The Black Hole of Despair

I have to be honest with you - there is a reason I am so fascinated by the idea of the soul. It started when I was very young. When I was 14, I fell into a very deep depression. I could tell it was different because it did not feel like sadness. Instead, it felt like nothing. All of it could be wrapped up in one question: “What is the point?” 

Although it was a scary time for me (and for those who didn’t know how to help me), it started me on the most important journey of my life. I started walking down the path to find meaning in life. To find the purpose of being alive. 

I started in the traditional place - the religion of my upbringing. I asked everywhere I could: “What is the purpose of life?” I asked in Catholic mass, searched in books about Kabbalah, demanded in psychologists’ offices, and wondered in seminars about metaphysics. All to no avail. To my surprise and desperation, no one really had an answer for me. Other than to say, “it's different for everyone.” 

Go Within

I searched many different religious and spiritual texts for the answer. Over and over again, I read the phrase “go within.” Although it was frustrating, eventually I stopped asking anyone or anything outside of myself. I understood that this question was one only I could answer for myself. 

It took many years, prayers, and meditations to start to piece together something that made sense. So in case you are expecting a one & done answer, let me save you some time: there is no one answer to this question. But if you’re up to go on a journey of discovery to find answers, please make yourself comfortable and read on. 

What is God anyway?

Answers came to me in the form of realizations. Realizations are different from learning something new. Instead, they tend to be concepts that you hear for the first time, yet it feels like something you are remembering. It feels like something you already knew somehow. I like to think that it is my higher self that is remembering the concept, nodding in agreement when I learn a universal truth about existence, about myself. 

I started with considering what is the spirit? What is the soul? I believed that God is all knowing, benevolent (or good), and omnipresent (everywhere). If this was true though, I concluded that God must be in the air I breathe, in the chair I’m sitting in, and even within me!! 

But the challenge was that my concept of God was as a man sitting in a cloud somewhere. After all, in the texts I studied, they refer to a “He.” “He” blesses and “He” has mercy. This was problematic for me because so many of His creations are NOT men! Take me for example, I am a woman. Beyond that, what about the creatures that live on this earth and in our oceans? What about our thoughts and our emotions? Let's think bigger - what about the stars and planets? What about atoms and cells? The more I contemplated, the more this idea of God as a man did not add up for me. And neither did God as a woman. (Please note that I do not mean to offend anyone by portraying my concept of God in the below images. I respect everyone's right to believe as they do; please respect my right to express myself.)

The Universal Soul

Believe it or not, I got a big piece of the puzzle in my high school English class. It was freshman year and I remember writhing in pain and confusion, sitting in class because I had never felt so lost or pointless. In this particular class, my English teacher taught us a concept called the “Universal Soul.” I was amazed and taken aback with this concept. Could this be an answer to “what is God?” And “where is God?” and “what is the point?” It felt like a relief for my poor confused 14-year old self. 

The Universal Soul was a better way to conceptualize in my opinion. It could answer how God could be everywhere and how we as people, things, and objects could connect to it individually. One Universal Soul exists and we (people, things, animals, etc) are all offshoots of the same essence. It felt like I was recognizing a truth that I already knew. God as energy everywhere present makes more sense than trying to conceptualize the God concept as a person. 

It may seem small, but it meant so much to me! God was not a big human man on a cloud. God was wholeness. God was energy that could be everywhere all at once. That's how God could be omniscient too. It's not that a big human was thinking through the past and future, it was that God-Energy WAS the past, present, and the future. 

My First Steps

This idea of Universal Soul was my first cookie crumb. It started me down the path of a spiritual seeker. It was the first string I pulled on. I searched for any reference to this idea of God as energy wherever I could. I was so grateful to have found one spiritual concept that described this relationship between the individual self and the eternal. I learned about a Sankrit term found in Hinduism: the atman. This describes the individual’s true self and is believed to be eternal and unchanging. The atman is considered a spark of the universal, divine essence. I have always been so appreciative to find this description of how humans are connected to God. With the Universal Soul concept and the Hindu concept of atman, God is not an entity that exists separate to us. God is a part of the fabric that we share.  

My next stop led me to a book about mysticism called, The History of God: The 4,000-year Quest of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In this book, Armstrong described how wise spiritual leaders of all three world religions considered themselves mystics. To mystics, God is unknowable through logical reasoning. We would never be able to prove God’s existence in the traditional sense or measure God’s presence. Instead, God could only be experienced. Instead of relying on reading texts, doctrine, and ritual, mystics sought an inner experience and sense of unity with the divine. This really spoke to me. It felt like a homework assignment: How could I experience God? 

After my first few steps, I had a roadmap to find meaning and purpose in life. From staring at the black hole of despair, I looked up and began looking within. And I began seeking my own experience with God. I had two guiding lights to help me seek purpose in my life. Through the rest of my life, these two guiding lights helped me find my way. Over time, I built a rich and fulfilling relationship with myself and by extension, the Universe. 

So to my 14 year self and to anyone who has ever gotten to know the blackhole of despair… it is possible to find meaning. Please don’t give up and fall into the black hole. There is so much to discover if you start asking a question or two. Don’t give up on hope. And if you’re looking for ideas on where to start, consider two first steps: 

1. Go within

2. Seek out a personal experience with God | Universe | All that Is

Thank you for reading my story.