2013-11-15-Foundations of Faith

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Facilitators

Session

Lesson

Thought Adjuster: “How can we keep our balance in a changing world? Many people have seen their faith vanish when the discoveries of science demonstrate that many of the things that they believed in are actually false. These disillusions produce a sensation of abandonment and sometimes rob us of the certainty we thought we had about our destiny. However, science and true religion do not have to be opposites. It is possible to live a religious life that survives science’s revelations of the mysteries of physical reality.

The problem is that people often base their faith on legends and the supernatural occurrences of the traditions of their respective religions. Similarly, a lot of what is considered spirituality is equally based on fantasies that are nothing but the inventions of some minds that are overly creative, albeit well-intentioned. When these believers are faced with the fact that their beliefs are evidently false, the weak foundations of their faith crumble and they face the choice of either starting over or leaving behind their spiritual investigations, opting often for the latter alternative.

I propose that you establish stronger foundations for your faith. Do not put all the scaffolding of your personal religion on stories and events you have not experienced personally. Consider as the fundamental truth the fact that there is a God that is your Father and that His presence is within you. This is all you need to guide yourself on your journey of spiritual exploration. Do not place too much trust in spiritual teachers, gurus, legends of the past, or sacred books. Just deposit your trust in your own experience when trying to make contact with the living presence of the Father within you.

The contact with the presence of God is unlike the contact with another person. This presence is a part of you and you cannot talk to yourself as if you were a stranger. Instead, search within your mind the answers you need and try to find the highest expressions of truth, beauty, and goodness, in your thoughts and your actions. Learning to think this way will allow you to start tapping into the wisdom that is already within you, something that many have not learned to access yet. This is learning to think independently, when you discover that the truths you need to guide your life toward progressive perfection can be found inside you. With practice you will see that using your mind for the purpose it was given to you – as the playground where you build your own reality – you can really connect to something beyond yourself. It is this spiritual presence that elevates a human being and motivates her to be better every day, getting increasingly closer to the realm of self-mastery and perfection of being.”