa-Heee-Guuu-Ruuu.I was totally moved by this dude who told us about how he robbed an old woman to get money for drugs. And when he got off of drugs he spent days in meditation doing what we Sikhs call Naam Simran. It literally means remembering god's name. When he came out of meditation they found out that he had no withdrawal symptoms after coming off of cocaine. It was a miracle.I decided that my purpose in life was to find happiness through Naam Simran. So I tried it, for like a week. It was a great week. Then I went back to normal thirteen-year-old stuff and would remember every now and then to do some meditation. However, this experience had forever put a mark in my brain.Then when I was in high school I started to read our Sikh Scriptures called The Guru Granth Sahib. I would read certain popular prayers that were meant to be done every day. I would put on the tape in Punjabi as a man pronounced the words and I would read the translation in English. It gave me some peace of mind. It was nice. That lasted for a little while.After that, I started to read spiritual books by white authors, and they were modern books on spirituality and they really spoke to me. Like Wayne Dyer and Deepak Chopra. I started to feel like there was something beyond religion, something that brought together and transcended all religions. That's when I started to become spiritual.In college, I took a Buddhism class and was fascinated by their idea of self-no self, the divine dichotomy. I still believed in religion at that point but was exploring other religions. Not because I wanted to convert, but because I wanted knowledge. I took a Bible class and honestly was a little bored by the Bible. No offense to anyone who believes in it, I respect it as a holy scripture, however, the only thing I gained from it was the knowledge that there were people who thought they were chosen by god and they took over lands from people who were not chosen. I am aware that there are beautiful analogies and messages in the Bible as well. But at that juncture in my life, I was not very moved by it.I  was still at that point where I thought that Sikhism is the best religion. It is only recently that I have changed that statement to say that I think that Sikhism is the best religion, for me. There is nothing in the Sikh Scriptures that I don't believe to be true. However, I have found that other more modern spiritual texts have taken the truth in Sikhism and expanded it for me.I also went to a lot of Sikh summer camps throughout middle school, high school, and college. Every time I went to these camps, which are some of my fondest memories, I came back with a renewed religious rigor.It was after I graduated from college that I came across this book called, Conversations WIth God by Neale Donald Walsch. When I got the book at the library the librarian told me it was a cute novel and that it was a lot of fun to see a fictitious story about a man talking to god. So I went into reading it thinking it was make-believe.However, very quickly I realized that this man was telling a true story about conversations he had with god. The reason I thought it was true was not because he said it was true, but rather because of the profound content of the conversation. It was fascinating to me. The god that talks in that book is a god I can get behind.When I was about to enter graduate school I had an experience that many would consider controversial. I started to have panic attacks due to some traumatic experiences and one morning I woke up and heard this voice in my head. The voice said, "Wake up." So I did. "Look outside," it said. I did. "You are in Heaven," the voice continued. "Everything looks the same," I said in my head. "Exactly," the voice answered. "You are god." That made me go crazy. I didn't understand that statement at the time. I didn't understand that god was trying to tell me that we are all god.This changed everything. I became a different person as if I had a near-death experience or something. I felt like a different person as if maybe my life had a deeper meaning.How do I know it was god and not my imagination? I actually asked god that very question. The response I got in my head was, "What is the difference?" So I'm going to leave it at that. I believe I did have a conversation with god. You may think it was a delusion since I also have Bipolar Disorder. But it doesn't matter to me what anyone else thinks, it matters what I think. I think god speaks to all of us all the time, in different ways.In the midst from after college to now, I've read many books on different theories of spirituality. I keep coming back to Neale Donald Walsch's books and now I have read almost all of them. The reason I like his books is because the god in his books is free and wants us to be free. He doesn't judge or condemn, he loves. He is love. And he is not necessarily a he either.Now I don't consider myself religious, but I identify as Sikh as more of a cultural identity. Although when I meditate I slowly repeat the name Waheguru over and over again. I have found that this is the best way to get my mind to focus. So maybe I am more Sikh than I realize because the main message in the Sikh Scriptures is to repeat and remember god's name. Very recently I have realized that the only things that keep my depression at bay is meditating and writing. I have started to feel a joy when I meditate and a love for everything. I think that is truly what spirituality is.In Buddhism there is a quote: "Religion is like a boat, it takes you to your destination. But once you get there you don't need to carry the boat on your head." It doesn't matter what books you read or what religion you believe in, it's all taking you to the same place, a place of peace and love.I don't know if this is interesting or not, but this is a glimpse of my spiritual journey. Thank you for listening.nina