Faith is an interesting phenomenon

Faith is an interesting phenomenon. When I consider faith in terms of spirituality it has a very religious feel or sense to it, its all about having faith in God and our faith being tested. I remember as child being fairly scared by the Old Testament  stories about faith and hoping God wouldn’t want me to kill my mother as a test of my faith, as I saw that I might let God down by letting my mum live, but end up in hell myself. So faith for me in the past also evoked the sense of believing in things we can’t see or even prove, it’s a blanket way of explaining thing that can’t be explained.

When I questioned the existence of God in the face of so much human injustice and suffering I was told that it was about having faith. So then I associated faith with a kind of blind belief, when reason, logic and common sense failed, just have faith .When you posed a question that didn’t have an answer, well that was a time for faith. So in truth faith in the spiritual sense was not something I gave a lot of thought to. Over the last fifteen years I have had my share of difficulties and hardships but never really ever thought of reaching for something divine and all powerful. Not because I am an atheist or an existential nihilist.  I did believe in a power within the universe that I considered loving and did believe in God in the sense of a force or invisible energy of love woven into the fabric of reality. I just never really joined this belief in a loving force behind everything and my faith. Yet when I peeled the layers back it didn’t take long to see that there was a relationship and faith played a role in my life but it wasn’t it’s presence that hit me rather its lack thereof. I discovered I believed in a divinity from an intellectual point of view but I had on a day to day basis very little faith in it. It was like on the surface I believed but underneath was a cynic or a doubter.

Having an idea in divinity being true and real is one thing, truly having faith and trust in its power, impact, influence and mysterious ways is another thing all together. This lack of faith revealed itself in a number of different ways.

Firstly just in the way my head is wired in terms of how I approach my problems. My universe is structured in such a way that I face challenges and issues in terms of how to I overcome these problems. Problems relating to my work, my head, my family, my life are all seen as issue I myself must fix, change and overcome. Even if I get support, it is me getting it and or accepting it. I find that I never look at a problem and think that maybe this force in the universe can help me. Maybe this problem itself is this force in the universe. I don’t see my problems in relation to my understanding of the loving universe I believe in and don’t have any faith that all will be ok and everything will work out. Not as a glib platitude you use to reassure yourself as a house burns down and every one you love is on fire, rather a fundamental way of viewing life and the world we live in. The truth is what is the point of having a belief in a loving universe, a higher power, a God , the Tao  or whatever term you choose to call it,  if that belief is divorced from  the day to day workings of your everyday life.

This is what I am starting to feel and see more deeply. That my faith is not just blind belief rather it is trust in the workings and ways of this power. It’s all the stuff that is out of my control and sphere of influence but is in this loving universe’s hands. My faith tells me that in the universe’s loving hands everything will be ok. This doesn’t mean I will get what I want or have things work out perfectly for myself rather it is the process of consciously handing  over what is not mine to control with an attitude of gratitude and care.

Faith is the trust in a universe of meaning and purpose without having to fully know what the meaning and purpose is right now. It is not about neglecting or ignoring my responsibilities. I don’t have faith the loving universe will feed my dog, I know that is something I have to do. For me a big part of what I worry about is not the things I have to do, my responsibilities are what they are. Most of the worry is about things I have very little or no control over, how another person feels, the unknown future, the lost past. It’s at these mental junctures that I depart from my faith and go into anxiety, control or confusion. I take the futile position and end up feeling the futile feelings. When I take the same problem and replace the mental angst with faith, then something amazing happens. A weight goes, a sense of being centered and present arrives and most profoundly, a peace comes over me. When I supplement the fear with faith I am affirming to myself that I am cared for and the universe is caring. I am absolving myself of the mental weight of working it all out that very moment, I am trusting in myself and I am trusting in the loving universe.

The deepening of my faith is the process of deepening my trust, as it builds up inside of me another marvellous and magical thing takes place. It is as if the universe has heard and acknowledged by act of faith and in return then gives me a sign or validation that I am on the right track. This may not happen immediately and happens when you’re not even looking for it, yet it happens. My position of faith, that internal light that I shine outward saying “I know, I trust and I have faith” is heard. For someone like myself that is prone to really worrying, faith it the liberator I wished I discovered a long time ago. It’s a bridge to that lasting connection. To feel this loving universe exists is one thing; to think is another thing, to have faith is something else. Faith is committing myself to it, its following all the natural logic to its inevitable conclusions. If there is a loving universe, which loves and cares for me then the truth is I really have nothing to worry about. This is worthy of having faith in. As I feel that ,know that  and live that, then I contribute even greater to that same loving universe, my actions are shaped by this faith, my relationship are coloured by this faith, my destiny is driven by this faith. This faith in the power of love and compassion, this faith is the inherent goodness of people and of life. this faith that life is truly a beautiful and magical thing, these things are worth committing myself to, worthy of my faith.

Three Feet away from you Stands the Most Powerful Self-help Guru you will Ever Meet

Relationships as Our Teacher I remember reading how relationships are the number one way to help us grow and develop as people. No matter how many self-help books you read or meditating mantra’s you learn, nothing beats relationships as a means to expand ourselves. I would hear or read this theory time and time again and I understood it on an intellectual level but, for whatever reason, the true value of its meaning never really clicked. Then, with time and the occurrence of a number of relationship issues in my own life, I started to feel and experience what this concept means. Relationships – in particular the more challenging ones – are in factor our greatest teachers. Why? Well it comes back to another age-old piece of wisdom, about knowing yourself.

Relationships show us who we are…

To know who we are unlocks a key to our destiny and our fundamental relationship with the universe. To know ourselves we have to become self-aware, we have to take the blindfold off our defensives and ego and see clearly the way we are and what is truly going on inside of us. But, how can we really see our behaviour when our view of ourselves is always clouded by our own inherent bias and conditioning?  How can we let go of things we don’t know exist? This is where the power of relationships comes in. They are the magic mirror on the wall that reflects the clear view of us.

Our perception creates our reality…

Our relationships reveal two things to us. Firstly, our own view of the universe and the world around us and, secondly, other people’s view and experience of us. Let us look at an example. I’m sitting down at a bar, comfortably settled on a stool, glass of cold beer in my hand and munching on peanuts. You come in and join me. I start to share my philosophy of life and people with you. I tell you that there are two types of people in this world. There are untrustworthy scam artists who are out to steal, cheat and exploit at every opportunity and then there are gullible suckers who are dumb enough to trust in others at their own peril. Do you think that that perspective is actually reality and a fact of all of humanity? Or, do you think that this person is sharing a view of people based on their own experience of life? If you were to believe this to be true, how do you think it would affect the way in which you relate to others? How would it influence your ability to be close to others and to accept unconditional kindness and love? Maybe for this person they did at one point in life trust others. I am sure that to see the world this way isn’t an inherent belief from birth but rather it’s a perspective that has developed based on their experiences and how they have responded to these experiences. If you believe in a self-created universe, the fact is that if this person really does see people in this way, eventually this view will be mirrored back to them in the way people treat them. This will then only reinforce their beliefs and so the cycle continues.