I have just arrived at a mountain top retreat house in the lower Himalayan foothills of India. Between air travel and car travel into the hills, it’s been a 48-hour marathon. Well worth the challenges of modern travel which seem insignificant compared to ship and wagon travel of the past but intense, nonetheless. It’s often “hurry up and wait” versus a stampede to the gate. Once in your seat, you sit for hours until it is time to rush to the door, to baggage claim, and out to the taxis or buses only to be seated once again and wait.

You leave the house in the pre-dawn quiet and then once you are dropped off at “Arrivals,” you find yourself sucked into the swirl of thousands of other travelers and subjected to the exacting demands of modern travel’s paperwork, baggage, and high costs. Add to this eventually arriving in a country like India and you cannot help but muse on the surreal experience of travel.

Most of the time I am around people who are familiar and with whom I share a lifestyle that is harmonious and satisfying. By contrast, traveling, you bump into and see people from a wide variety of lifestyles and appearances.

Sure, I know that people are everywhere basically the same, yet at the same time, uniquely different. But not just the people: the very immensity and complexity of the technology, machines, tasks and processes that enable millions of people to travel simultaneously through the earth is mind boggling.

Observing all of this and relating it to my relatively comfortable and calm life, I suddenly felt hopelessly insignificant. Seeking God suddenly feels irrelevant compared with the intensity and complexity of what billions of people are committed to. Am I crazy, or are they? What is the meaning of all of this? Why would anyone travel as I have halfway around the world (from Seattle to the Himalaya) to sit atop a mountain and contemplate God’s presence? Most people hearing of my journey must think this is hopelessly irrelevant.

But now as I type these thoughts, I am perched on an astral, surreal mountain top retreat. I watch the fog rising gently up the mountain side to engulf the forest that surrounds me. The air is cool yet humid. A sea of green, lush forest and gardens surround me with a backdrop of misty mountains through the trees.

Now here in this retreat haven here it is easy to feel that the search for God is a pressing reality. Yet as the world around us is intense and complex, so too I now admit that the world of religion and spirituality also harbors a bewildering assortment of dogmas, rituals and practices. Compared to ultimate transcendence, all such forms of spirituality remain but symbols, like road signs pointing the way to our destination.

But if one dares to toss out all forms but has yet to experience the goal of transcendence, the pathway can be just as confusing as the babble of the world. This babble can trigger a mood of spiritual emptiness. Will the real God please stand up? Which guru is mine? Which prayer, technique, mantra or ritual is best? Is this pursuit of God also a chimera no more real than material desires? As I have yet to experience an unbroken reality of inspiration, upliftment and bliss are these “consolations” as fleeting as pleasure and wealth? Is one as unreal as the other?

Some pathway forward is needed, isn’t it so? That’s not actually my question because the answer to that question seems obvious. Surprisingly where this line of contemplation has led me is to people! Our need for one another is what suddenly seems like a connecting thread to our path.

Regardless of whatever religion or spiritual path one pursues, personal relationships often stand taller than dogma, rituals or practices. For most religiously inclined people this comes through one’s family and upbringing. Whether pious or merely social, the function of relationship is of equal importance in all cases. This people-relationship principle can include a relationship to the guru or savior as well.

Every person I see in the airport, on the streets of Delhi, or in the villages through which I pass as our vehicle climbs into the mountains, relates to someone else. Everyone has a family; a neighborhood; a workplace; a school; a church, in short, some connection with other people about whom their life revolves.

The American myth of the cowboy or the lone existentialist seeking his destiny in a cruel and cold world, is simply that: a myth. Even in seeking transcendental union, we are basically leveraging on one form of personal connection with others to achieve an elevated relationship with the guru, a deity, or a state of higher consciousness. It’s always personal. Even in worldly matters we cannot achieve success without other people, their friendship, guidance and companionship (what to mention the countless pioneers who have gone before us).

Even our self-definitions have meaning only in relationship to others, whether divine or human. Of course, most people substitute their self-definitions for their soul’s changeless reality. Self-definitions change even day to day, hour to hour: parent, child, friend, boss, worker, and so on — all in a day! We constantly affirm our age, gender, race, religion, nationality, successes and failures: each of these, however, has meaning only in relationship to others who share, or do not share, any one such self-definition of ours.

To say there is but one reality underlying all phenomenon makes for good philosophy, but it remains only philosophy until such time as I, even but momentarily, experience it. Otherwise, our conscious hours are preoccupied with the multiplicity of personal thoughts, feelings and actions arising in contrast to that of others or to circumstances around us.

Those with a strong bent toward ideas may need to work on having meaningful personal connections while those with a strong bent towards personal connection may need to uplift those connections with shared high ideals. Those who prefer being creative or productive will lose inspiration unless they, too, have some personal support and a worthwhile goal to sustain them.

Faced with life’s complexities, choosing the present tense of “be here now, chop wood and carry water, has great appeal philosophically. But the mind grasps for structure and purpose; the heart yearns for connection, and the hands reach out to make improvements. The image of the Zen monk raking the sand in the garden of silent stones may be a scene of peace, for sure, but such a life is seriously unrealistic for all but a handful of souls.

In the teachings of Paramhansa Yogananda, and others of like mind, we view the goal of modern life as one characterized by a search for personal meaning and freedom of choice. Ours is an age of self-actualization which, taken to its highest spiritual level, will have for its ideal the search for Self-realization: an experience of the transcendental Self alive and conscious behind the mask of outer forms and subconscious promptings.

This self-actualization impulse can either be selfish or selfless. Right now, and on the macro-level of society, this “new” age of individuality seems inclined towards more the former than the latter. But selfishness is self-defeating as it makes more enemies than friends, and competition taken to its logical end is destructive: like the “dog eat dog” ethos that leaves most dogs having been eaten. Hence the only long-term pathway to satisfaction lies in the other direction: that of selflessness. Thus it is that Individuality finds its meaning only in relationship: to others, to the world, to the Creator.

It may seem intellectually contradictory that Self-realization can only be achieved by relating authentically and harmoniously with other Selves but, well, there it is. Why is this? Because the Self that is sought is the Self of all, that’s why! Our happiness cannot come at the exclusion of others.

This is when it occurs to me that the reason there exists so many spiritual paths and religions is that individuals need personal connections to make the spiritual journey real and satisfying. Each sect or group makes it possible for its members to find the meaningful personal connections that are necessary for our soul’s evolution. It doesn’t matter whether one’s church denomination has millions or a hundred since we only really connect with relative few. And if our connection feeds our soul then our soul can grow. Paramhansa Yogananda put this vitally important principle in these words: “Environment is stronger than will.” He went on to include this time honored endorsement that our spiritual progress depends more on the company week keep than only our personal efforts.

This explains, for me at least, why it is in a religious group there are some whose presence seems inexplicable insofar as they have no interest in the teachings or practices but come to serve and/or socialize. They contribute and they gain accordingly but they are connected through those with whom they relate.

But, in general and for most truth-seeking souls, those personal connections make the trinity of thought, feeling and action spiritually effective because we all need balancing of one or more of these. To achieve the goal of Self-realization, we need to engage in selfless service via harmonious relationships that are guided by high ideals. As has been so often said, the paths to the mountain top are many but the mountain top is ONE and the same for all.

The solitary of path of the existentialist or the Zen monk is rare and when pursued is all too often sought by those are running from the trauma of broken relationships. For such people, reconciliation with trust must come at some point. I have been told that there is an authentic stage of evolution where one seeks personal isolation but there are few souls at this time in human evolution who benefit from seeking this. They must already be highly advanced to enter this stage without losing their psychological, emotional or spiritual bearings being on their own. So many “spiritual but not religious” use this moniker to refuse association with other like-minded souls and thus disguise their infidelity to the actual work of the spiritual path. In Paramhansa Yogananda’s now-famous story, “Autobiography of a Yogi,” he decries the substitution of humanitarian work for love for God. The famous twin commandments cited by Jesus Christ and taken from the Old Testament best and succinctly states the essence of the soul’s journey by putting love for God first and adding the second, loving “thy neighbor as thy Self.”

No single aspect of this path can be emphasized to the exclusion of others. Let us say that you focus on personal relationships or even, as we do at Ananda, creating an intentional community and focusing on the shared bonds of friendship. Unless the overarching goal of individual transcendence is united to selfless service and inserted into the bonds of friendship, personal relationships will eventually flounder on the rocks of ego differences.

Yet, by contrast, focusing exclusively on personal transcendence leads to isolation, pride, and can create an emotional void that, in time, can turn very dark. Even creative humanitarian service performed without the bonds of friendship and centered in high ideals can become just a busy life, bound to rise and fall on the waves of success and failure. All well-intentioned humanitarian, scientific, commercial or artistic goals, absent love for God and God in all, will lead to personal emptiness and a sense of individual failure.

You may ask, “Why are such worthwhile goals ultimately unsatisfactory?” The practical answer is “try it and see for yourself.” The theoretical answer is that we were created to “know, love and serve” the Creator who seeks from us only our love and interest. It is our destiny to re-unite our individual spark of divinity with the Cosmic Fire.

Ultimately, however, knowing is not intellectual it is realization. As Paramhansa Yogananda put it, “You will know when you will know.” To affirm that there is a purpose for the creation requires an act of faith more than an act of reason. Play the part and play it well so that you need not play it again. Playing your role well is perhaps the point and, after all, brings a degree of satisfaction, does it not? When the job is done, the job is finished. Complete the final exam of life with a sense of completeness and satisfaction and the goal will have been achieved so far as was possible. For completeness yields not just satisfaction but an emptying of the little self, leaving the great Self to take the throne of awareness.

Joy to you!

Swami Hrimananda