Benny, I am not trying to spiritual-splain you here because you wrote a beautiful piece about your new, loving relationship with our Creator.

But if you’re without a religion and if you’re praying to God I wouldn’t call you agnostic. You’re a mystic. (Like me.)

Agnostics are more… uncertain… they’re atheists with an open mind.

You see every religious path has a spectrum of exoteric (institutional) to esoteric (mystical). Exoteric comes from the Greek meaning “outside”, and esoteric means “inside”. The mystical sects of the Abrahamic religions are the Gnostics (Christianity), the Sufis (Islam), the Kabbalah (Judaism). (The East is a bit more complex but there are reformers like Zen that has been argued to be the mystic’s version of the more institutional Theravadan, Vajrayana, and Mahayana Buddhist sects.)

For example, the great Sufi poet Rumi wrote, “I looked in temples, churches, and mosques. But I found the Divine within my heart.”

So have you.