/lit/ - Literature

>>14973674
>I'm not exactly looking for conversion though, I will never be able to leave behind my perennial beliefs and aren't looking for a church which tells me what I can and can't believe. I'm looking for direct experience connecting with the godhead.

This is what I mean by conversion, not signing the paperwork in your local Catholic church. You're looking for more direct experience of the Divine, ultimately this is what the Church aims to offer, even if it's not always obvious these days

> the idea of a community based around surrender and meditation on the godhead is something that you simply can't find in the US studying eastern religions

Bear in mind even within the Church, the kind of people really interested in deep theological thought are the exception rather than the rule, but it does provide structures (e.g. like the Carmelite or Carthusian orders) where people devote their lives to exactly that. Just mean you might have to hunt around for what you're looking for

>My meditation and prayers sessions these days already get so intense that some idea of needing to increase that is the opposite of what I want. I'll have days which after prayer I'll spend thirty minutes lying on the floor almost unable to move it's so intense.

Good, maybe look for a spiritual director or a mentor irl to help guide you here. I wish I had done it years ago.

>I want to connect to traditions around me, we are born where we are born for a reason I believe.

Where (roughly) do you live?

If people are looking for something deeper (rather than reading a book, they want to experience or feel it), I would highly suggest attending a Tridentine mass. It really is the pinnacle of Western religious ceremony, and for a lot of people it plugs a gap that previously only Eastern ceremony did.

I think this gives a nice flavour of what it should be:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VV8ge-qi0l0

>Thanks for the post though, send a prayer my direction brother if it's not too much to ask for.

Of course, I hope you find what you're looking for. Keep studying scriptures from all traditions, it's not exactly Mother Church-approved but I found it helped me a lot to figure out a direction