Where There is Fear, Faith Cannot Live

It’s a kind of old fashioned word, faith, and it is perhaps one of the most powerful components of awakening to who we really are.

Escaping the torture of the monkey mind is a part of the process of awakening – and often it isn’t until we are in a place of intense suffering that this occurs. The mind is forced to accept its illusion and in the process, it dissolves and something amazing and wonderful emerges – the knowing I AM.

Rarely this happens all at once, as it did for way-showers such as Eckhart Tolle and Byron Katie. For the majority of us, it is a painstakingly slow journey – a few steps forward, a few steps back. At least the journey is painstakingly slow according to the ego-mind. From the perspective of infinite mind – all is in perfect, divine order.

One of the earliest lessons I learned way back in my beginning days of awakening was to become the observer – to watch the mind. It takes time to be able to separate from thinking enough to see thoughts in action and even more time to detach from associated emotions.

Ego does not want to give up its hold easily – after all – the awareness of the illusion of ego’s thinking is its death. One of the areas we can be most deeply affected is through the fear of the unknown. I recall learning from Deepak Chopra that living in the present moment means living with uncertainty. We have to become comfortable with what we don’t know – and what we don’t know is where ego loves to live. What if… what about… how… and of course all the learned ways of being that we should and shouldn’t be living.

Faith Lives in the Present Moment

Living in the Present Moment in the heart of uncertainty takes faith. And where does faith come from? It comes from the experiencing of the awe of the present moment enough to know of its existence.

Mind will go out into the world and provide proof to you over and over of your beliefs. I am not enough or I don’t deserve is easy for ego to prove.

But proof of that which lies beyond mind is an ego desire in itself. Being cannot be proved. Being can only be experienced. Life Itself provides us with pointers such as beautiful nature experiences, music that resonates with the soul, little miracles such as co-incidences, solutions appearing out of the blue that mind could never have imagined.

Learning helps – from others who have walked a path before us – they teach what they have learned and from their experiences, we can aspire to reach those levels of consciousness ourselves. We implement techniques and remember ways to be.

Time to Surrender Completely

And then there comes the point where you must let it all go – all the learning, everything you are attached to, everything you judge to be good or bad, right or wrong, everything you like, everything you dislike (there’s an element of attachment in disliking too). All must go. There is NOTHING in the outside world, nor in mind, that can be relied upon. ALL FORM IS TRANSIENT.

So you sit in the middle of a beautiful meditation, in bliss. Even that must go – at least any desire to hold on to it, to repeat it, must go. Until there truly is NOTHING. Not even the promise of a magnificent place of being when you do let go. NOTHING.

And faith steps in – if we allow it.

I have had one goal for many years of simply being a channel for Presence, of being a riverbed providing a form structure for Life Itself to express in this world. Mind has used my fear of the unknown to good advantage – so sometimes I am that channel and very often I’m not.

Then it became about taking the experience of the power I AM in my morning meditations, through my days. Again, mind so often dominated through fear of the unknown, through not trusting or having faith that my life could be lived in such a manner. The old habits, the what-ifs and I have tos would take over as the day moved on and buried me.

Do Without Doing

I am a daily student of The Tao de Ching. ‘Doing without doing, and it all gets done’ is a phrase repeated often, and this fascinates me. How do you do without doing? What I have experienced in endeavoring to follow this wisdom is that when mind is clear and I am deeply rooted in I AM Presence, I am moved into action. And truly, things get done. Without stress and effort. There may be intensity, powerful focus needed for some things, but behind it all is the sense of the awareness I AM.

My energy stays high and I am fulfilled in any action, no matter how small or insignificant mind considers it to be.

The faith employed here is the inner knowing of who I AM, of being able to watch my thinking enough to recognize that which is and that which isn’t me. And perhaps most of all, trusting in the inner process enough to let go of all thinking that isn’t necessary to the task at hand.

When we can put the focus of our thinking on that profound inner space and allow wisdom to arise from that source instead of reacting to circumstances, we discover faith.

A Picture is Worth 1,000 Words

Another tool I love for remembering who I really am is watching any of the numerous videos available on uTube that are visual expressions of energy – from energy chakra blessings to the 5th dimension to kaleidoscopes. The actual structure of the universe expressed through beyond-beautiful colors and patterns, movement and music, resonates at deep and ancient levels.

More recently I came across a movie called Samadhi – there are a couple of parts to it – this is a link to the first one. It’s a combination of teaching, inspiration and those visual patterns and music. If my mind is losing itself in its monkey chatter, I find this video enormously restorative to my FAITH.

Samadhi Movie – Maya: The Illusion of Self

Rising above and beyond fear into faith opens eternal worlds of infinite possibilities. What’s not to love about that?

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