“There is no password.”

That was the announcement Reverend Margaret made at a retreat I led last November. She was talking about the Internet, explaining that access to the Internet was free and no password was required. As soon as she spoke these words, however, I knew she could have been talking about Truth as well. There is no password.

I grew up in an Orthodox Jewish home. I was taught that truth was found in the Hebrew Bible, that God had chosen the Jews as the bearers of this truth, had promised us the Land of Israel as our eternal heritage, and that by living in accordance with the rules and regulations of Jewish life I was embodying that truth and carrying it into the world. I believed every word; and then I didn’t.

I stopped believing when I was 16. I had just learned how to meditate and was sitting cross-legged one summer morning on the shore of a lake in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. I can’t tell you exactly what happened, since the “me” to whom it happened disappeared during the happening. But when I returned after the event passed, I felt an absolute unity with all life; a love for and from all living things; and an unshakable realization that Truth is free.

From that moment on, I no longer believed in a God who chose one people over others, who wrote books, dabbled in real estate, or set rules and rituals for my life. Instead I believed in God as reality, a wild, free, and forever creative God that didn’t choose or reject, save or damn. This God wasn’t true as opposed to false; this God was Truth itself.

What is the Truth as I discovered it? In Hebrew we sayhevel havalim, impermanence upon impermanence. This is what the Teacher of Wisdom tells us in the opening lines of my favorite biblical book, Ecclesiastes. Most English translations render the Hebrew as “vanity of vanities,” or “futility upon futility,” or“meaninglessness upon meaninglessness,” but hevel really refers to the nature of life being as impermanent as the morning dew: each moment is real but not lasting.

The Truth as I experience it ishevel havalim: everything is born and dies, and because it does, you have compassion for all that lives. Why this is so, I don’t know. All I know is that knowing the Truth makes you kind and just. Access to Truth is free. There is no password. In fact, the only thing that keeps you from accessing it is the belief that there is a password to learn and you have not yet learned it, or, if you have been given the password, you have not yet mastered it, which is why you have not found the riches your particular religion promises you.

I have been a rabbi and teacher of world religions for over 30 years, and the one thing that almost all religions have in common is the insistence that there is a password, and they have it. Sometimes the password is a certain set of beliefs — this or that creed. Sometimes the password is a certain set of practices — meditating one way or another, praying one way or another. Sometimes the password is a certain Holy Name that must be recited in order to access Truth: Jesus, Yahweh, Krishna, or Allah.

The longer we seek the password, the longer it will take us to access Truth. The more we focus on finding our way into Truth the more difficult it is for us to see that we are in the midst of Truth right now. The kingdom of God, as Jesus taught us, is within us and around us (Gospel of Thomas 77b). To see the kingdom you have to remove the blinders that keep you from seeing it. How? In Judaism we call this “lech lecha.”

In Genesis Abram and Sarai (soon to be renamed Abraham and Sarah) are called to leave home (Genesis 12:1). The Hebrew used here is “lech lecha,” and most English Bibles translate this as “go forth.” This translation isn’t wrong, just flat. True, Abram and Sarai are going to physically leave home, but the Hebrew suggests that their journey is as much a spiritual one as it is a physical one. Lech means “walk,” and lecha means “to yourself.” Abram and Sarai — and you and I — are called to find their/our true self, the self that knows the Truth, that sees the kingdom of God within and without. And how do they find it? By letting go of all they know.

God says, “Lech lecha from your country, your kin, and your parents’ house to a land I will show you” (Genesis 12:1). Physically this simply means they are to travel far from their original home, but, as the ancient rabbis noticed, if this were merely a physical journey the Bible would have said “Go forth from yourparents’ house, your kin, and your country” rather than the other way around. After all when you take a long trip you first have to leave your parent’s house, then your extended family, and then your country. By reversing the order, Torah is telling us that this is a spiritual journey of letting go of the limitations, biases, and conditioning that defines you whether it be nationalism, ethnicity, race, gender, religion, or the conditioning of your parents. Only when others no longer define you are you ready to see the land God wants you to see.

And what is this land? It is the land under your feet here and now. God isn’t showing you a new land, but showing you the same land in a new way, a way that reveals the kingdom; the Truth of impermanence, and the Truth of justice, compassion, and love that arises when we know life to behevel havalim. And when you see the Truth, what happens? You become a “blessing to all the families of the earth” (Genesis 12:3) — all of them: mineral, vegetable, animal, human, etc.

Is there a password for accessing this Truth? No. But there is a cost: setting aside the conditioning that shapes us and that blinds us to Truth. Some of us are so attached to our conditioning, so in love with our blinders, that the thought of having to drop them in order to see the Truth and become a blessing is one thought too many. The cost of accessing the Truth is being free, and many of us, maybe most of us, don’t want to be free. Being free means that we have to think for ourselves. Being free means that we have to take responsibility for our own actions. Being free means that we can’t project all our problems and failures onto others. Being free means that we must choose to set down our conditioning and choose to become a blessing over and over and over again.

I want you to be free, but I can’t give freedom to you. Only you can walk to your self and access the Truth of impermanence and love. All I can do is remind you — there is no password. Walk on.