It is time to have a conversation about faith, one that I will begin by asking you to read what is here. If called to, please share your comments and questions and add a layer at the end of this post!
Listen to the audio here:
We were joined by a few special guests...Rev. Paula Langguth Ryan, Rabbi Ed Weinsberg, and other inspiring minds and spirits for a provocative exploration on this juicy topic!
Let's Begin...From the Beginning...
Since the beginning of our time and running through the threads of humanity’s evolving sense of both God and consciousness, we have sought to understand, live from, and teach on the subject of faith. For many, attempts to define faith through identification with a particular religion – or, more accurately the accepted interpretations of that religion – have left more questions than answers, especially when variance in both interpretation and demonstration so often exists.
I’ve come to understand that faith and religion are not the same. Although we may derive and define ideas of about faith, just as we develop perceptions of right, wrong, good, bad, morality and immorality, I often wonder how many of us truly explore, inquire, and ask the questions that will assist us in walking the walk, not just talking the talk. Frankly, we all know a lot of religious people who have more faith in their fears than they do in the core promises of the teachings and truths they profess to identify with.
You Do You Define and Develop Faith? In What Ways Do You Question it?
Conceptually, we might define our faiths according to the way a particular set of teachings or spiritual interpretations has been passed along to us. We might develop faith through experience. And, we might discount, or even reject past ideas of faith based on an interpretation of a challenging event or circumstance that challenged (and most likely revealed) where we placed our faith in the first place.
Interpretations of faith and how we apply it, live it, and are empowered or guided by it may not always bring us the comfort and security we are humanly conditioned to seek. An important question I often ask of myself and others is, “Are you seeking faith or are you seeking comfort?” Heck, it is easy to be in faith when things are working according to our master plan. It is not as easy when things are working out according to the “master’s” plan!
Maybe the only way to know faith is to be challenged by it. As human beings we are offered daily opportunities to truly examine the inconsistencies and polarities that exist within our own minds, especially when our faith is challenged. We question our faith, go against it, and at times we may even ask ourselves, “When, if ever, is faith irresponsible?”
For example, on the subject of attraction/manifestation, depending on the focus, we may find ourselves assessing an outcome as being in direct contradiction to what we had been asking for. When a prayer isn’t answered in “the form” of our request, we may entertain doubt and disappointment, not understanding that the “substance” of our prayer is, in fact, being tended to, just in ways that look different than what we had in mind.
Sometimes, when things are not happening in the timing of our preference, we become impatient and without knowing it, we take our “order” back in ways that can actually create a counter intention or request. Just examine the often vast differences between what you want and what you expect and you’ll begin to identify a whole slew of internal inconsistencies that influence both perception and reality.
Usually, the underlying tension is a result of the idea that the specific outcome focused upon in prayer or other practice must manifest in both “our way and our timing,” less we don’t - or can’t - believe. Faith, if seen as a teacher, teaches us that there is an intelligence that knows the essence – the substance beyond the identified form – that is spiritually ideal, even if it is humanly undesired, or unimagined.
The ideas that organize our sense of faith and the quality of relationship we have with God may not be Sourced from the highest perspective, but rather from conditioned ideas that we have come to align with from, interestingly enough, fear.
WHAT IS FAITH?
As a spiritual teacher and minister I am asked this question - and ask this question - a lot. A few days ago, it came in the form of prose...here it is...
Let Go, Let God
Faith in its highest form does not seek proof or justification. It relinquishes timing and form, outcome, and expectation to the sweetness of a surrendered expectancy in the highest good emerging.
It proceeds into its next right and perfect action absent of any conditions or demanded outcomes. Faith surrenders form for substance. It loves through trial and tribulation. It allows space to be present and observing to what “is,” as holy, sacred and fully awakened to the reality that perfection is always in the process of unfolding.
Faith is an unwelcoming place for fear, or doubt, or worry, yet it presents temptations to the ego’s resistance to its own unfettering.
Faith does not judge, for it is both compassionate and patient as it watches the world in wonder infused with a level of patience that only comes through trusting in the outcomes of surrendering.
Faith tunes its eyes to beauty and paints all of what it sees, thinks, and creates with tonalities of love and a presence that is unmistakably Divine in both consciousness and perspective.
In the letting go, we make room for the allowing…and in our surrendering, we make room for the Divine to dance its dance and inspire us to sing the songs of our souls into glorious perfection.
You, as the channel, the bridge, and the vessel through which the Divine can presence itself within and beyond your once humanly defined edges, are already primed, prepared and ready.
Let go and let God…
Love, Ani
Join me in a more formal exploration of faith and faith in action at www.powerofmyway.com/soulsjourney.html
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Watch Perfection Unfolding…
Surrendering and being in Faith is the hardest thing to do continually, and takes reminding ourselves and practice, but once we surrender in Faith, life is so much fun, so moving, so humbling and each Faithful moment is a dance with the Divine that makes life's every moment as full and free as possible. I am grateful for the tougher moments because they are my reminders to surrender in faith and then I suddenly am moved to tears of joy and celebration and gratitude for the simple beauty in every living being, in every star, in every tree, in every child, in every lovely drop of breath. Blessings to Ani and the whole POW community and to all of you. Thank you Ani for bringing this topic forward; thank you dear dear Ani for all that you are and all that you do.
Love,
Karen
Posted by: Karen Arbel | September 06, 2011 at 02:41 PM