I'm Oprah Winfrey.
Welcome to Super Soul Conversations, the podcast.
I believe that one of the most valuable gifts you can give yourself is time, taking time to be more fully present.
Your journey to become more inspired and connected to the deeper world around us starts right now.
Thomas More has been a lifelong spiritual seeker and teacher.
He spent 13 years as a Catholic monk, then went on to earn a Ph.D. in religious studies.
I first met him in 1994 when we talked about his book that became a staple on my nightstand, the groundbreaking bestseller Care of the Soul.
Thomas More has now written 16 books.
After decades of intense religious study, he has come to believe that each of us can craft our own religion, one that connects us to our unique spiritual core.
We do that, he says, not by abandoning traditional religion, but by opening ourselves up to all faiths and traditions.
I'm so excited about this book, A Religion of One's Own.
And what's shocking to me about it is that you've spent so much time studying religion and being a part of organized religion and religious practices and that now you write a book called A Religion of One's Own.
What does that really mean?
Before everybody starts criticizing, let's hear what it really means.
So what I mean by religion of one's own could be for someone who is part of a religion to stop being passive and just taking what comes, and be active and take the initiative and make this thing your own and bring other pieces into the picture.
So today, I think one of the biggest things is that you can be a member of a church, let's say, and you can take wisdom and insight and inspiration from any other spiritual tradition.
And that's perfectly, not only okay, but it's something I think today we ought to be doing.
What I want to make clear is and what I got from reading A Religion of One's Own is, whether you are in an organized religion or are what a lot of people, like a third of the country, now refer to themselves as I'm spiritual but not religious that this really what you espouse in this book, is making your religious spiritual practice more personalized and therefore intensified.
So wherever you are on the spectrum, a religion of one's own is about taking it and making it yours.
That's right.
I think religion is something that is quite natural.
It's something that we do as human beings.
We face mysteries.
Illness is a great mystery.
Death is a mystery.
Marriage is a mystery.
All these things.
And I don't think we can deal with all this rationally.
Yes.
And so we need something.
On the other hand, we've made a turn somewhere, I think largely because of changes in our culture.
And the old forms don't work as well anymore.
They work for some people, but even then, you have to reinvigorate them.
You're saying that there is a need to look at where we are in our culture with religion and to think about it differently.
Yes, think about it differently.
Make it more real.
When I say personal, I mean it's something then that you are really engaged with.
You don't just go through the motions.
So just to be clear, you're not anti-religion.
Here's what you write in this beautiful new book.
The disappearance of religious feeling goes hand in hand with the loss of soul, because at its best, religion speaks to the soul and feeds it.
Traditional religion may well need an overall From top to bottom, you say, but personal religion is a requirement.
It is the indispensable foundation of an intelligent, open-hearted approach to life.
And that is what this book is all about.
That's right.
What is the difference as you see it between religion and spirituality?
Big question.
That's a big one.
A lot of people wonder about that.
I like to see religion as something, even the word religion to mean something that it's very personal and very real and alive in you.
So there's a very, very slight difference between spirituality and religion in my view.
I like to use the word religion because it ties us back to the religions of the past.
They have so much to offer us.
I don't want to be free of them.
I read the Tao Te Ching about every month, I think.
Really?
Yeah.
I mean, it's my guide in so many ways.
Zen Buddhism has really affected me profoundly.
I have rabbis who are my counselors.
I've studied Greek religion very intensely.
So all of that is there.
I know everybody's not going to do all that, but we can all take things from these traditions.
The wheel doesn't have to be reinvented.
We've got it.
Thomas More felt called to religion at such a young age.
He was only 13 when he left his family in Detroit, moved to Illinois to live as a Catholic monk, and his family let him do it.
Then, after 13 years in the monastery and just months before becoming an ordained priest, he walked away.
What actually is a monk's life?
Generally what it was during all that time.
Even when I was very young, it was a life of maybe an hour of meditating every day, sometimes an hour and a half as I got further on.
There was chanting, that kind of thing, chanting psalms, which is part of the life of the monk.
We were taught that everything we did was a prayer. that was spiritual.
So if we were out working in the garden, that was part of our being a monk.
And if we were studying, that was a big part.
To study was an important part of being a monk.
Yes.
So you say now that creating a religion of our own really is a necessary step in our spiritual unfolding?
And by that do you mean that we can actually go by creating a religion of our own, go beyond religion, in a way?
Certainly go beyond religion as we've known it.
Yeah, certainly.
I think we're at a turning point.
It's almost like an evolutionary turning point.
We're at a point where the past has been.
Let's find someone to tell us what to believe and what to do.
That was the past.
That's the past.
Now we have to still be spiritual and religious in a sense, but we have to do it ourselves and take it on.
So creating a religion of your own...
I know a lot of people will be critical of this and you even mention it in the book that people call this, this sort of like smorgasbord religion.
Taking a little bit from this, a little bit from that, and a little bit from that.
And where is the order?
Where is the discipline?
Where is the one true God in all of that?
I agree that if you're just going to go around and take a little bit of this, a little bit of that from the various traditions, you don't have much.
Right.
But you can take a lot from each one.
Or you can take what really appeals to you and what is of interest to you and valuable to you.
Okay, you know what?
I think the main criticism of the book is and I mean, that's what this whole show and this platform is about is opening people to new ways of seeing themselves in what we call God.
I think though, when we speak of creating religion of one's own, people think that that also means creating a God of one's own.
Well, I put it this way.
When I was studying theology and religion all those years as a monk, I learned that God is unknowable and infinite.
Unknowable and infinite.
That's what I was always taught.
Unknowable.
And infinite.
And infinite.
Now, what have you got there?
Oh, I love that.
So if you make God, then I say into sort of a human version, a human being, kind of God, or you anthropomorphize him, they say, or make him human, like a human being.
You've diminished the whole, you don't have a God anymore.
You have a superhuman being, but you don't have a God.
You don't have a real sense of the divine.
But what about the passages in the Bible and other religious books that say we are created in his image?
Well, we are.
I think that we have within us, if we go deep enough inside ourselves, we touch on the infinite.
We really do.
That is true.
I think you can't emphasize that enough, because I think most people never go deep enough to understand what that means, that we are in his image, because people are thinking that.
It's the physical thing, and it is not.
No.
Here's a big issue, I think.
The world we live in around us tends to see everything mechanistically or physically all alone.
They don't understand that there is some invisible dimension to our experience, to everything, even to nature.
And so we tend to reduce things too much.
We reduce things to what we can see.
What you can see and touch.
And define things, even our God, by what we can see and touch.
It's a terrible limitation. you say in a religion of one's own you don't even like using the word god no no and the reason is because most of the time when i hear the word god it's it's a very limited it's not this infinite mysterious uh unknowable unknowable factor I MIGHT WANT TO USE IT.
MY DAUGHTER WAS HURT ONCE AND I JUST PRAYED TO GOD WITHOUT ANY THOUGHT.
MY THEOLOGY WENT OUT THE WINDOW.
I JUST WANTED TO PRAY FOR HER AND PRAY TO GOD.
I WILL USE THE NAME GOD WHEN I HAVE THAT URGE TO PRAY CERTAINLY.
BUT WHEN I'M TALKING ABOUT THESE THINGS
What I try to do in my books, I try to evoke that unknowable and the infinite in my writing.
Yes, and you do.
Yeah, I try to evoke it.
And as I say, if I kept using the word God, I don't think I'd be able to do it.
Because everybody comes with their own idea of what that is.
That's right.
Yeah.
For me, it's the God I learned in Sunday school.
Usually, that's where it goes back to.
It goes back to childhood.
It goes back to childhood.
So...
How does one actually begin this what appears to be a daunting task of creating a religion of one's own?
First, I'd say read the book.
It's so interesting and inspiring.
At first, I'd say that.
But how does one begin?
I think the easiest place to begin is nature, actually.
This has been said.
I so agree with you.
You know, it's been said for centuries that if you start with nature, I would suggest, if someone doesn't know even then what to do, I'd say, go outside at night where there are no lights, and just look up into the dark sky and look at what's going on up there.
And notice what you feel.
Notice what's happening to you as you look, and notice where your thoughts go and discover what wonder means that you begin to feel wonder.
That is the beginning of the religious feeling, I think.
And you're right, the sense of wonder that comes.
You cannot look up without a sense of awe and wonder.
And you talk about that a lot in A Religion of One's Own, just going outside, period.
And I've started doing that more since reading.
Just look up at the sky.
Because you know how little we all look up?
We rarely look up.
We're just kind of on our way doing our.
You rarely particularly people who live in cities you rarely do that, you know.
That's right.
And you have to see too that wonder is more important than some doctrine, some teaching that you have to be very precise about.
That's very mental.
A sense of wonder is really the basis of the religious feeling, the religious spirit.
Yes, and isn't it just, and what I try to think about all the time, wow, I'm a part of all of this.
And I don't even understand all of this.
But the fact that I get to be a part of all of this.
Exactly.
Yeah, so that's where it begins.
That's where it begins.
I think that's where it begins.
Okay.
That's pretty simple, isn't it?
That's pretty simple.
Well, there's another side that I think is also pretty interesting.
This is the darker side.
There's a darker side.
So I think we find religion when we're sick, when we find we have a sickness maybe it's really serious or not so serious.
Or when you're in trouble in life.
You know, trouble in a job or trouble with a marriage or with children or something.
That's also a time when we begin to direct our attention because you become conscious.
Illness and trouble in life, it's like the impetus to become awake.
It's an awakening.
So your response to that kind of trouble or to illness, whatever it is, your response to it, can wake up your consciousness.
A very natural religious impulse.
So then you begin to wonder, too.
You begin to wonder, well, why me?
Why is this happening to me?
And where will it go?
Oh, yeah, I'm not going to be around here forever.
Those questions are also the basis of a religious life for yourself.
And isn't all death supposed to get us to look at our lives?
Isn't it just a reminder to reinforce that you need to get on with it, you need to awaken yourself?
Yes, that's a very, very complex, deep thing you're saying there, because what you're saying is that there's something about dying and death that prompts us to live.
It works both ways.
So you find out that your friend has died.
Yes.
And you suddenly, wow, you really begin to think about what it means to be alive.
Correct.
And what are you going to do with your life?
That's exactly right.
And how much time do you have left?
Yes.
All those things, all that stimulus to wonder again.
A deep, maybe even a disturbing wonder can be the basis of a spiritual awakening.
Yes, and I would think that at many a funeral or ceremony, when people are shedding tears, they're shedding tears obviously for the people who are lying there in the casket and many times for themselves.
And it is the ultimate wake-up call.
It becomes the ultimate wake-up call.
I visit hospitals quite often.
I've done some work with medicine.
And the one thing that's constant is that people who are really sick I mean really in bad shape in the hospitals very frequently say to me.
They say that their sickness has healed them.
Like being sick, they're lying there and they're sick and they have all this time to meditate.
It doesn't look like they're meditating, but there's a lot of reflection going on, a lot of meditating going on in hospitals.
And people are realizing what's important to them, like what's important in life.
Those are all the questions also that, you know, you get kind of stirred up.
And that can be the basis of a more intensified religious attitude.
Well, the reason why I appreciate what you've written here is because I think that what you are saying in A Religion of One's Own offers an opportunity and a pathway to wake up before you're lying in a hospital room.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Before you're lying, before you have the illness, before you have the disaster, before you lose your job, lose your child, lose your home.
It's an opportunity to awaken and see another way of being with yourself, with your spiritual practice, whatever you choose for that to be, but to give order and respect to that which is the spiritual side of you.
Right.
According to a recent Pew study, the number of Americans who call themselves Christians is dropping.
One-third of millennials don't identify with any faith, they say.
Are we in the midst of a religious revolution?
Yes, we are definitely in the midst of a revolution.
Look at those figures.
That's incredible.
But see, I look at it and I see I'm hopeful.
That gives me hope because we're alive.
You know, there's something Freud called the death principle deadly to be always doing what we've done before.
Now we have an opportunity.
We're shedding something that was precious.
But we're shedding it because we are growing up.
I think we're getting there.
One of the reasons I think the book is necessary for people, because I think a lot of these millennials don't assign themselves to any faith or sort of searching or looking for a way.
And this helps you bring some kind of order and order of thinking to it, because they are seeking another way or seeking a way.
Seeking a way.
To that which we know, which we see and feel and yearn for and understand is deeper and greater than ourselves.
And we're seeking a way to it that doesn't punish us or make us wrong or bad because of where we come from or because of our gender or race or whatever.
They're looking for a religion that is accepting and loving and is a part of them.
Can you imagine that?
We haven't had that in our history.
We haven't had enough religion.
We've had some good religion, but a lot of bad religion.
Now we have an opportunity to do it differently.
And what you're saying is that this is a good thing that we're at this crossroads in our... I do.
Yeah.
That it's a hopeful time.
It's our chance.
It's our chance to be creative with this thing that has really kind of gotten tired.
Yeah.
It's our chance to I just had a thought there to kick into the next gear, truly evolve.
Not lose God, but make that which is all, which is infinite and unknowable, a more personal part of our being.
You know what this is?
What is it?
We're not losing God.
We are finally gaining God.
We are bringing God back into the equation.
I love what you say on page 82.
I had to read it several times.
First of all, it's so beautifully written.
And those of you who are listening to us around the world, take this in slowly.
You are born with your spirituality.
You don't have to go looking for it.
It is a huge presence that wants to live through you and be embodied in your life.
I just love that.
It's a presence that wants to live through you and be embodied in your life.
Your spiritual self was born in a dream.
And when you dream, you are returning home.
Your natural self is at home in the land where everything is both a physical fact and a poetic metaphor.
I had to read that three times.
When you dream, you are returning to the home, the very womb of your spirit and a world that speaks the language of your soul.
Damn, that's good.
Woo, that's good.
So explain what you mean specifically, your spiritual self was born in a dream.
I have this great position to be with people as they are going through the trials of their life and we look at their dreams.
You mean as a psychotherapist?
As a psychotherapist.
And we're looking, both of us looking at this depth of this person and this whole world that they are, that's living itself out through them.
It's like their life is like a top level, and you've got this whole dream world with all of its meaning and suggestion and mystery.
You know, what happens when you go to sleep at night?
It doesn't feel like you're watching a movie, does it?
No.
You're in it.
It feels like it's you.
You're in it.
You're in it.
But yet it's not you sometimes.
Yes.
You know, it's like you, but it's not quite you.
Yes.
And a little bit of your childhood.
Someone may appear from your childhood and someone you met yesterday.
My third grade teacher just the other night.
See?
See?
Now what does that suggest or what is that saying?
We're all here.
And that childhood is still there.
And it appears in our dreams.
But until you look at the dream, you don't have a clue what's going on.
And when you dream, you are returning home.
That's our home.
I mean, that's really where we are.
That's where we find everything.
It's all there.
It's not linear.
I know that today, sometime today, I'm going to react to somebody from that child who was probably seven years old.
That child's still there.
Wow.
Somewhere.
And he appears in the dreams.
That's right.
And are you saying here that our dream life is as real as this one?
Maybe more.
Maybe more real in the sense that... Cha-cha.
Okay.
I mean really really, it could be more real in the sense that that's where our real motivations can be found.
You look at your dreams and you say wow, I can.
Now I see what I've been doing up here, on the surface of things.
I can get it now.
And when you dream you're returning to the home, the very womb of your spirit and a world that speaks the language of your soul.
Now.
That resonated so deeply with me, because I can feel and I know you all can too when you're in your dreams, that there's something about being in that space that understands you and that you are more you than you are in your real life.
That's exactly it.
Damn, that's a big aha.
That is a bing, bing, bing, bing, bing.
There's something about being in that dream space that feels more like you than the you that is in the quote reality.
Absolutely, yes.
We tend to think that I, that the sense of who we are, comes from some head, someplace in our head.
And we call it ego and all that stuff.
But I really think and this is not my idea, it goes way back in time that who we are comes from that deep dream place.
That's really where our identity is.
That's why I say that's where our natural self is.
So you then say again on page 85 dreams are the windows and doorways to that essential identity without which we feel lost and wandering.
Dreams reveal the odyssey of the soul and the path of the spirit.
Yes.
I want to include both all the time, the soul and the spirit.
They have to be together.
Wow.
So dream and soul are almost identical.
At least the dream is a language of the soul.
Wow.
If you look at your dreams, and you look at them with some regularity, you begin to live from that deeper place.
And that's why I think that is part of religion.
That's pretty deep stuff.
You know what?
I'm being hesitant in my questioning because I'm now thinking and feeling for all the people.
Right now I hear you, you're in my brain saying, but I can't even remember my dreams.
Can we make ourselves remember them more?
Yes, you can.
You can?
What do we do to remember them more?
It's so simple.
Put a notepad and a pencil or pen next to your... Next to your bed.
Or an electronic tablet or something next to your bed.
Don't do anything in the morning until you write your dream.
Don't even... Don't go to the bathroom.
Don't brush your teeth.
Nothing.
Because it'll go.
It'll go.
They go fast.
This is a law of these spiritual things, generally.
They go quickly.
You know, it's so interesting what you're saying.
I just had a major, major, major uh-huh.
I think, and I've always sensed it with babies, that young children up until about the age of five, they come in with a sense of knowing and remembering and they're forced to let it go.
The older you get.
But they come from that realm, sort of trailing the breath of their dreams.
Oh, that's a beautiful, write that down.
That's really, that's the way to put it.
That's beautiful.
You see it in them.
You glimpse it now and then.
That there is a deep wisdom within these children.
I think that this mysterious realm of the spirit and the soul poke through ordinary life now and then.
They poke through.
You see it.
We talk about a thin veil sometimes.
Yes, yes, yes, yes.
Okay, it pokes through.
And we glimpse it.
So we glimpse this wholeness of the child a little bit.
Yeah.
So, at this point in your life, do you think that this is like another extension, creating a religion of one's own, intensifying your personal identification with whatever it is you choose to be your spiritual practice?
That's the ultimate care of the soul, is it not?
The ultimate care of the soul is being so identified with the life that wants to live through you.
That's that idea of that dream wants to be embodied.
I mean that very practically.
So at any point in your life, you may get the hint that you should be moving on to maybe a different job or even a different marriage, or you should be moving on different thinking or a different religion or something.
And if you hold back on that and say, no, no, that would disrupt me.
You wouldn't even think it through, but you would decide to say no to life.
Then I think that's where the soul gets wounded most.
Your individuality comes from your soul, not from your head.
It comes from allowing life to live through you.
So you're open enough.
You're the receiver.
Life is the dance.
Eckhart Tolle said this.
Life is the dancer.
And we are the dancer.
Exactly.
And that's the ultimate definition of religion.
Because you are acknowledging something greater than yourself.
And you're not naming it.
And you are not just acknowledging it.
Because it's too big to even have a name.
It's too big to have a name.
You make a major distinction, which I never did until reading this, between the soul and the spirit.
I used to use them interchangeably, but you say our soul and our spirit are two different things.
Explain that, will you?
In this view, the spirit is that that part of us and part of our life that wants more, that wants to transcend, wants to grow, wants to move into a better world, wants to improve ourselves.
So even going to school might be a movement of the spirit.
I want to know more.
Or picking up a book you want to read, you want to say, I want to know more.
That might be a spirit thing.
The soul is quite different.
The soul, the deep soul is, has more to do with things that are very ordinary, part of ordinary life that you feel intimately.
Like the very first thing I think, the first point about the soul is the soul needs a home.
It needs a sense of home.
So you may be, we all may be looking for a place where we can say I'm in the right part of the world, or I'm in the right town or the right area, or I'm in the right house.
And that sense of home, of being there where you need to be, this is a very ancient idea.
That is kind of a basis for the soul to really feel at home.
So that's why it's so difficult when people don't feel that they have found their home.
OR IN THE WRONG PLACE.
ANOTHER THING ABOUT THE SOUL IS THE SOUL LOVES TO BE ATTACHED. the soul will attach itself.
That's why we have soul mates.
Soul mates.
We're attached to that person.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean, really attached, you know, when you talk about a soul mate.
And we're attached to families, and to our kids, and to pets, and to things, even objects, even things that we own.
We become attached.
That's a sign of a real soulful life that you're able to make that attachment.
Our spirit likes to be detached.
So that spirit is that part of us which is transcendent and is seeking transcendence at all times.
We are spiritual beings having a human experience.
We are spiritual.
It's a natural thing.
I don't think you have to be taught to be spiritual.
Because you already are.
You already are.
If you've ever, ever just walked through a garden and stopped to look at a flower or something and be taken in by it, that's a spiritual act right there.
You don't have to be taught that.
You are there naturally.
If you're driving along the road and you see this great sunset and you stop or you pause, or you at least take a look at it, you're a spiritual person.
Yeah.
So what you're saying is looking at the everyday experiences in our life as extraordinary moments.
Paying attention to those moments that truly matter to us is what creates its own form of religion.
Yes.
You just follow your intuition that way.
You take life's moments as they are and you try to fully experience and enter them in a way of appreciation.
So you nurture and you let your spirituality unfold right from yourself.
I see that.
So how do we stay connected to that spirit, that spiritual side of us?
What do we do to stay in the light of that, to shine the light on that?
My work helps me.
I mean, writing these books, you know, this is a process for me.
I think we all have to find some work that really speaks to us.
You have a work like that.
Yeah, talking to you.
Yes.
Having this conversation.
This is my work.
Can you believe it?
It's not only your work, but it's part of your religion.
Yeah.
Is it?
Well, sure it is.
Ah, that's a big aha.
I think it's a major part of your religion.
Ah, that makes me want to cry.
Could I say it is the most, it's the biggest part of your religion?
That is true.
That is true.
Wow, thanks for that.
What do you think is the world's greatest wound?
The greatest thing I feel as a wound is suffering children on this planet.
That is the biggest wound to me is the to think of all those children who are so open-eyed and taking in life and so full of life.
And for one reason or another, with the domestic situation or in wars, whatever poverty, we see them as less than ourselves.
Instead of being a part of the fabric of all and here to teach us and to learn from them, we see them as starting zero.
That's right exactly, and that starts.
That starts at least at the moment of birth.
And who knows?
Beyond that, what is the one thing you think we could begin to do today to elevate our souls?
We could realize that all of us could realize that we are capable of more love than we realize.
That we are shutting down somewhere in our love.
We're protecting ourselves somewhere.
And that we could open up further.
We could stretch that capacity for love further.
Whether that would be with someone who is intimately connected to us or our children, our families, or to the world, our neighbors, whatever that is.
Because love is really the energy connected to soul.
Love and soul go right together.
You can't love someone if you don't have a soul that's alive and awake.
And you can't have a soul unless you're capable of love.
What wisdom have you uncovered that you wish to pass on to everyone?
I think you develop and attain more of a sense of self and self-worth through service to somebody else than anything you do for yourself.
I know that's been said in many different ways, but I try to think of that in a particular way that if I ever feel like I need to get my life more, make it more satisfying, or if I feel somewhat depressed at times, the best solution to that is some sort of service.
That will do it.
I agree with that.
Listen, if I'm having a bad day and I'm feeling I literally will, I've trained myself to think of what can I do for somebody else that would brighten their day and it brightens my day to brighten their day.
That's how it works.
That's a very simple little secret.
Yeah, it is.
Finish this sentence.
I believe.
I believe that the ultimate purpose and way of going about life is unknown, but that it's worth it to constantly search for it and to, in my own action, to have the optimism to make my life and the world I live in turn out for the best.
Do you have any thoughts on what happens when we die?
I feel that there's plenty of reason to think that we survive this physical death as individuals.
I believe that there's life after death and that we, as individuals, somehow There's eternity baked into us.
We think eternally.
We think about living forever.
We think of our love as lasting forever.
I don't think that that's all just then to disappear.
So I have faith that there is life for us after death.
You say in this book that you're no longer a seeker.
No.
Even though this book really will serve a lot of people who are seeking, but you're no longer a seeker.
What does that mean?
No, isn't that funny?
I've been a seeker for so long.
No, all I mean by that is I don't feel that in me anymore.
You feel like you've come home.
I just feel like I've come home.
To a religion of your own.
Yeah, yeah, I do.
This book helped me, I think.
Well, you certainly.
I think this is the beginning of a new way of all of us thinking about our spirit, our souls and how we choose to practice religion in our daily lives.
Thank you for this.
Thank you.
I'm Oprah Winfrey and you've been listening to Super Soul Conversations, the podcast.
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