As I contemplated the nature of faith I was struck by how deeply embedded this phenomenon is in our society and culture globally. Faith is the fabric that holds all of one’s beliefs and expectations together. As I began a deeper exploration, I made some interesting discoveries about my own experience of Faith.
There are thousands of ways in which faith is expressed in our everyday life. In my contemplation, I started with seeing that faith was result oriented. Take the phrase “leap of faith”, while we may not know what the outcome is we do have a hope or expectation of a desired outcome in mind. For instance, take these statements for example. “I have faith that he/she will show up. I have faith that I’ll be able to handle the job requested of me. I have faith that the money will be there when I need it. I have faith that there will be a tomorrow.” Every one of these statements has an expectation of a desired outcome.
We put faith in the law that it will be just and that a verdict will be fair but according to whose expectation, someone must be disappointed. What happens to faith in the law then? There is a 50/50 proposition it can go one way or another. If the verdict doesn’t go in one’s favor is it because they didn’t have enough faith?
What about those things we take for granted on a daily basis. When we put our lives in the hands of another driver or the pilot of a plane, there is the unspoken faith/expectations/hope/belief that we will arrive safely. Faith runs very deeply on such a subconscious level. For instance going down a hill in my car I don’t think twice whether my brakes will give, there is faith that when I need to apply them they won’t fail.
As mentioned before, faith is the fabric of existence in the world culture. It is the opposite of living every day with the awareness of impermanence. Faith supersedes every notion that one has about the existence of life itself. From the beginning of humanity, faith has been the glue that has held the psyche together. It is because of this that the world would probably be chaos without faith.
Here is my own experience of Faith. As I have awakened, the shifts I’ve made have put me in a state of groundlessness. The paradox is the ability to float in faith and groundlessness simultaneously. It is by no means a passive state. There is movement and stillness at the same time. There is no attachment to the outcome.
Finally, the last question is ultimately, in order to exist, do we need faith? My experience when in full presence what I call Beingness, there is just pure living, Being and doing. Faith has no relevance in that state. Here is a video that says it perfectly. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQYFL9QeyJc
To learn how to inquire deeply into a question and discover how you can arrive at an inner knowing so profound that it changes your whole way of being and perceiving please contact me. Carol Pilkington www.carolpilkington.com 661-298-1229