Faith has an expiration date...

[karen]

...and it's two weeks.

At least for me that's been the time frame that would indicate if a certain course of action is worth continuing with or not.

Now I can have a goal that might take longer than two weeks to finish. It could take years. But if I don't see some kind of positive results (being mindful not to be velocitized in the absence of the so-called negative), I'll move on.

But to have faith in the absence of results, that's been nothing but trouble for me.

And for me, if action can survive two weeks, it seems to be the way to go.

Do you think similarly?

[Peter]

Well for me, it really depends on what you're doing and what time frame it would be reasonable to expect results in.

I mean, if you were holding your breath, then I think two weeks would be excessive. On the other hand if you were trying to bring about world peace by writing sternly worded letters to global leaders, then that might take a while longer.

It also depends how badly you want it. Waiting for the love of your life might be worth a couple of years, but I usually give up on the number 35 bus after 15 minutes.

A friend and I were discussing this sort of thing just the other day - when to press on regardless, and when to throw in the towel and say sod it. Wwe came to the agreement that - in general - if you're following the right path then it should a) seem relatively easy b) feel 'right' . But there is a school of thought that the challenges get harder the greater the prize. Also "It's darkest just before the dawn", etc.

What is it you're up to?

P

PS Nice neologism with the word velocitized - had to resort to The Urban Dictionary to get that one defined for me.

[zendancer]

Karen: I fall into Peter's camp on this. If it feels right, then invest whatever amount of time is necessary to get the results you're looking for. The path to non-duality is a bit different than most other paths. I'm not sure that most people would see quantifiable results in two weeks because a lot of what's happening is happening below the surface, and it takes quite a while to consciously perceive it.

I meditated for fun back in the early seventies without any strong reason for doing so, and after two or three weeks, I got bored and quit. I never saw any results at all. Ten years later, however, my situation had radically changed. I had become aware of how my internal conversation and incessant thoughts were creating a lot of stress, so I had a much stronger motivation to try meditation (to alleviate stress). After only a few days, I realized that my meditation practice was changing how I perceived the world, and that gave me another strong reason to continue what I was doing. As a scientist, I became curious about what would happen if I continued practicing, and I also saw how the practice was making me become aware of things that had previously been hidden by my thinking. For example, I had not seen any animals or birds for years, and I had absent-mindedly assumed that they had all been killed off. Ten days after starting to meditate, I took a walk through the countryside one afternoon and saw birds and squirrels for the first time in a long time. I was shocked to realize that they had been there all along, but I had been living so totally in my head, that I had only been looking at my thoughts rather than reality. I therefore got some relatively rapid feedback from what I was doing. Someone who hadn't been living so totally in his head might have taken a lot longer to realize what was happening. It also would depend upon how much time per day one was spending in non-conceptual awareness. I started with an hour per day and soon increased that amount to two hours and eventually three hours. Someone practicing only thirty minutes per day might not see any significant results for a year or so. Intensity and duration, therefore, may be significant factors.

The other thought I had along this line is that scientists often build equipment and perform experiments that take a long time to get results. Sometimes they do this based on faith in truth claims made by other scientists. They won't be able to corroborate the results for a long time, but they have faith that they can acquire the necessary experience to do so at some point in the future. On this site there are a number of people who are saying that it is possible to wake up, but the time required for that occur varies considerably. Some people here have apparently awakened very quickly whereas others have done so only after searching for fifteen or twenty years.

Zen has a koan about this issue. It goes like this: A man sits in deep samadhi for three million years, but never wakes up. Why? This koan points to the mystery of why some people wake up and some don't. There are no guarantees on this path, and that is the way God wants it to be. God has a fantastic sense of humor and has constructed a world that provides for maximum potential amusement.

On the other hand, if someone sets out on the non-dual path (if that's what you are referring to) and thinks that it can be understood in some intellectual sense within a certain amount of time, then she might as well quit now, because it isn't going to happen. You can spend a hundred years thinking about this stuff, and you will be no closer to the truth than the day you first began.

Is any of this relevant to what you were asking? Cheers. ZD

[karen]

Thanks guys. I wasn't being clear, and I wasn't revealing the assumed context that you would not know of course.

I was contrasting faith as belief - such as having faith in Jesus for example - rather than faith expressed in action were at least I can feel momentum.

For so much of my life faith was vapid, and dark, and "out there". Whereas me having faith in taking a genuine new direction has usually been revealed in a two week time frame it seems - rather than I setting up an ultimatum that if or that goal isn't met I move on.

Two weeks seems to describe what it is, rather than I trying to make what it is be some set time frame if you get my drift.

[zendancer]

Karen: I understand now what you were writing about. Yes, having faith as it is usually described in conventional religions is a rather static thing. Here, people are actively trying to penetrate various mind-generated illusions and discover the underlying truth of reality--a much more action-oriented program.

[jimmytantric]

After 30 years on this mystical spiritual journey I have come to only one conclusion I know nothing. Faith is not a problem Karen it's wanting something for it that is.

[zendancer]

jimmytantric: You're way ahead of me. LOL. After 45 years on this mystical spiritual journey, I haven't yet reached any conclusions. I know lots of interesting stuff, but the most important is not-knowing. Words and thoughts float away, and we remain, twirling in emptiness, laughing and laughing, joyously reveling in being danced.

jimmytantric, Karen, Zendancer, Lightmystic, Alpha, Peter, Vacant, loverofall, and everyone else at this wonderful masquerade ball are all dancing around without going anywhere. How splendid!

[Portto]

Nov 6, 2009 9:48:22 GMT -5 zendancer said:

are all dancing around without going anywhere. How splendid!

Now you are spoiling somebody's fun: some of us like to believe we are going somewhere. Or at least that we are approaching awakening. ;D
It keeps us busy and it gives us the impression that we are doing something.

[zendancer]

Porto: That's why I don't usually respond like jimmy. I enjoyed the path of discovering that there was nothing to discover and that there was no path. It was a hoot, and the joke was on me. Both of us are pointing to the same thing, but I prefer to act and teach "as if" something can be done and "as if" progress can be made. As you say, why spoil all the fun? LOL

[Portto]

I was joking, you're not spoiling anybody's fun - unless they are willing to look into it. But then it's not you spoiling the fun. (I'm sure you know)

Something is being done, I just don't know who is doing it and why.
There seems to be a path - but it's not being build by the mind, and the mind doesn't decide by itself to walk on it.

[zendancer]

Precisely!

[vacant]

but I prefer to act and teach "as if" something can be done and "as if" progress can be made.

Fascinating! ZD, I'm glad you feel that way, it gives me something to chew on (and others here no doubt). And I th-th-think I know why too, but just for that fun, can you say more about why you would prefer that?

[as shadow]

theres nothing to say

so

theres always more to say



beauty, bliss, truth, amazement, hilarity

is

awareness drifts between

everything and nothing

as if...

[zendancer]

Vacant: I could write a lot about this, but here's the bottom line; if I tell people that there is nothing they can do to wake up, something unknown will happen. If I tell them that there are specific things they can do to wake up, something unknown will happen. It is all unknown, but I like the flavor of telling people to focus upon what they can see and hear. If they do this (and whether they will or not is a total mystery), I think it will pull them away from their internal television sets and reveal reality to them. In one sense the script has already been written, and all of us are just playing out our determined roles. My role is to tell people to focus upon what they can see and hear. I think it will burn through their illusions, increase their ultimate happiness, and lead to enlightenment, but that's just an idea. Tony Parsons tells people that there is nothing they can do to wake up (which is true, because who they think they are does not exist). He's pointing at the same thing I am, but from a different direction. Some people hear him say that, and it rings their bell. A lot of people have awakened as a result of Tony's teaching. I suspect that this is because many of those people have searched like crazy without finding what they want, and when they are confronted with his paradoxical-sounding teaching, it short circuits their minds and lets the truth shine through. But this is just another idea.

It may just be a personality thing. I am an over-the-top optimist, I enjoy life, and I love to share the joy. Life can be a lot of fun if you ignore your thinking, so I tell people to ignore their thinking. When I focus upon what I can see and hear, there is no me; this body/mind starts beaming from ear to ear, and there is immense gratitude. I suspect that anyone else who focuses upon what they can see and hear will sooner or later experience the same sort of thing. This is my story and I'm sticking to it!

This issue is what Jesus was pointing to when he talked about the farmer who sowed some seeds. Some seeds fell on rocks, some on clay, and some on fertile soil. Someone may hear the message and wake up. Someone may hear the message and remain asleep. Someone may hear the message and start down the path. Oneness is talking to oneness, but how oneness will respond is totally unknowable. This is obviously how oneness wants reality to function. I support any message that attempts to stop the mind and catapult the listener into the unknown. Cheers.

[lightmystic]

For me, faith is simply a kind of being honest with myself. Trusting life has always worked out, 100% of the time, even if I didn't recognize it at the time. Trying to personally control everything (or really anything), at best didn't help, and at worst made a mess of things. So if I'm really being honest with myself, then trusting life is the only thing to do and worth doing. And there's really no choice either when it comes down to it, because it's not under my control. That's the recognition, along with the fact that life always does things FOR me, not TO me.

It can be scary to let go of the illusion of control and let life drive, as it has always done, but it's a faith based on direct experience and recognition of what is already going on. It's not blind faith, which is some limited idea of things being the way we want if ignore responsibility for ourselves and our life. It's a trust based on past experience, even if it's scary to do that.

I am not, however, in any way implying that anyone on this forum is blindly having faith, but I want to make the distinction, because I think that clarifies things.

Nov 4, 2009 17:01:01 GMT -5 karen said:

Thanks guys. I wasn't being clear, and I wasn't revealing the assumed context that you would not know of course.

I was contrasting faith as belief - such as having faith in Jesus for example - rather than faith expressed in action were at least I can feel momentum.

For so much of my life faith was vapid, and dark, and "out there". Whereas me having faith in taking a genuine new direction has usually been revealed in a two week time frame it seems - rather than I setting up an ultimatum that if or that goal isn't met I move on.

Two weeks seems to describe what it is, rather than I trying to make what it is be some set time frame if you get my drift.