“We who are searchers can be assured we are home already. Being fully present with a deep sense of love for all things is the key message. We are not separate.” Mary Alice Fox
“God is a verb.” Buckminster Fuller
Reaching, achieving, seeking. Transcending, transforming, transporting. Growing, reaching, joining. Acquiring, aspiring, accumulating, Driving, marching, forcing. Preparing for the end.
It seems like I have spent my whole life doing all those things – as fast as I could. I’m wondering if those were the action words Fuller had in mind when he said, “God is a verb.” I don’t think so. If the philosophers are right, maybe the following words might describe better what Fuller was suggesting:
Notice, open, welcome. Care, greet, share. Rejoice, radiate, support. Love, help, give. Sing, dance, celebrate. Make, share, create. Balance, unify, connect.
Those verbs resonate more with me. But what about God as a noun. Most people think of God as: Father, Creator, Lord, Master, Judge, Sovereign, Ruler, Protector, Savior, Redeemer, The All-knowing, or The All-powerful. What would it mean, however, if god were nameless and formless? What if we changed the noun AND the verb in our life’s narrative. Where would that leave us? Where might it take us?
Maybe we just need to go back to the beginning. I have been struggling with these questions for several years. In 2016, I wrote a post on Endings and Beginnings. In 2018, I wrote a post on Gritty Beginnings and Graceful Endings. Now, I’m exploring what’s different about beginnings and endings and which is more important.
Last week, two friends of mine announced the births of a grandchild on the same day. They sent pictures, of course. The babies’ faces radiated pure innocence. It struck me that they already had what I had been searching for. Not that I wanted to be innocent, but that I might experience a deep, calm, peaceful energy—an equanimity—more of the time. In essence, an experience of Oneness and Harmony.
What if I had “been there” all along, i.e. that calm, peaceful energy I was born with had been inside me since birth or before – there was no need to constantly strive for more. What if I simply had to realize I AM, at One, Here Now? And yet it seems like we are always striving for an ill-defined endpoint: more money, more power, more fame, more privilege.
I’ve been studying Taoism for the past 25 years, and more recently, I started exploring Vedic teaching. Taoism is all about “returning to Tao (return to baby as my QiGong master would say), harmonizing with the Universe, and being in the flow of life. The Vedas suggest that there is no need to return—we are already there. All we have to do is recognize that we are, always have been, and always will be at One with the Universe—there is no separation. So now I don’t know if I should be returning or simply recognizing. Oy, the head games I play that get in my way, or should I say the Way.
We have all heard the trite cliché, “every ending is a new beginning.” While the sentiment holds an undeniable truth about life’s cycles, it has been so overused in greeting cards, inspirational posters, and breakup conversations that it often feels dismissive and hollow today. The phrase has lost its punch because it suggests that everything has a silver lining, thus invalidating real grief or anger that comes with an ending. It also dismisses the fact that some endings are definitive losses rather than neat setups for a new chapter. I don’t believe that events are “meant to be” or “happen for a reason.”
There is scientific weight, however, behind “every ending is a new beginning.” The concept of emergence in physics describes how the termination of an old system’s rules spontaneously generates fundamentally new, unpredictable properties that could not exist in the previous state. When a system of particles undergoes an ending—such as water freezing into ice or reaching a critical temperature—it experiences a “phase transition.” The old properties vanish, and completely new, emergent macroscopic laws and behaviors spontaneously arise.
At the cutting edge of quantum gravity, some physicists argue that space and time themselves may not be fundamental, but “emergent” phenomena arising from deeper, underlying quantum interactions that continuously shift.
Psychological research also shows that when an individual achieves closure—a well-rounded ending to a life phase (like graduating or leaving a job)—their brain more easily breaks old neural patterns. This fosters positive affect, less regret, and clearer cognitive readiness for future growth. Neuroplasticity suggests that when habits, relationships, or careers end, the brain forces itself to prune old connections and rewire. This disruption shatters established cognitive ruts, allowing for the emergence of new perspectives, resilience, and identity shifts
Ultimately, looking at the universe through the lens of emergence changes everything. It tells us that looking smaller and smaller isn’t the only way to find truth. Sometimes, the deepest truths only reveal themselves when the pieces come together, e.g. H2O molecules combine to form raindrops. I wonder what it would mean for world peace if we saw ourselves less as individual raindrops and more as an integral part of the ocean?
Emerging perspectives in consciousness studies suggest that the human nervous system may function as a sophisticated “tuner” for broader ecological and universal fields.
Just as a guitar has the implicit potential for harmony before a string is ever plucked, the human mind appears wired for states of presence that transcend linear time and localized identity.
The brain’s ability to rewire itself through practices like meditation suggests that “field recognition” is a trainable skill. By quieting the default mode network—the neural seat of the ego—the individual can begin to sense the interconnected “field” that George Saunders and other contemporary thinkers describe as a state of vigilant, non-judgmental observation.
Field recognition is the shift from perceiving the world as a collection of separate objects to experiencing it as a singular, dynamic process. This recognition requires a “calm clarity” where the observer and the observed begin to merge. When an individual recognizes the field, they often report a sense of profound “belonging” or “flow.” This is not a mere emotion but a cognitive shift into a state where internal intuition and external events seem to operate in a shared, coherent rhythm.
In the standard Western map of spiritual progress, we often find ourselves trapped in a “laborious” dialectic. We speak of “transcending the ego,” “killing the self,” or “taming the mind.” This is the language of war—a volitional architecture where a “higher” part of the self must subjugate a “lower” part. However, a deeper analysis of enlightenment suggests that this volitional struggle may be a category error. If the realization of the “eternal ground of being” is the goal, then the language of effort is not only insufficient; it is obstructive.
The popular notion that the ego must be destroyed or transcended often leads to a psychological stalemate. In practice, the ego is not something to be discarded but a functional process of navigation. When we treat it as an enemy, we reinforce the very “seeker” identity that keeps us separate from the ground of being.
The shift into enlightenment is perhaps less about the transcendence of the ego and more about its contextualization. When the eternal ground—that non-dual, spacious awareness—is recognized as one’s primary nature, the ego does not disappear. It becomes a transparent tool that reflects the wisdom of the Absolute, rather than a clouded lens trying to construct reality from scratch.
I’ve been pondering what would happen if we were to reverse the flow. Instead of viewing life as a linear process from beginning to end, we viewed it as a dynamic flow from ending to beginning. For example, if we allow the senses to lead, we are perpetually reactive. The intellect becomes a “lawyer” for our desires, and our identity becomes fragmented and dependent on external circumstances. This way of thinking leads to cognitive dissonance and stress.
By shifting from a linear view of time to a cyclical perspective, “endings” dissolve into mere transitions. If time is a dimension rather than a strict sequence, every moment—including the “end” of an event or life—permanently exists, rendering the idea of a final conclusion irrelevant. Indeed, beginnings and endings may be the same.
The First Law of Thermodynamics dictates that energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed. An ending (like a dying star or a burning log) is actually a redistribution of energy and matter into new forms, rendering the concept of total annihilation obsolete and the idea of total assimilation possible.
By zooming out from a localized, single-moment perspective to a broader, interconnected, interdependent scale, the perceived boundary of an ending simply becomes the horizon of a new beginning.
What if ending is a meaningless and irrelevant idea? Hmmm.
I decided to begin and end this post with a quote from Mary Alice Fox, a dear friend of mine who is extraordinarily intuitive and empathic. The quote was her testimonial for the back cover of my book, Being at Home in the Universe. I think she perfectly captured the theme in this post: “We who are searchers can be assured we are home already. Being fully present with a deep sense of love for all things is the key message. We are not separate.” Thank you, Mary Alice.
I’m hoping that someday I will figure out if I’m beginning or ending – if I’m returning or simply realizing, or if it doesn’t matter. I’m also hoping that when we think we are taking action on god’s plan, we take a hard look at what those action words are AND the nouns we are using to activate those verbs. I’m hoping that we will see ourselves less like raindrops and more like the ocean. Finally, I’m hoping that, instead of thinking we are instruments of God, we realize that we are at One with a nameless Source—no separation.
