Faith

Faith is the request that a person’s actions be tied to that of the universe. It is a humble submission to those ceaseless forces which permeate this existence for a more encompassing set of actions, thoughts, and purpose. The man and woman of faith is always active, and is constantly asking that such activity be aligned to the grander framework of universal existence. And because such requests are always answered, faith provides a limitless source of energy to those in need, transforming the potential to the kinetic and dignifying every type of human effort.

It is essential that faith be distinguished from delusion. There are many people in this world today who have subscribed to beliefs that are based in fear, in separation, in a distorted sense of meaning which accepts the suffering of others or the debasement of those who are different. Faith derives from the universal, and as such, it calls for the recognition that you are that, that the soul of another is in fact your own soul as well. Faith does not tolerate belief systems which devalue any other sort of sentience, but recognizes that when a person calls for the death of another, that person is calling for the death of himself. Faith points out that by eradicating an idea, we necessarily chip away at all ideas, and that when we sully a part of the grand unifying spirit of the universe, no matter how small, we tarnish its entirety.

Faith, then, is tied to emancipation. To see ourselves in others is to liberate our soul from one tiny vessel and reunite it at every moment with the potency and majesty of the Almighty. Faith leads to freedom and the end of slavery. It says that the suffering of one is the suffering of all and recognizes that only when all people are liberated will everyone’s freedom be truly guaranteed.

Faith is the path to spiritual awakening. Religion is the vehicle to this path — and just as there are many roads which lead to the mountain, so are there many religious frameworks for discovering true faith. At some point, a seeker must leave the torrential river of mass religious belief and canoe down her own individual tributory if she seeks communion with something larger than herself. There is much a Hindu can learn from Jesus, just as there is much that a Muslim can learn from the Buddha or a Christian from Mohammed. Anyone who takes the time to compare religious belief will eventually reach the conclusion that every religion eventually asks its adherent to seek out her own truth for herself, to look within for answers. This is the last but most challenging “leap of faith” required for every spiritualist: to let go of the training wheels of religion and seek liberation with her own mind and heart.

Faith is thus deeply personal, and one ought to be wary of people who wear their faith as a loud garment, for they are likely to change it as thoughtlessly as any other piece of clothing. Faith is the key to the lockbox of the soul — and any person who values her inner core will guard that treasure carefully, and hand out keys only to a few.

In the West, there are many people who are religious, even devoutly so, but there are few men and women of faith. We have traded in the hard work of individual spiritual discovery for mass entertainment and diversion. The ageless wisdom contained in every human gathers dust. Technology is our new god, worshipped for the benefits it bestows on our material senses and the power it grants to those who crave dominion over others.

The division of the spiritual from the political has been a great failing of Western society. Where other civilizations have been able to call forth their greatest spiritual minds in times of manifest political crises — Gandhi amongst the people of South Asia, the Dalai Lama amongst the people of Tibet, Chief Joseph amongst the Nez Perce, to name only a few examples — the trembling earthquakes of destruction which loom heavy over Western civilization have called few men or women of spirit into action. In other cultures, those individuals who must remind the people of their duties to each other and to the Earth become the first warriors for the cause of the common good, their righteousness a product of the sanctified union of truth and compassion; but in the West, such men and women — from the pope to the sidewalk preacher — remain silent or (perhaps more fairly) unheard through the jungle of distraction contained in our computers and televisions.

And when such giants of faith have appeared, we in the West have not treated them with the respect they ought to have commanded. The Western warriors of faith who walked this Earth in the 20th century — people like Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, John Lennon, and others who were able to inspire in others a universal vision of peace — were quickly gunned down and then later memorialized. We kill our prophets then remorsefully worship them out of guilt. It is a silly and perhaps disgusting archetype that extends even to the main figure of adoration in the West, Jesus. The Shawnee leader Tecumseh once wryly noted to his oppressors, “When Jesus Christ came upon the earth, you killed him, the son of your own God, you nailed him up! You thought he was dead, but you were mistaken. And only after you thought you killed him did you worship him, and start killing those who would not worship him. What kind of a people is this for us to trust?”

Now we live at a time when there is a deep need for men and women of all languages, religious beliefs and cultures to look past beyond the convenient illusions produced by modern life and call for a tectonic shift in our attitudes and values. We need a new generation of spiritual warrior who shines amongst the fearful, the anxious, the depressed and the ambivalent, and sets an example for others to follow. We need people who have discovered their own path to freedom and who can showcase this lifestyle to others interested in their own freedom — for in the end, a person is only liberated when all others have found that same liberation as well.

For every one hundred people who talk of positive social change, there is only one person who is actively producing such change by committing herself to her own liberation. We cannot be so arrogant so as to presume we can save other people. We should begin with ourselves, and chisel out a path to freedom based on our own personal journey. By looking within, we will eventually discover the basic truth that is lacking in our era: that we are affected by the conditions of other people. If but one person could cultivate this faith that I speak of, she would shine so brightly that anyone who met her would be instantly changed, and would seek this faith himself. This is the only mechanism for the achievement of peace and liberty on this planet.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 22nd, 2006 at 7:44 pm and is filed under Freedom and Spiritualism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.