I must admit that in the past I viewed faith as blissful ignorance. I found the idea of trusting this invisible force of certainty as incomprehensible or foolish. Instead, I convinced myself that my attempt of personal control was a more effective option. This personal belief continued, until I was faced with the reality of my decisions, or the end result of my failed attempts at control. Not only was I unable to dictate outcomes through personal control, but I was overcome with fear and anxiety about the future. It was as if my subconscious was screaming out the obvious - “I have no control, trust the process, have faith!” But what is trust? What is faith? These were concepts I had never explored, nor would I have ever chosen to explore them - until I was forced to. I don’t mean force in terms of someone else forcing them upon me. Instead I mean until my own belief system crumbled and I was forced to reevaluate. These moments of complete defeat are catalysts for change!
I somehow “knew" I needed to learn to incorporate faith into my life to overcome my demons, but how? You see, my natural response was to intellectualize the process. I proceeded to logically conceptualize a plan of action, to gather evidence and build upon that…oh how wrong I was. Intellectual faith is only another form of self-will and attempted control. As Emmet Fox explains,
“Man is a mental being, and to know this is the first step on the road to freedom and prosperity, for as long as you believe yourself to be primarily physical, a superior kind of animal, you will remain in bondage—in bondage, that is to say, to your own habits of thought, for there is no other bondage.”
And as I learned, faith supersedes intellectual capacity and relies on a higher realm of consciousness. And little did I know, the only requirement is willingness. You have to choose faith without reason and without proof.
“The most profound value of a tool is that it takes you beyond what happens inside your head. It connects you to a world infinitely bigger than you are, a world of limitless forces. It doesn’t matter whether you call this the collective unconscious or the spiritual world. I found it simplest to call it the “higher world,” and the forces it contains I call “higher forces.”
- Phil Stutz
The Way
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