There are many ways to strengthen our connection to God, whether it’s meditation, prayer, retreats, reading books, socialising, enjoying art or music. In essence, anything can be a way to strengthen our spiritual connection, so long as we carry it out with that intention. Everything is an artefact of God’s creation, after all.

Today, we’re going to talk about a very niche way to connect to God: through gardens. They offer an impressive array of sensations and impressions to help you sense the divine.

First of all, it’s crucial when you enter a garden to have your intention right. Intend to attend, to pay attention. Go with your senses wide open, engaging sight, sound, sense and touch. Give yourself over to the experience. Going barefoot helps you to delineate your visit and immerse yourself in the world of touch.

All of this encourages your mind senses to switch from everyday mode into one of appreciation and presence.

You can go a step further by continually penetrating the sense that there is a “you” separate from the senses observing the senses. This is an optical illusion: this “you” is merely another collection of sensory stuff. Instead, realise that you are nothing merged with everything. That is Godly consciousness.

Once you’ve entered the garden, pay attention to the details: individual leaves and their structure, the inside of flowers, single trees and their bark, leaves, movement, colour and sound.

Soaking in these details not only helps , it helps you see God at work. Our true nature is infinitely complex. It’s like an infinite reality machine, from the tiniest, infinitesimal scale to the grand, galactic scale. See this complexity, without needing to categorise or understand. Feel its incomprehensibility and rest in it. That is a taste of the divine.

Give yourself over to the pure beingness of the various scenes and perspectives that appear to you. Don’t stare. Relax the gaze, widen it, and let the senses take over. Take them in as they are, without adding or interpreting or dividing. When you do this, you realise the divide that exists between your interpretations and concepts on one hand and your raw sensory input on the other. Your senses just are, and they elude our attempts at description. Soaking into this pure isness is Godly.

And finally, enjoy the beauty. When you’re in that pure innocent state of pure isness beyond conception, with no observing you, your senses become richer, more vivid, more alive. You become aware of the outstanding beauty of the natural world. God has infinite expression and infinite beauty, and tasting it is Godly.