Here's a Step 11 meditation exercise.

Find a quiet place. Sit in a comfortable but alert position. Focus your attention on the rising and falling of your stomach as you breathe. If there are thoughts, let them come and go, but try not to pay attention to them or "follow" them; instead, keep the rising and falling of your stomach at the forefront of your attention.

When you are ready, let the rising and falling of the stomach move to the background of your mind, and try briefly to stop your mind thinking. You'll find you can't, for it's the natural function of the mind to think, just as it's the natural function of the heart to beat. Once you're convinced you can't stop yourself thinking, watch each thought arise and depart. Again, don't follow the thought -- just observe it.

Now, there must be two parts to your mind -- the part that is thinking, and the part that is aware of your thinking. Can you now move your attention to the part of the mind that is aware?

This is a difficult exercise. We know when we do it that there must be a part of the mind that is watching, that is aware -- but where is it? As we attempt in meditation to find it, it dawns upon us that -- whatever it is that is doing the watching -- it isn't "me" There is awareness, but no sign of the "I" that is aware. Something is aware, that's clear, but it doesn't appear to be "me."

Could it be that in this meditative search we actually experience something we have in common with all other people, even with all other creatures? Could our contact with "my" awareness in fact be a brief contact with some principle, some ultimate reality that unites us all? Is it possible that -- at that moment of the apprehension of awareness itself -- we are touching God?