RayCasting won't detect collision

Hello, I'm fairly new to Raycasting and I'm running into this problem with my player (Attached with player controller) GameObject. Basically I want to have my player moving on a 3D grid-base puzzle, grid by grid corresponding with each keystroke.

I have the basic movement set up but I want the player to detect Obstacles using Raycast so if the collider is a obstacle the player will not "Move" at all towards it.

my script looks like this:

 CharacterController controller;
 public float distance;
 void Start(){
     controller = GetComponent<CharacterController>();
     temp = level;
 }
 void Update() {
     RaycastHit hit;
     Ray landingRay = new Ray (controller.transform.position, getDirection ());
             // The problem is here
     if (Physics.Raycast (landingRay, out hit, distance)) {
         if(hit.collider.tag != "Obstacle")
             Move ();
     }
 }

 private Vector3 newPos;
 Vector3 getDirection(){
     newPos = controller.transform.position;
     Vector3 right = new Vector3(distance, 0, 0);    Vector3 left = new Vector3(-distance, 0, 0);
     Vector3 forward = new Vector3(0, 0, distance);    Vector3 back = new Vector3(0, 0, -distance);
     if (Input.GetButtonDown ("Horizontal") && Input.GetAxis ("Horizontal") > 0) {newPos += right;    return right;}
     if (Input.GetButtonDown ("Horizontal") && Input.GetAxis ("Horizontal") < 0) {newPos += left;    return left;}
     if (Input.GetButtonDown ("Vertical") && Input.GetAxis ("Vertical") > 0) {newPos += forward;        return forward;}
     if (Input.GetButtonDown ("Vertical") && Input.GetAxis ("Vertical") < 0) {newPos += back;        return back;}
     return Vector3.zero;
 }

 void Move(){
     controller.SimpleMove(newPos - controller.transform.position);
 }

Any suggestions?