I HAVE always loved Christmas. I know that, for many people, it has become little more than a commercial inconvenience, but for me it has always been magical. As a child, that magic had mostly to do with presents and had nothing to do with God.

But even then I recognised that Christmas was the one time of year when my family made an effort to be loving towards each other. Round about Christmas Eve, a truce was called, and for a few delicious days we were kind to each other. I could never understand why we didn’t always act that way. Looking back, I see that as the beginning of my spiritual path.

Thirty years later my understanding of Christmas has changed considerably. Now I love its tradition and ritual. I love going into the woods and cutting fir, holly and ivy to make a wreath for the front door. I love making my grandmother’s recipe for Christmas pudding. And I love the way that goodwill seems to bubble from people as they wish each other a Merry Christmas.

But, most of all, I love filling the house with lights and candles, because, for me, the moment of lighting a candle captures the essence not just of Christmas, but of what it means to live a spiritual life. Lighting a candle is about bringing light into the world, both literally and symbolically. And it reminds me that we can all be lights if only we let the divine flow through us.

I recognise how difficult it can be to talk about spirituality without sounding pious, but to me this sums up the heart of what it means to be on a spiritual path: to know God and to live a life of love. But I didn’t come to that understanding by studying the Bible or by going to church. I still can’t sit through a church service, with the vicar earnestly intoning about the eternal life and finding God through Jesus, without switching off. Instead I came to this understanding through nature.

When, as a child, I rejected the idea of God as an old man in the sky — which was the only definition I had then — I rejected the possibility of God altogether. From as early as I can remember, whenever I was in nature I could see and feel the presence of spirit — what the poet Coleridge called “the one light within us and abroad” — shimmering and sparkling in everything.

Over time these experiences grew stronger. One day, when I was in my mid-twenties, I was hiking in the Cascade Mountains, in Oregon, and I picked up a piece of granite. On the surface it was an ordinary stone, but as I held it, measuring its weight and feeling its warmth from the sun, I saw that it was shining with light — not literally, but inherently.

I looked up at the mountains around me, with their massive dark and jagged slopes, and I was overwhelmed by a feeling of joy as I experienced the light that is in everything. But I still didn’t have a name for that light.

Then, one summer, when I was 31, I went to stay in Herefordshire for a weekend on my own. It was glorious weather and I spent the days walking through the hills, rejoicing in the light. One evening, as I was sitting quietly, the world seemed to dissolve around me. It was like dropping through a trap door into darkness, and I found myself in what I can describe only as a sea of sparkling energy. Although I was conscious, nothing, including my body, had any form or structure.

At first I was astonished, then I realised that whereas before I had experienced the presence of God in all things, this was what people call God, for the sake of calling it something. Finally, I understood that God is not a being of any kind. Rather, God is an ocean of unmanifest energy and consciousness: infinite, invisible, ineffable.

In that moment the whole world made sense. This experience was the most ecstatic and blissful state I have ever known. I was swept by the feeling of boundless, unconditional love and joy and wild delight. And I knew that the only things that matter in life are love and truth and kindness.

The point of a spiritual journey is to let our knowledge transform us. That means facing the places in ourselves where the flow of love is blocked — our fears, our jealousies, our judgments, our expectations and the stories we tell about ourselves and other people.

It is the process of releasing the grip of our egos so that we come into alignment with our souls, and it is like cleaning a dirty window. The more that we scrub, the more the light can shine through, and all that is required is the willingness to try.

So this Christmas, in the midst of parties, wrapping presents, stuffing the turkey and lighting candles, stop for a moment and think.