The Ultimate Faith

“Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.”
~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

How true is this line from Martin Luther King, Jr. Everyone possesses faith. It’s just that it is expressed in varying degrees in various people. When in difficult times, we often hear these words, “Just have faith, it will work out.” These words makes us feel good and helps us gain the strength to overcome the problems we are facing. Over time, we learn to have faith in friends, in well-wishers, parents, and in our own selves, in our own qualities and capabilities or simply in the art of staying optimistic and positive.Children have immense faith in their parents and teachers. Youngsters develop lots of beliefs, false or otherwise, due to their faith in friends and off latein social media. Thus, throughout life, our faith keeps changing.

But unlike all this, today we shall look at the Ultimate Form of Faith.

A purer and higher form of faith is faith in God (Supreme Consciousness, Universal Self, life, nature or anything that you believe holds the ultimate power). And many a time, this faith indeed comes to fruition and people manage to achieve what they desire.

Although faith in God is a purer and higher form of faith, it is still not the pinnacle of faith. Be it faith in God or faith in friends or relatives, such faith is based on the assumption that we are the body-mind—the limited individual being. If we remain stuck with this identity of ourselves, we can express faith only to the extent that fulfils the needs and desires of the body-mind alone. And this brings about very limited results.

The purpose of human life is to attain the highest form of faith, happiness, freedom, love and peace. However, rare are such souls as Jesus, Lord Buddha, Adi Shankaracharya, Saint Kabir, Prophet Muhammad, and other self-realized masters who could experience the highest form of faith. It was possible for them because they were awakened to the Truth that they were not limited to their body-minds, but were unlimited beings. They realized the truth that they were within God and God was within them. These enlightened souls could express the ultimate faith of who they truly are.

Everybody thinks that God created man, and everybody lives with this belief. But it is very difficult to understand the truth that God did not create man, but God became man. Faith in this truth is the ultimate form of faith that gives the ultimate results. This faith can be called as the Faith of God, and not faith in God.

Faith of God means the faith that God had while creating this world. What was the Faith of God? God created the world with the faith that His creations would be a medium for Him to experience Himself and express His own qualities and possibilities. He took innumerable forms with the desire to experience Himself through every possible creation. This is exactly like an ocean taking the form of a droplet—that emerges from the ocean and dissolves into the ocean. Since the droplet has emerged from the ocean, it has no individual existence without the ocean. Each droplet is the ocean itself. If you observe a droplet under the microscope, you will find that the droplet is nothing but the ocean; the properties of the droplet are exactly the same as the ocean. It’s just that the ocean has created many droplets of itself.

Although God experiences Himself through various other forms like animals, birds, trees, etc., He took the human form to know Himself consciously (in complete awareness). This possibility does not exist in other forms; there the experience of being is happening unconsciously. It is through the human form alone that God forgets Himself and then rejoices in re-remembering His divinity. The operator of each one of our bodies is no one else but God and this is our true identity. Each one of us is an expression of God. We have been created to admire, appreciate and enjoy our own creation and various qualities through different bodies. We are here with our bodies to enjoy the divine game of life (leela) that our Creator is playing with Himself.

So, are the droplets of the ocean separate from each other or from the ocean? No, they are just different expressions of the same ocean. Therefore, it is just an illusion that we all are separate from each other and from our higher Self. The five fingers of our hand are all different. The smallest finger is not supposed to grumble about its size and live a sad life. Neither is the tallest finger supposed to develop ego that it is the tallest. All five fingers belong to the body performing different functions, and it is the body that is experiencing various experiences with the help of the five fingers. The fingers are just the medium; the experiencer is the body. In the same way, while each ‘body-mind’ is different, the experiencer is only one.True spirituality is about knowing and understanding the experiencer, your true Self.

Having Faith of God means understanding that whatever is true for God is true for us. The ‘God’ we refer to here is not a man-made God that we have been seeing on TV and movies. The name ‘God’ is used with the sheer purpose of convenience. Here ‘God’ is referred to as the Supreme Power, which is formless, which is beyond every religion and associated beliefs of God. It is the Source of love, joy, peace and creativity. It is the living principle that pervades everyone and everything. It is that which is eternal and nameless, yet, each one of us is blessed with a free will to name the Ultimate Truth in a way that helps us to raise our faith.

How does the ocean see the droplet? Full of Godly qualities and magnificent possibilities. And how does the droplet see itself? The droplet thinks, “I am so little… I am insignificant… I have less than others.” The droplet cannot release its faith until someone reminds it of its true nature. With this analogy of the droplet, man too is reminded of his grand nature.

So, are you considering yourself helpless, or insignificant? Is this what God or your higher self-thinks about you? No. In truth, whenever you think such negative thoughts, God instantly sends you a message in the form of a bad feeling. This is how God wants to let you know that He doesn’t think this way about you. God very well knows that what you think about yourself is not your true nature. He wants to remind you the truth, “You are one with me… you are my expression. You have the same powers that I have.” However, man rarely listens to His voice. Rather, he doesn’t even know or believe that God talks to him.

Thus, whenever you experience self-pity and associated bad feelings, remind yourself to welcome Godly thoughts and ask yourself, “How does God see me? Helpless…? Worthless…? A low profile person…?” Of course not! Instead, God has a grander vision about each one of us. He has a divine plan brimming with love, joy, peace and abundance working for you. The bad feelings that you experience are actually a springboard to jump higher, it is a push from God to break the limitations of the mind and fly high. Otherwise, a person, who is stuck in comforts and conveniences, doesn’t make an effort by himself to take the next leap of faith until nature pushes him through these negative feelings. It is when he gets tired of negative feelings that he decides to break through self-imposed limitations and make progress.

If the first step to express the height of faith is to identify Godly thoughts, the second step is to verbalize them. Choose to give voice to Godly thoughts. Let divine words flow from within. This is the VOICE OF FAITH. ‘Faith’ here indicates that you believe in your divinity, you have total conviction that you are the Universal truth, the AllPowerful Self, and therefore when you utter something, it has to come true. Always remember: WHAT IS TRUE FOR GOD, IS TRUE FOR ME.

Whenever you get negative feelings, consider what God would say when such feelings are encountered. For example, when there is unhappiness, He would probably say, “I have made man in my image to experience and express happiness. I AM THE SOURCE OF JOY.” When there is no love, he would say,“I have made man in my image to experience and express love. This world is an expression of unconditional love. I AM THE SOURCE OF LOVE.” When there is restlessness, irritation or anger, he would say,“I have made man in my image to experience and express peace. I AM THE SOURCE OF PEACE. I AM THE SOURCE OF LOVE.”

All such statements are voice of faith and it will remind you of your true self—full of health, wealth, love, joy, peace and prosperity. To express faith, feel all this and speak it out mentally or aloud.As soon as you use the voice of faith, you will shift back to your true Self. You will detach yourself from the incident your body is in.This is faith in the unseen, higher possibility; faith in something divine that is yet to manifest in physical form. Even if it seems too good to be true, faith has the power to put an end to the problems that trouble you.

Summary:

Each one of us possesses faith, but this faith keeps changing throughout life and also it varies in degree from person to person. A purer and higher form of faith is faith in God, but all such forms of faith are based on the assumption that we are the body-mind—the limited individual being. They bring about limited result. Faith of God is the height of faith. To express the height of faith, we need to identify Godly thoughts and verbalize them. Let divine words flow from within. This is the VOICE OF FAITH which can become your reality.