On Sunday, August 28^th I found myself with my 17-year old daughter in Washington, DC amidst at least 500,000 people attending the “Restoring Honor” rally organized by Glenn Beck. I was there, so the CNBC (and other media outlet’s) estimate of approximately 87,000 is at best laughable and at worst deceitful.

My presence was, quite frankly, shocking to me because throughout my entire life, beginning with Woodstock and all the self-awareness seminars marketed since the 80’s, I have made it my mission to avoid large crowds and events aimed at ”group consciousness.” To have voluntarily arisen at 2:00AM to ride a bus with 58 strangers to an event 3 hours away that anticipated 100,000 attendees was definitely out of character.

So what was that all about?

It was about listening and watching Glenn Beck evolve over the past 3-4 years from entertainer to spiritual messenger. It was about his “track record” for successfully anticipating and, dare I say, accurately predicting economic and political realities. It was about his sincerity… and about the fact that there comes a time in everyone’s life when you must push through where you have been in order to get where you want to be.

So I pushed through.

The rally drew 500,000 courteous people. Hard to imagine, but true. It was a perfectly executed “production” from beginning to end. The content of the 3 hour event was religious, patriotic and uplifting. The highlight for me was Beck. And while he didn’t say anything I have not heard from him previously on radio or TV, he none-the-less continues to hone a vital and timely message, a wake-up call really, for a Nation in need.

I had but one disappointment. While Beck brought onstage 240 clergy from various religious disciplines to close the event, everything that preceded it was decidedly promoting Jesus Christ as a particular path to God. The audience was well in agreement.  It’s important that I say I take no issue with that approach, or personal choice, to a connection with the Divine.  What I do say is that to get to that place where humankind transcends its historical divisions, animosity and limitations, we must move beyond religion and into a Consciousness of Oneness.

I do not say this lightly. I am a Jew with a 5000 year history, and DNA, that teaches its particular path to God as well. But after decades of exploring not only my ancestral path but many others as well, I have come to the conclusion that there is only One of Us… and that organized religion…  no matter who’s it may be … perpetuates separation.

Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Lao Tzu, Buddha… did not have religious experiences.  They had very personal, spiritual experiences that showed them their connectedness to all of humanity. Later, men lusting after power and hoping to ride the coat tails of someone else’s epiphany, turned those personal experiences into structured and organized dogma with rigidly defined criteria for “getting it right” and getting to God.

Spirituality, as I define it and have experienced it, is a unique journey each of us must take within ourselves until the moment when we reach our own center only to find every other living being having patiently awaited our arrival.

Coming home, as it turns out, is a reunion of fragments of our lost Self.

I hope Glenn Beck continues on the path of energizing and educating our Nation. It is a noble task.

I also deeply pray that either he, or someone else, expands the message to include those who walk every other path so long as they all lead home to the indisputable knowing that there is only One of Us.

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