is Faith.
Faith is a choosing and a resolution all at once.
Faith is a total commitment -- a jump into the river, fear and all.
Faith has nothing whatever to do with either Belief or Disbelief.
Beliefs and Disbeliefs are rocks -- stepping stones in the river of life to help us bridge over what is unknown. But there comes a time when we MUST, in faith, jump into the unknown. There is no question about that. If we haven't got around to it before the day we die, dying will take care if it. Once we're in the river, the rocks of Belief and Disbelief, become sangs to get caught up on.
In faith, nothing can be held back or taken back. If we have moved totally, how can we go back? If you find that you can go back on something, you did not leap in faith. You are still connected to "back there".
Faith is absolute. We cannot be half-pregnant.
Faith is like being born again. When we surrender to it, we are totally in. Nobody can pull us back.
It is Fear which prevents us from leaping into faith. Fear underlies all our stuckness.
And Fear can propel us into faith. Fear can slam us into the wall so hard that it loses its grip on us.
Fear is a gateway to Transformation
Fear is an indecision:of energies: half of you wants to go, and half of you wants to stay. Half has heard the call of the Unknown; and half clings to the Familiar. We are caught in the middle of the pull of equally opposing forces. Because the familiar is known, there is less fear in it.
Where Fear is, however, lies the way to transformation.
Are you at a crisis of intersection? In which direction lies the greater fear?
Good. Go there.
What do you tell yourself you have to fear?
The half that fears -- the half that clings to the familiar, belongs to a dying past.
The half that is excited belongs to the living Now, ready to experience the uncharted. In anything new you become ecstatic. The so-called "fear of the unknown" is actually Excitement, with a negative label attached.
Fear divides me, producing irresolution and confusion. One leg pointing toward the unknown, the other stuck in the past. I cannot move in this position. As the opposing forces course back and forth through me, I shudder and shake, numb with indecision.
Irresolute and stuck.
Anxious and undecided.
Life keeps flowing on around me, and I remain
Marooned on an iceberg of cold terror.
Icebergs melt.
In fear, my life is contradictory. I do something with one hand, and immediately undo it with another..
Irresolute and scared.
At a Sufi monastery in Bokhara, I am told, each monk wears a two-sided sign.
On one side is written:-
I am negative.
Please, don't take me seriously
If I say something wrong,
I am not really saying it to you.
Because I am negative,
I am filled with hatred, anger and depression.
And if I do something wrong
That is because of my negativity,
Not because you are wrong.
On the other side of the sign is written:-
I am positive, loving and affectionate.
Please don't take me seriously.
If I say you are beautiful,
I am not saying anything about you --
I am feeling high.
Whatever I am feeling, please don't take me seriously. I don't (except sometimes)
My first lesson in counselling was this -- if someone vomits, he is not throwing anything up on me;
He is simply expectorating something that is disturbing him.
We become master-full when we can say --
I am neither negative nor positive;
I am both negative and positive.
I am one. I am all of it.
I am whole
Until then, I am always contradicting myself. On one hand I am doing something good, and on the other hand there is a mole in my camp, doing something to undermine that in me which has gone on ahead. "I" feels divided and irresolute. One part of me wants to venture into the unknown, the rest wants to cling to old habits and ways of doing things. Part of me wants to become a butterfly; part wants to remain a caterpillar. I get stuck, like a learner driver unable to decide between the accelerator or the brake.pedals.
One thing I know: there is no room any longer for half-heartedness -- not that there ever was, really. But stuck with one foot on a departing bus and the other glued to the bus stop, I end up in the gutter. Hell is a place where people end up when they get stuck. Heaven is a place of freedom and responsibility -- still fearful and excited perhaps, but moving always into the unknown...
In faith
Not tethered to anything, either Back There or Up Ahead.......
Not clinging to anything ---
Not even clinging to love, to god, to enlightenment, to enjoyment, to meditation, to prayer ---
Clinging to anything is....clinging..... and we are stuck again!
Let go. Remain free and moving in faith and trust.
The further I move into the Unknown, the closer I get to my Self.
A river has no goal, no idea of destination or timetable.
It does not even know of the existence of the ocean,
The river simply moves, unconcerned.
It does not stop at each bend and ask directions where to go,
It does not become fearful when the way turns south instead of continuing west;
The river trusts the flow.
and reaches the all-encompassing ocean.
And the ocean does not yearn to be the goal of anything. It is content to be what it is in the scheme of things.
Having fallen into a river, I can attest............
You will get there faster if you let go;
And the more you strive to reach, the more you will get stuck on the rocks and snags
Because you are afraid of them,
And in your fear, you fail to notice
That the river goes around the rocks, not through them.
Between the rising headwater spring and the arrival at the ocean
There is one thing you can do about the river of life --
Love it. Enjoy the journey.
It is the fear of "missing" something that gripes us;
It is the fear of not-reaching that cripples and snags us;
It is the fear of going somewhere "wrong" that paralyses us.
Faith in the flow holds fear in its embrace
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