I can still remember that first time when I bowed to the Buddha. Such a simple act… and yet perhaps one of the most defiant and difficult things I have ever done in my life.

I have not lived the life of a saint, and in fact, I have been a rebel from as far back as I can remember. Fired from every job I have ever held, court-martialed in the military, kicked off the mission field not once but twice, and branded a heretic by those who once called me brother.

Rebellion, yes… but those acts of defiance were done against men, and I could justify them. To bow to the Buddha, however, was, for me, an act of defiance against the God I had known and worshiped all my life. But I was desperate —desperate to know a Truth that needed no apologies and did not require faith.

My body resisted as I began to go forward, as if preparing itself for a bolt of lightning to come through the ceiling and strike me dead… but nothing happened. I bowed a second and then a third time, and as I came back to a sitting position, a peacefulness overcame me that I had never known before. The chains of religion that had held me in bondage for so long fell away, and its threats of hell and damnation no longer intimidated me. I was free, and I felt alive… alive and one with all that was around me.

I no longer believe in a creator god; however, that does not mean that I do not believe in anything at all… for I still believe that the Eternal Life which unites us all, and which through us creates the reality we are now experiencing, is the GOD I once worshiped.

The new commandment Jesus gave us was not to worship a god but instead to Love one another… for in doing so we become his disciples and can say, as he did, if you have seen me, you have seen the Father.