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Experiences of God can occur over a very broad range of situations and circumstances. Many people feel God's Presence with them when they ask for God's help or support. Many also tune into a greater Consciousness, a Source and Intelligence when they are awed by nature's beauty and diversity. Many are profoundly struck at a birth or a death of a loved one that there is clearly more than what we see here. But could you actually have a deep and personal relationship with God in which you feel, hear and come to know God?
Mystics of all religions have always sought to discover the way into actually experiencing God, directly and personally. Though they embrace different religious teachings and practices, some mystics from every tradition have found their way into the presence and direct experience of God. They left behind poems and treatises, songs and prayers attesting to the knowledge of God that they had acquired through their mystical encounters with their Creator. Though they may call the Creator different names, all found the same Creator when they traveled to the center of their beings. And all came out with very similar experiences and testimonials to what such an encounter does to the soul who embraces it.
Finding one's way to God always starts by addressing the level of your will and your desire to undertake this journey. It will be quite different from simply feeling awe for God while watching a beautiful sunset. This journey will require that you become willing to make it the most important element in your life. If you decide to undertake the voyage to the God-Self inside of you, you will need to set aside a significant amount of time each week and some time each day to develop the skills to enter into the spiritual world. You will need to learn to still your body, mind and emotions in order to hear the "still, small voice" from within. You will need to humble your pride and take down your greed while developing true generosity of spirit, facing how selfish you have been and deciding to learn to love with all your heart. You will need to develop a longing and yearning for a spiritual teacher to guide you, and then agree to let yourself be taught. You will need to be willing to discover that before God you are nothing, and yet you are so totally loved that you will melt while experiencing it.
If you are willing to do what it takes, it is available. We, at the Centers of Light, await with patient understanding and open arms those who want to see if this might be their way, as well as those who wish to throw themselves into the lake of consciousness,. Do not hesitate if you are feeling the call. Opportunities do not always reappear. Follow your heart, if it is nudging you to begin your Path to God. We will be there when you arrive.
Mother Clare Watts is a mystic, ordained priest, Master Teacher, and Co-Director of an independent, mystical Christian Order and spiritual school that has spiritual centers, called Centers of Light, in 15 cities nationwide. She holds a Master's Degree in Counseling Psychology, with extensive post-graduate training in Jungian analysis, is a Certified Professional Midwife, and has enjoyed successful careers in both fields. She is the mother of four grown children and currently lives in Dolores, Colorado, where she directs The Peace Temple Initiative - an organization working to build a retreat center for peace workers from around the world. She is a nationally known speaker and lectures in a different city nearly every weekend of the year. She has also been a featured guest on several radio broadcast programs, including Wisconsin Public Radio's At Issue with Ben Merens, Contact Radio in Seattle, and Seeing Beyond in San Francisco. Jim Lewis, author of The Oxford Handbook of New Religions, as well as 11 other works, and leading scholar internationally on new religious movements, is currently writing a scholarly book about the Order that Mother Clare co-directs, expected to be published in the spring of 2009.
Mother Clare has found recent acclaim as the author of the book, Giving Birth to God: A Woman's Path to Enlightenment. This moving account of her life tells of her journey through yoga ashrams and Sufi training schools to find a mystical Christian spiritual school with Master Teachers. Wonderfully moving stories give an in-depth rendering of the inner spiritual path. As she writes in the book, "Each of us was created with the full potential to become masters over everything on Earth, not so that we might dominate the Earth, but so that we might bless it with consciousness."
"[This book] begins with an ecstasy and never lets up. If I had to describe it simply and briefly - though it is not, although simple to read, a simple book at all - I might call Giving Birth To God the description of a kind of alchemical wedding, since it is in that esoteric tradition, if I remember Jung correctly, that opposites are reconciled, soul and body integrated, and the worldly and the mystical cease their quarrel and embrace. There's nothing airbrushed about Giving Birth to God. Mother Clare has not written a religious infomercial. Acclaim it or reject it, Giving Birth To God is a book of vision, and in these 150 pages, the author gazes on this vision not with dewy eyes but the wide, rapt, unblinking eyes of a Byzantine saint."
- Richard Kaplan, Harvard Coop Book Reviewer
"Raised by Christian missionaries, Clare Watts spent much of her life running from her roots. Like many Christians born during the past four decades, Watts decided her parents' religion was unhip, and that it would never lead her to God. So Watts spent years-most of them as a midwife and a mother-on a fiercely independent journey to find her inner light. She spent time at a yoga ashram and a Sufi school, before finally discovering enlightenment on a path she had actively resisted. When she committed to working with a teacher, Watts accepted her spiritual destiny: she joined a religious order of Christian Mystics, melding her Western religious background with her Eastern leanings. Watts' detailed but reserved storytelling offers an accessible explanation of Christian Mystics, who concern themselves less with dogma than with encountering God at the center of their being. She writes of her intense connections with Jesus and his mother Mary ("the first woman to take on spiritual mastery") and of her dedication to developing her spiritual sight. She offers readers a few concrete steps, but Giving Birth to God, at its best, is a well-told reminder for struggling seekers that each person's path is ultimately a journey within."
- DragonFly Media Magazine's Mandy Burrell
"Gripping, moving, and inspiring!"
- I-Universe, Book Publisher
Each of us was created with the full potential to become masters over everything on Earth, not so that we might dominate the Earth, but so that we might bless it with consciousness. Jesus stated over and over that we were to do things as great as He did, and greater still. We were made with the capacity to truly become sons and daughters of God, in touch with our perfect divinity within. I offer this story of my path to God for all those who are seeking, longing for, or simply wondering about the inner spiritual path. I give it as a beacon in the night, to point a direction and to give hope to the travelers along the path."
"We are placed in bodies and on earth in order to have the opportunity, through knowing God, to become like God. We are, therefore, souls that have bodies, rather than, as we commonly think, bodies that have souls…. The word "soul" is now used so broadly that it is in danger of losing all meaning. Despite this confusion, the soul is real and can be perceived. Over the years of my training, I have come to have a direct experience of my soul and the souls of others. I know what and where the soul is and what it looks like, because I can see it. I am not unique in this ability. People who have developed enough spiritual sight, and have had a Master Teacher bring them into Self-Realization, will be able to see their own souls and their God-Selves."
"Unless a person has not only entered in to the God-Self within their being but has also been taught and empowered to bring other people into that initiation, they will not be able to take a student as far as he or she might otherwise be able to go. Many teachers can open a student's eyes to great truths and inspirations, but few Teachers have all the keys to the inner realms and are accessible to teach students who seek them out. One can choose to work with all kinds of teachers, but if one is serious about having the option to go through all the initiations into the realm of Self, then one will need a real Master Teacher. Pray to find a school and a teacher. Make yourself ready to be a student, and your prayers will be answered."
"When you live in God, it means you have given over your will and desires into the service of God. You have developed a complete trust in God through numerous experiences. You have come to know the love of God as the source of everything you need. You now know that God's love is immeasurably abundant, so you never fear any lack. You have come to feel how much God loves all human beings on earth, and as God is living in and through you, you feel that same love for them. As God seeks to give us everything to bring us into peace and joy with Him/Her, so you, once you have entered into life in God, seek to do the same for your fellow humans."
"You cannot imagine how much you are loved. If you only got it, you would never worry again. You would never be afraid again. If you just knew. If you just opened to receive it. You don't need to be anything, anything. I was not ordained because I am something. I was ordained because I am nothing. You are already nothing, if you could just get comfortable with that. You are already there. Stop fighting it. Know that in your nothingness you are loved beyond all measure. The angels filled this place and kneeled by me, with me, at my ordination because of the glory of the plan in which God takes us, who are nothing, and raises us up into heaven."
Q: You keep mentioning mysticism. Can you state in a simple way what constitutes mysticism, and who are some mystics whose names we might recognize?
A: Mysticism is the inner path of each world religion. In Islam it is Sufism, in Buddhism it is Zen, in Judaism it is Kabbalah, and in Christianity, we simply called it Christian Mysticism. Mystics are not very interested in theological questions and in dogma. They are instead interested in having a direct experience of God and coming into an ecstatic love relationship with the God-Self at their center. Famous mystics are Rumi, St. John of the Cross, Teresa of Avila, and of course all the founders of those major world religions: Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, Zoroaster, Gautama Buddha, and many of their followers. All practiced the inner path and initiated others into following it.
- Aquarius - A Sign of the Times Magazine
"I met Mother Clare Watts eight years ago, while studying medicine in New York City. Although I had plunged head first into the academic rigors required of a medical student, I had never stopped asking myself a few key questions. Who am I really? What am I doing here? Who or what is God? And what is God like? I had persistently searched for the answers to these questions, read countless books, and discussed such topics with many people. Yet, I remained unsatisfied. I had heard of the great spiritual teachers and gurus of the East. I knew it was possible to come into deep and profound union with God. I knew such love could be experienced, and my greatest desire was to find a Teacher who could help me to get answers for myself.
"In my third year of medical school, I met Mother Clare Watts, and my entire life changed. The presence of God was palpable in her atmosphere, and her love and wisdom was obvious. She provided clear and practical answers to my questions and accepted me into spiritual training. I applied myself to this process with the vigor I had put into my medical education, and my spiritual life began to flourish. I learned how to quiet my mind and drop my consciousness deep inside, beyond thought and emotion, and into the great stillness within. I began to heal and to grow at a pace that I knew was far beyond what my own efforts could have merited.
"Through much healing and shedding of layers, I began to learn who I was and who I wasn't, and to know myself as a Soul. I grew stronger and more balanced and began to know peace. My connection to God became clear and reliable, my meditations began to consistently amaze me, and I began to fill with the love that I had always yearned for. My spiritual training also greatly assisted my work as a medical student, and I excelled in the field.
"Two years after beginning my work with Mother Clare, I began training for the ministry. I had longed for such a chance to love others and shepherd their relationship with God. In April of 2003, after extensive training and transformation, I was ordained a priest and moved to Connecticut, where I now offer spiritual training at The Center of Light, New Haven. I continue to work as a physician, as well. Mother Clare has worked with countless students who could testify to the great love that they receive from her and to her success in helping them to come into loving union with God inside. She is truly a living Master Teacher, and I am grateful beyond words for what she has so freely given to me."
- Reverend David Michael Corvini, MD, Director of the New York Center
of Light, licensed and practicing Internist and Emergency Medical Physician
For more information about The Centers of Light, visit www.CentersOfLight.org.
For more information about Giving Birth to God, visit www.MotherClareWatts.com.
To hear Mother Clare's podcasts, visit www.AskMotherClare.com.
To contact Mother Clare, e-mail DeaconChrista@CentersOfLight.org