THE POWER OF FAITH AND WILL

(Hatonn, February 3, 1991)

We are most happy to consider the question of faith and how to attain its pleasant pastures of consciousness. First, let us gaze at the fundamental dynamic which causes faith to be important. Let us look within; let us gaze at smaller and smaller things. Let us imagine ourselves to be studying, first the things that can be studied about visible life forms. It is found that there seems to be in each cell of a life form the entire knowledge, history and consciousness of that life form so that from one cell, another being may be created to duplicate that one cell. How can knowledge and identity be so compressed? It is not known, it is only manipulated by your peoples without knowledge. Let us gaze at smaller things, at one of your atoms. Although your scientists have succeeded in breaking it, which was considered the ultimate particle of mass, into even smaller particles, yet has any science or system of measurement been able to see, weight or deduce the reality of mass? No, this has not been done. All that has been done is finding instrumentation to observe the paths of energy left by these particles within the atom. When, if all is energy, energy and fields, energies interpenetrating other fields, how is it that fields exist? Again, your scientists can manipulate magnetism and electromagnetism, but they cannot explain it.

In the genuine sense, nothing is known. All is, if followed to its conclusion logically, a mystery. That which you may view is inevitably not that which it seems, for the entire nature of your experience is one of learning in a special classroom which was created specifically to confuse and baffle the intellectual mind, and thereby force the consciousness of humankind, because of the desperate hunger that it has for spiritual grace, to move from the mind to the heart, from intellectualization to love and the wisdom of love. That is your situation. You are consciousness aware of yourself, but all the tools that you use within the illusion, beginning with the mind itself, are creatures of the illusion designed to operate within the illusion and doomed by birth itself to a life sentence ending in death. Shall you strut and fret, as your Shakespeare has said? Shall you walk that petty pace until the last tomorrow, and then cease? There is that within the human consciousness which, once awakened, is aware of but one thing, that whether or not there is survival without the physical body, the yearning for consideration of that continued existence is a real, virtual and actual part of the nature of humankind.

Entities within your culture are fond of saying that humankind is made in the image and nature of the Creator. What image do we think of? What image comes to mind when one thinks of the Creator? That is a key question and central to those who seek faith. For if a Creator is sought that is angry and punishing, righteous and full of justice, then we gaze at a part of ourselves, and if the Creator is gentle and nurturing and all-embracing and unifying, then we gaze at a part of ourselves. Since there is a mystery, there is a choice to be made concerning one’s attitude towards that mystery. Those who feel instinctively that the Creator is an unifying, loving and nurturing Creator, are those which discover faith in one way; that is, the positive path of polarization through service to the Infinite One and to other selves, the images of the Infinite One. Those who choose to see the Creator of judgment, righteousness and law, are those who wish control, control over the life, control over the self, control over others, that there be no surprises, but that all be reckoned ahead of time, safe and tidy. This is the path of separation. We are aware that we speak to those upon the positive path of polarization, and so we will address faith in its positive sense, that is, that faith does not begin with faith in the self, but faith in the Creator.

Now the faith that is so hungered for does not rise out of nothing. It begins with very simple faiths. Even as a young entity, one early begins to have faith that the sun will rise, and the sun will set, that the moon shall appear, and the stars, and then shall disappear in the blushing dawn of day. Your entities learn gradually to work towards a faith in the conventional wisdom of the culture. And there, all comes to a screeching halt. For unless one is not very observant, one soon discovers that absolute fidelity, that which one may have faith in regardless, when applied to humankind, will fail. Not always, but sometimes. There is always the risk and a gamble in trusting another entity or the self. For if entities are made in the nature and image of the Creator, that image would not seem to include absolute trustability, but could the Creator be capable of such capriciousness as humankind? Let us gaze about at the creation for which it is responsible. Is the Infinite Intelligence which created the balance of the infinite universe, the planets in their courses and the stars in their long, slow expressions of love, the work of a capricious Creator? It would seem unlikely. For if one were to gaze upon one of your calculators one would not mistake it for that which occurred in nature, for that which is random and perhaps came from a process of evolution. This calculator is obviously made for a purpose, to do a certain task accurately again and again. Yet how simple is this calculator compared to the infinite accuracy of the clockwork universe whose steadiness your scientists so have faith in.

Once a seeker is aware that faith is not faith in the human self, one is then open to examine other possibilities of where to place faith. As one gazes up to the stars one realizes the face of the Creator, as it is written in your holy works, moving across the face of the waters of your consciousness. And there is an intuition that says to this intelligence, far or near, “I place and give my faith to this kindly, loving, nurturing Creator. In this Creator I place my trust.”

Now there is no proof that this is either a wholesome or wise consideration or conclusion. Why should entities think about faith? Why should they not simply enjoy what life they can and begrudge not leaving that life when it is time? Examine your hearts and see if you are satisfied with this life which is you, ending. Does this seem appropriate for consciousness? We certainly hope that this is not your opinion, for if it is, then you are caught in the net of mortality. You shall begin, and end, and that is all. The mind of the seeker rejects this null hypothesis as untrue. It moves beyond logic. What is beyond logic within the mind except utter chaos?

Now we have the stage set for an honest beginning in faith. The mist of chaos surrounds the entity as he stands upon the cliff, a sheer rock face with barely a foot-hold of human knowledge. Shall he ascend? Shall he descend? No, for he cannot climb sheer rock; there is no cleft; there is no comfort. That is your situation. Consequently, with the tiger above, the tiger below, of that which is not possible, those who choose to live a life in faith must choose to leave the cliff of human knowledge and embrace the mystery, willing to allow that mystery to teach them. At that point the seeker gathers itself together, enters its consciousness upon the next step, and begins its long and dusty road of seeking by leaping from the cleft into the thin mist of chaos, that chasm of unknowing which will forever separate time from eternity. Yet the seeker knows that it does not know any way to proceed except to will itself to take that leap. The will is secondary. The feeling for faith is primary. However, it takes an application of will to leap into a chasm, and it is a right use of will, not to corral oneself into doing anything, but when one feels that the time metaphysically is correct, to act. And so, the first expression of faith is very much, for most entities, that of acting as if there was faith within the heart already.

In all spiritual matters there is paradox, for all things are so at once. And to a world caught in space and time, there is no place for all things occurring at once. All things are, instead, linear, a road to be traveled. How can we tell you that it is a spiraling circle in one location? We cannot tell you these things, for they do not make sense. Thus we speak of walking a dusty road, of narrow paths, of being a pilgrim and being upon a quest. However, the actual experience of developing faith is forged in midair in absolute unknowing, and often in fear and panic because of the step that has been taken and the dramatic unknowing of that step.

So we say to you that, indeed, one must accept the utter vulnerability of unknowing, of acting as if one were faithful. For only when one acts in this way do the processes of spiritual evolution accelerate so that one may eventually have immediate experiences of tabernacling with the Creator. It is this immediate experience of unity with deity which informs one’s faith. These moments upon the mountaintops of your experiences within the incarnational pattern are precious gold, to be treasured within the memory and to be brought to remembrance again and again, for faith does not have its place upon the mountaintop. Faith has its place in the Valley of the Shadow of Death, if we may quote again from your holy works. Thusly, one acts as if one has faith, and in so doing is faithful. For nothing can be understood or known. This is very important to realize within your illusion.

If you wish any sort of knowledge, much that is supposed knowledge will be examined and ultimately abandoned until the spiritual and metaphysical quest centers upon all that is left when one strips away that which one has been told, and that is an instinct, a hunger, a yearning for something that is variously called love, or charity, or virtue, or beauty or truth. Many entities among your people have no use for faith any more than they have any clear perception of the truth. That is acceptable, for it is not those who are unripe that will be harvested but those whose time of ripeness has come. Each of you has taken that leap of faith, but each is at an unique position within the heart regarding faithfulness. Thus, each experiences a continuing and often repetitive scenario of events and situations in which faith can be informed as one attempts to behave and express and manifest the self in a faithful and loving manner, attempting to glorify by imitation that which is conceived to be the nature of the Creator; that is, Love itself, the energetic, original and absolute thought which is Love.

Now once one has had the immediate experience of joy in the presence of the Infinite One, one is almost immediately cast back into the desert of the valley. Words can only muddy and distort that absolute experience of being one with the Creator. Therefore, one does not approach faith through words. One is content simply to live in faith a simple, wholehearted, and single-minded faith that humankind expresses itself most truly when it expresses itself in fidelity to love and service.

How can one be a faithful servant of the Creator? Perhaps the most difficult thing, and the central thing that a faithful entity does, is to lay aside the human self, that endearing and much beloved outer shell personality, in order that one may experience the treasure that lies within, the treasure that can only be approached with love and trust and faith. For doubt and mistrust are distancing emotions, and when entities think in that mode they remove themselves further and further from the shining sinecure of grace. The life of faith is a life lived in the limelight. One who lives in faith stands with a light that is bright that others may see. It is a kind of public undressing of the self, metaphysically speaking, to live a life in faith. For when one who is faithful perceives that in the midst of the confusion of mundane living there is a spiritual principle which must needs be upheld in order to be faithful, one must then abandon so-called human wisdom and foolishly express faith that appearances are deceiving, and that all is truly well. The essence of faith is the simple feeling that all will be well, and all is well.

Now let us look at one who faces a tiger, a lion, a predator. Is all truly well for one of faith as this predator comes to eat its chosen prey? How foolish can the prey be to have faith that there is something more than eating and being eaten, killing and being killed, striving against adversities? Such an entity must be quite foolish. Yet it is those foolish entities who shine through the centuries of your recorded time and history, blazing off the pages of books and records into the human heart. Those who loved and gave themselves for others, no matter in what circumstances in the outer world, those who acted according to an absolute and perfect love are those whose shining memory inspires all seekers still. Thus, when faith is young, and, indeed, faith shall always be the faith of the beginner for you, for in this illusion that you enjoy, faith only begins, and it is that choice of how to begin that you are making. As you make that initial choice, so you build a cornerstone upon which other choices may be erected one after another, act upon act, thought upon thought.

May we say that the failure of faith is a foregone conclusion. It will fail again and again. You will hold yourself accountable again and again, and go through the pain of your own damnation. Yet always the handle of the door to faith is ready to be turned, but you as a spirit must turn it and must go through that door into self forgiveness and awareness of infinite redemption and newness, a resting place for all eternity.

NOTES TO OUR READERS

As each of our LAW OF ONE books in the 81/2” x 111/2” format, (which we have been printing privately) runs out in our inventory, we will be replacing them with the new quality paperback editions now available. The additional expense of the quality paperback editions over the privately printed edition will be reflected in the cost figures on our order blanks. It will be a few more months before we have all four LAW OF ONE books in their quality paperback format, so anyone who wishes such a set can order directly from Schiffer Publications.

We have put our Christmas tape, JENNY, on this order blank to be sure that anyone who would like to give it as a Christmas present will be able to order it early enough to do so.

Keep those cards, letters and prayers for Carla’s health coming. She really feels your support and thanks you all greatly.