One good way to find God is to lose yourself! Which is easier said than done, because in order to lose yourself, you must first discover what your "self" is! Once that discovery is made, then you can decide which is more important; yourself... or God?

Assuming that you decide God is far more important than your "self" (which is not a "given" by any means, because you really, really like yourself!) then you can begin the process of dismantling this "self" that you have worked so hard to build up!

Before we discover what this self is, let's see how we construct a "self." It's actually easy; we build one every time we are proud of our accomplishments. Can we not do great things without feeling proud of them? I suppose not. Then maybe we shouldn't do great things? No, that's not right either.

Hmm, maybe it's the idea that greatness is somehow out of the ordinary, and when we are great, we are out of the ordinary and should be revered. Heck, if everyone were great, how would we stand out? (And right there, in the previous statement about how we want to stand out, is how we build our self!)

Greatness, actually, should be in everything we do, and then it wouldn't seem like such an accomplishment, it just would be the way we are. If we could truly find God, wouldn't everything we do be great? Then we wouldn't have to build a self at all, which would be a good thing, because once we build a self, we continually have to prop it up and that is such an annoyance!

It is interesting that the more insecure we are, the greater our need to build a big ego, which is a self. Maybe we will buy a big car to extend our idea of our self, or buy a big house, much bigger than we need, and perhaps we might have to be a bit dishonest or lie a little to accomplish these things - all taking us further from God.

We really can't have it both ways; our "self," and God. One of these has to give. We can pretend, and even convince ourselves that we love God above our self, but maybe that is a little white lie, too! So which one will it be; our "self," or God? Which one will be around after everything else returns to what it was before it was created? What was your "self" before you created it?

God is in all things. How could God not be? And if God is in all things, God must be in our idea of our self as well. So maybe all we have to do is lay down the tools we use to construct our "self," and God will make Her presence known. What are our tools? Merely our greed, our hatred, and our illusions. For example; a self!

Maybe we don't have to be insecure, maybe once we make the turn toward God we can find a little footing and not be so concerned about ourselves. Heck, we might even begin to see the hardships of others, and wouldn't that be a big change for us?

Who knows, we might begin changing a "me" world, into a "we" world? (Part 2 coming soon!)

Author's Bio: 

E. Raymond Rock of Fort Myers, Florida is cofounder and principal teacher at the Southwest Florida Insight Center, http://www.SouthwestFloridaInsightCenter.com His twenty-eight years of meditation experience has taken him across four continents, including two stopovers in Thailand where he practiced in the remote northeast forests as an ordained Theravada Buddhist monk. His book, A Year to Enlightenment (Career Press/New Page Books) is now available at major bookstores and online retailers. Visit http://www.AYearToEnlightenment.com