When I was a child I often felt like I was suffocating in church. I knew that truth could not be as small as what I had been taught. When I got to college I went to a nearby bookstore called, “Grok.” I asked the clerk to introduce me to new ways of approaching reality that weren’t covered in my Sunday School. One of the books he recommended was the Bhagavad Gita of Hinduism. As I read the following verse, I remembered the “I am” sayings of Jesus. I began to explore the possibility that Jesus wasn’t calling us to Christianity (which didn’t even exist at the time) or if, perhaps, like Krishna, he was speaking poetically as life itself and was calling us to our own cosmic roots:
“That one who sees me in everything
and everything within me
will not be lost to me, nor
will I ever be lost to that one.
That one who is rooted in oneness
realizes that I am
in every being; wherever
that one goes, he or she remains in me.
When one sees all being as equal
in suffering or in joy
because they are like him or herself,
that one has grown perfect in yoga.”
– Krishna, speaking in the Bhagavad Gita
I remember going to that bookstore, years ago.