I a spiritual person, of sorts

I think maybe I'm kinda spiritual.  I can feel awe at all sorts of things and have learned to meditate into a self-hypnotic state, and really like most religious music and well-written non-dogmatic sermons.  I can also get into various rituals so that they have a limited reality to me.  Finally, for the most part religions don't bother me, although I must admit I like the philosophy and attitudes of Buddhists more than others, and I see no point in worrying about what others believe or don't believe.

Still, I have to say I'm an atheist.  I don't have any God or gods, and think they are human inventions.  The one exception might be the Tao, but that really isn't a god anyway.  I don't deny or reject God or anything of that sort, it is just that from what I know of history and science I see no reason to think He exists.

Where my mysticism or spirituality comes from is inside -- the wonder of "me-ness," that there is a something "there" thinking and experiencing the world, for which I can see no possible physical approach -- no causative mechanism.  In other words, there are aspects of my existence, and I presume everyone else's, that leave me speechless, uncomprehending,  bewildered, awestruck.  The immense if not infinite size of the universe and all those stars out there are nothing in terms of awe inspiration compared to the fact of personal existence and experience.  (I experience the world via qualia -- sensations, emotions, that I know have chemicals bubbling around in my skull associated with them, but how?).

That I don't know doesn't mean I have to invent God to explain it.  That is no explanation, just a cop-out. 

I suspect there are aspects of existence that are beyond us -- totally beyond us -- and the mystery of our mental existence is largely one of these.  Of course how the brain works will, over time, be worked out in detail, but we still won't know how it does what it does, if it is the brain doing it and not just being used.  The only thing I can figure is that there is a self-perpetuating process (chain of thought) that dies and is reborn from moment to moment much as an electromagnetic wave perpetuates in space.  It dies when I am asleep and is reborn when I awaken, and it constantly changes as I learn and have experiences and make decisions.