To Know Requires Faith

A spirit teacher shares His understanding of timeless wisdom.
He tells me that knowing is not a matter of faith, and yet
there can be no knowing without faith.

What has faith to do with knowing?

How do we learn?

Through experience.

Yes, but not through experience alone.

We reflect on past experiences and use what we
have learned from them as foundations for future …

Future what?

To guide us in our responses to future challenges.

And if what experience has taught you differs from
what others would claim to be the way to live?

This is developing beyond intellectual concepts.

Yes.

Then please explain.

Knowing is awareness.

Awareness of what?

Awareness of what seems to be true, for us, if for
no other.

Where does faith come in?

We each, in time, develop faith in our own knowing,
or awareness; of our own truth.

The Price of Expanded Awareness

Spirit tells me that whenever the sudden
sense of awareness of an expanded
so-called reality seems to have blown
our mind, it is helpful to ask ourselves
just where has it blown our mind?

We are now beyond where we had been,
or, more truthfully, we are now beyond
being able to ever again be where we
previously had been.

It is not a matter of choosing to be
less directly engaged with other
characters and situations in the play,
or game of Life, than we once were,
and can honestly be no more.

How to recover from sudden removal
from the close-up action, even though
we may now see it all from a certain
distance as more-or-less meaningless
activity?

That would be an easy-out.

Then, how to respond?

To what?

To the awareness of not being
in the action.

Are you physically removed from it?

Not completely.

Then, what?

I seem to have been recast,
as a member of the audience, but
an audience that influences
the activity on the stage.

Yes. We are never totally disconnected
from either the play or the players.

That’s it.

What is it?

My character is still there, at least
in form. But I now know that I
acted as that character. So, am I
an actor?

Yes and no.

I want to be real.

What would real look like?

I’m not sure. I can see what is
happening, from a distance, as well as
from close-up.

Are you now more or less engaged
in the play?

I seem to be more aware of
the potential for expansion in
the value of the play.

Yes, and that expanded awareness comes
with a price you must pay.

Expanded responsibility?

Yes.

Note: Dear Reader, Spirit suggests that we each spend
a few minutes at the beginning and again at the ending
of each day, reflecting on the seemingly nonsensical
world we live in, and then to smile with awareness
of the incredible potential, locked within all that
seems to make no sense, waiting to be activated.
Jean

Heroes come and go

Spirit shares perennial wisdom with me,
and with anyone else who cares to listen
to our more-or-less private dialogue.

But, it is a dialogue with a difference.
How so? Spirit seems to know and, at time,
so I suspect, directs my thoughts, and
even my emotions.

But, He must pull them from a pool of
previously existing collection (in my mind,
or in my small share of cosmic mind), I do
recognize them as my own, more or less.

In this respect (as well as in depth of
awareness and intelligence) He has
a great advantage over me.

I can often suspect how He would likely respond
to whatever I might say, do, think, or feel, but
He often catches me by surprise with thoughts
far beyond what I might have suspected.

Why? Perhaps I have still to develop appropriate
respect for the depth of …

Why did you not refer to My depth? Am I less
than my thoughts, to you?

I’ve been there and I’ve done that.

What?

Hero worship.

Perhaps you worshipped the wrong heroes.

Are there right heroes?

For whom?

For me.

No.

Why?

You would, in time, find faults with them,
as you do with Me.

You seem to go out of your way to ensure
that I find faults with you.

Yes.

Why?

Your addiction to hero worship is
a stumbling block on the path
to truth. Truth is forever.

And Heroes come and go?

Yes.

Acceptance follows Awareness

Spirit shares words of wisdom with me, and with
whomever else cares to join our one-to-one sessions.

Spirit tells me that acceptance follows awareness
or it does not.

But, this is not our I Ching lesson.

This is a truth that goes beyond I Ching.

How can truth go beyond a way to truth?

It must, of necessity.

As in the goal being beyond the journey?

Yes.

But, if a goal is beyond a journey, or path,
to that goal, then how can it ever be reached.

It cannot.

Then why do some of us struggle to find and
then to follow our way to wherever if
wherever does not exist?

It does exist, and it calls us to itself.

But, why struggle to go there if we can
never reach it?

We do reach it.

How?

As we travel towards truth, truth is
also moving towards us.

Is there a half-way meeting place?

No.

Then what?

As we absorb truth, truth is also absorbing
us. We become one.

But not equal parts of one?

Yes, never equal, for we are becoming;
we are even now, one within an all-
inclusive one.

Wow! But, back to awareness and acceptance.

We can never go back.

Limits are for pushing

Spirit tells me that limits are for pushing.
We seem to need to know that whatever we
have become and however we have expanded
boundaries that once seemed as horizons and
beyond our reach, we must go even further.

We are, as we were, much more than curious.
We are, as we were, determined to discover
how far we yet can go.

How far is it possible for us to go?

In reality, there are no limits.

Visualize Limits as Horizons

Spirit asks me to visualize my limits as horizons, not as boundaries, as I seem to do. As we move closer to the horizon, it adopts our pace and moves forward, too, as if in a game to maintain the distance of separation from us.

You may reach boundaries, He tells me, but horizons? Never.

The horizons of your understanding are waiting to lure you far beyond your so-called, and perhaps, self-imposed  limitations.

I need to learn not to know

Spirit tells me that I need to learn not to know, in the sense that I can

Accept and understand that there is no absolute knowledge beyond

Which there is nothing more to learn about whatever.

 

Science serves us well in reaching beyond the limits of our present

Understanding and providing us with ever-more insights into

Whatever.

 

But, even scientists know there is more that can be and will be learned

About whatever.

 

That’s fine for scientists, but I seem to need to believe in something.

 

Do you believe in me?

 

Yes.

 

That’s something.

 

 

 

Thinking is a game

Spirit tells me that thinking is a game and perhaps He’s right.I somehow need to struggle with ideas and Spirit provides me (bless His soul), with a seemingly endless supply of these.

Sometimes I think I know the what and why of a particular mental challenge He slips into my mind, but, before I can take hold of the how, it slips away, as my inner resources suddenly collapse, as a balloon does, when filled to beyond capacity with hot air.

Spirit smiles at my distress and suggests that I accept that there are games in this world, and beyond, that are beyond me, at least for now, and that I should be able to recognize games that I can’t yet win.

Stop. He spoke of this world and beyond. Now I challenge Him. How can there be a beyond if there is only one world?

“There is and yet there will always be a beyond”.

“As in Buzz Lightyear’s “to infinity and beyond”? (Buzz is a Toy Story character).”

“Yes and no.”

“How?”

“Our world expands to infinity, and expanding awareness is our mode of travel.”

How can I argue with such beautiful logic?

..…………..

With a little help from our friends

Spirit tells me that, with help from friends and some others,

We can become more than we now are, in some areas of

Our life.

 

But, He cautions, this also requires intention. We must will

To do more, to be more, and to learn whatever it is that

We must learn to move beyond where we now are.

Before we can do even that, we must be consciously

Aware of what we are, where we are and what and

Where we intend to be.

 

We are all as one in purpose, He tells me, to express

What we are in essence, both individually and

Collectively, for the benefit of self, community, and Life.

 

Living this moment brings us to the next one.

Spirit tells me that

I cannot move beyond

What I am, but, that

I have moved beyond

What I once was, or

Where I once was,

Which is another way of

Saying the same thing.

 

We are moving forward,

He assures me, when I

Get discouraged and wonder

If I am going anywhere

Along the path of

Enlightenment.

 

Many grade three students

Want to be in grade five, but

We must accept that we can usually

Only advance one grade

At a time.

 

Trust me, He asks,

That we will get there,

Wherever there is,

And beyond.

 

But, for now, we are

Where we are. So,

Let’s enjoy who we are, now.

 

Living this moment

Brings us

 To the next one.