Faith and Invention Part 1

We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down.

I’m on a massage table in an healing room surrounded by candles, crystals, raddles and feathers, not sure what to expect. A strange tall hermaphadite statue with a penis and breasts looks down at me, as if questioning me: What are you doing here? Before I can answer, the Shaman enters, asks me to relax, places a crystal on my abdomen, and gets to work.

As he waves his hands over me, I’m shocked at the feeling of energy shifting in my body, waves of tingling sensations rise and subside… When he’s done I feel relieved, noticable lighter, as if emotional pain had truly left me…

How did I get here―to the point where I am taking a Shaman healing class, exercising enough of an open mind to blow emotional traumas into crystals and have conversations about chakras and energy fields…?

The simple answer to that question is faith.

Faith

Miracles are not contrary to nature, but only contrary to what we know about nature.

Faith used to be a dirty word to me, a word that meant foolishly believing in the unreal.

I considered myself a rational person. I told myself that I must see first, and only then will I believe.

Things changed when my family was in crisis. I had no reason to believe that things were going to get better. All of the evidence, the doctors, the accepted facts and statistics, pointed to the contrary: Things, unbearable as they were already, were only going to get worse.

Suicidal thoughts richoetting in my head, I couldn’t continue living without faith. The only way I could pick myself up was to believe that things were going to get better, in spite of evidence. There’s nothing rational about my beliefs, but they make me feel better about living.

Secular Depression

Using logic all on its own to disect the disparate events of life can sometimes tell you how things have happened and may also provide that might help you in preventing future disasters. But logic can't show you the underlying causal forces, can't reveal the mystery or the magic, and can't answer the question "Why?"

The word for the belief system that I used to have, as many do in our non-religious secular society, is called logical positivism. It states that no statements have meaning except those backed by impirical evidence. In other words, until you can show me the numbers, the tests, statistics, and pie charts, we have nothing to discuss.

The founders of logical positivism wanted a society where religion and philosophy was stripped of any power, and where only Science held ultimate truth, the God of a secular world.

For better or for worse, we have this scientifically founded society. The downside of stripping religion and philosophy from our lives―from trying to remove any trace of subjectivity from existence―can be felt in the form of emptiness and depression. Life seems to hold no meaning anymore.

Cutting yourself off from meaning makes it harder to cope with the challenges of the world that happen to you “for no reason.”

There are many grey areas of our existence that science has yet to answer: What happens to us after we die? Why are we here? What is the meaning of life? …And we are supposed to live in this black void of meaninglessness, rejecting any potential answers, as we wait for Science to deliver us?

Not me.

For more on logical positivism, I recommend this well spoken lecture by R.C. Sproul: Failures of Scientific Atheism.

Harnessing Imagination

The interesting thing that happened for my life, is that the more I let myself embrace that dirty f-word called faith, the more that I imagined my life getting better, the more it actually did.

Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life's coming attractions.

Faith requires an exercise in imagination. Taking the “leap of faith” can easily become an act of suicide without seeing the ledge on the other side and believing that you can make the jump.

Visualizing your future as a continuation of unpleasant circumstances is to deny your free will to direct your life. Visualizing catastrophes is an even worse use of imagination. Is a captain stranded at sea truly a victim of circumstance if he’s been asleep at the helm?

We resist faith because we don’t want to be viewed as irrational, or disappointed if reality falls short of our expectations.

It may be safer to accept what is already accepted than it is to venture on any ledge, but don’t expect that lack of action to result in any positive change.

Listening

Isn’t it funny how counter-intuitive listening to your intuition actually is?

I had to commit to a year of living by the question of “What would somebody who loved themselves do” before I could listen to my inner guidance as second nature.

Living according to your inner voice is a surprisingly rational way of working smarter, of working less, but with more results.

Any inner conflict within you will drain your energy and make it harder to accomplish anything you set out to do. I can’t rationalize having my intuition at odds with my mind. The only justifications to ignore my intuition comes from fear, which isn’t a fun way to live.

Without the Shadow of Doubt

Doubt clouds your intentions and dims the light of consciousness. We learn to doubt our inner voice once we are conditioned to prioritize how others perceive us over how we feel.

• What would you be doing if you already were “successful?” If you already had all the money and accolades you could ever need?
• What would you be doing if you knew that you were never going to be successful―never to attain significant wealth or achievement? What would you do to occupy your humble existence?
• In considering your answers to these two questions, which answers overlap? What work would you be doing no matter how others perceived you?

The answers you receive to these questions hold the key to your authenticity.

Live a Life of Ease

I recently applied the above thinking to my own career trajectory and was surprised by the result. I realized that my desire to produce art and to animate has not been nearly as strong as my desire to research and write―specifically into the topics of emotions and consciousness.

Working on my visual skills and getting clients has felt like an uphill battle for a while. I only recently realized that I would never be happy as a visual “hired gun”―taking art commissions or animation jobs in order to execute somebody else’s message. I’ve recently accepted that I am first and foremost a writer, the one conveying the message. I need the freedom to research and write about whatever Providence guides me to.

It’s taken me a long time to be able to say this, but: I trust the path to unfold before me.

We spend so much energy going against who we naturally are, trying to be something we’re not. Life is so much more rewarding when we live like children, simply by letting go and focusing on what comes easy and naturally to us.