My complex path to find a simple God
1982, upon return from India
As a child everyone lectured me on the proper way to communicate with God. What seemed odd to me was that everyone had a different interpretation of who God really was, and how to reach Him. It would have been really confusing if God was gender nonspecific. Luckily everyone did agree that God was male. I understood He was a loving God, but did not understand why He allowed wars, hate, intolerance and injustice to flourish within His creation. The math did not add up. Thus began my complex quest to find a simple God.
My sweet grandmother ruled with an iron fist…
Meet Fredericka and Svend Beck, immigrants from Denmark who settled on a farm in Iowa. My grandpa, named Bestafa, worked with his hands all his life. He built churches, hospitals and schools with loving care. My grandmother, named Bestama, took the roll of the family patron saint. Her Lutheran rules were very specific.
When my father (Leon Uris) dropped the Jew bomb, telling my mom before he proposed that he was Jewish. Mom (Betty) said in a letter to Bestama, “Leon said he was Jewish, that’s worse than being Catholic.” Mom agreed to marry Dad on his third proposal. A deal was drafted by Bestama. All children would be raised as Lutheran—no Jews allowed—not on her watch.
When I could barely say “Ma Ma”, Bestama had me on my knees, praying to God every night. “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep; if I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. God bless Mom, Dad…”
My Jewish grandpa had a better way to God…
Grandpa Uris was a charming fellow whose purpose in life was to drive my Dad crazy. He migrated from Belarus (Russia/Poland) to Israel after World War 1, then to Baltimore in the States, where my Dad was born. Grandpa loved to read volumes of historical and religious literature. His intense intellectual persona rubbed off on my father.
During World War 2, Grandpa insisted Leon, serving in the Marines in the Pacific Campaign, write him a letter most every day. Dad may not have agreed, but his father, genetically speaking, was the source of his intellectual capacity to put pen to paper. Dad is his father’s son, as I am my father’s son—the family curse lives on.
Grandpa was more intellectual than religious, but he instilled genuine Jewish pride in my father, respect for the Jewish religion and our wandering Jewish ancestors. When Grandpa came to visit, we shared a special secret, that the Jewish religion was the best way to reach God. Thus, Grandpa taught me, in secret, all the advantages of the Jewish religion. He had me recite every day, “I believe with perfect faith in the coming of the messiah; and even though he may tarry, nonetheless, I wait every day for his coming.” Take that Bestama, Grandpa Uris rocks!
By third grade I found a better way to live…
Seeing that my grandparent’s religions cancelled out one another, to avoid conflict my parents took the religious path of least resistance. Dad wished that my brother and I would want to have a formal Bar Mitzvah, but he never insisted. Mom only took us to church on Easter Sunday, which was an unruly affair as my brother and I could not sit still. We faked it as a family when our opposing grandparents came to town, siding with whomever was at the dinner table.
Left to fend for God on my own, science fiction opened doors to my imagination. Understanding God was as intangible as a Jules Verne or H. G. Wells novel, science fiction, supported by my wild imagination, satisfied my eagerness to find God. At least I no longer looked for God in Mad Magazine, which most of my grade school friends did.
From there I ventured into the unknown realms of the human mind with hypnosis. I learned hypnosis techniques from my brother who learned them from a rogue high school professor, Professor Alamo. I had a lot of fun with this, hypnotizing friends into doing really strange and bazar acts, of which I am too embarrassed to mention. In the long run, hypnosis became a means to no end, and God remained as elusive as ever.
As long as my mind was twisted about God…
Science fiction and hypnosis ran their courses. By age fourteen, I was off and running with Eastern philosophy, meditation and a number of yoga practices. Hatha, Kundalini and Tantric yoga’s were my mainstay. By age fifteen, I received my first mantra with the relaxing and blissful Transcendental Meditation. My parents thought I was crazy, but then, their parents probably thought the same of them. I never stopped reading every book about God and self-realization that I could get my hands on—continuing my search for a better way to find God.
Psychedelic’s opened worlds beyond reality…
I (right, with my brother Mark) am not an advocate of drug use, although it has slipped into my life on several occasions. By age sixteen I entered the world of psychedelic experiences, first hand adventures to realms beyond time and space. Unfortunately, when the drugs wore off, so did the incredible inner experiences and my ability to communicate with a loving God.
I tried to balance drugs with meditation, but failed. No quitter, I never stopped looking for a shortcut to God, or a compromise within the grand scheme of my complex karmas. And then I found Metaphysics and under the direction of Jacques Honduras I was able to perform remarkable feats that defied science and all logic. We could read minds, send thoughts and manifest real physical matter out of mental energy. But still, God was nowhere to be found.
A quote from my memoir, The Uris Trinity, “Without a balance in my life, it would have ended long ago. The yoga and other non-toxic forms for self-realization became more important to me than all my years of formal education. There philosophical principles formed a solid foundation for me to stand on. Just as the hero is only as powerful as this adversary requires him to be, my darker nature grew in strength and determination in proportion to that of my nobler side. And at age seventeen the war for supremacy was well under way.”
At age 17, I discovered the path to finding God…
1981, 450k crowd. I am 4 rows back, 2ndperson in, wearing a white shirt and cap
And excerpt from The Uris Trinity when I was at my Dad’s house in Aspen. “I had the run of Lee’s house and one fine day I found myself looking for a book to read in his extensive library. While standing on a ladder and reaching to the top shelf, my hand came into contact with what would become my saving grace. By pure coincidence I found my Holy Grail, a significant work of literature that contained the spiritual teachings I had been searching for my entire life. The Path of the Mastersby Dr. Julian Johnson laid out a practical scientific procedure on how to reach the ultimate reality, to reach inner realms so subtle that only pure consciousness could grasp these esoteric concepts.
The book changed my perspective on life, and offered me a simple method to find God and confirm the existence of an individual soul. At age seventeen, I finally found a barometer to gauge the upcoming storms within my own mind.”
Reading about Sant Mat (Teachings of the Saints) for four years, at age 21, I finally received formal instructions on how to find God—how my soul can travel on the inner highway of light and sound to reach realms of reality beyond time and space and the mind.
I do not drop acid, recite prayers, or stand on my head anymore, and I do not have to leave the comfort of my cozy meditation chair. Been on this incredible path for 44 years—and all that I am allowed, or humbly wish to divulge, about my lifelong quest to find God is, “I am very happy, indeed.”
Photos: Dharm Singh, Shanti Seth
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