I love your response to me, Bloom. Maybe it is an advantage to come from a family that was empty spiritually. It leaves room for whatever we might find. I always felt that I have had too many choices in this life and not enough direction. That if at least I had religion or something, Id have something to hold on to. But....that is not necessarily so. I knew I needed something. What that something was I had no idea. I think God appealed to me because at least I had a "witness" to my life and the hard time I having as a child.

When I think about being created in God's image I have been completely confused by that one. I would imagine a God as good and I did not feel good. It was only when I began to read about the openness to one's own experiences in Buddhist books did I really "get" what that might mean. That the essence of the infinite is actually within myself and within my consciousness. But it is not my consciousness as I know it. Whatever is the result of my human mind is only a human mind thinking and this is not the infinite. But when I meditate I sort of understand more through the simplicity of watching my breath. When I think of all of the religions I have been a part of, it makes me believe it was just my longing for a family and a home. I think home and the love of mommy and daddy that I am craving isnt really the ideas of a religion outside of me. Any religion doesnt work for me for very long- maybe a few years, but then I am disappointed. Home is really inside of me and it is my connectedness to all things....and that can be God. I guess. I am disappointed with religion. In the end, it doesnt give me the feeling of home. In some ways it can trigger me. Do this or you are wrong. And each religion has their own ideas of what wrong is. What I can relate to and what is comforting to me is that my breath and my the peace of living as a being connected to heaven above and the earth below has always been with me. I was searching for what i already had. Well, even the peace of feeling that doesnt stay with me. It comes and goes.