A question about faith

[bito]

Is faith really faith if we have faith in something?

[schrodinger]

Originally Posted by bito

Is faith really faith if we have faith in something?

I don't have faith enough in my faith, to post an answer that you could have faith in.

[bito]

Originally Posted by schrodinger

I don't have faith enough in my faith, to post an answer that you could have faith in.

In dividing faith into a I-subject and an I-object, which you have done above, you have projected upon the screen of your awareness, an illusion that you are two selves. Do you have faith in this illusion of your being one "I" cut in two, one "I" that can judge the other "I" as to the true measure of its faith?

You cannot post an answer that I could have faith in, for true faith is to stand in the spirit of life, aka, pure awareness. In standing in pure awareness/the spirit of life, where the belief in the reality of being a subjective you and an objective you has been dropped, would you not be the living metaphor "faith?"

[schrodinger]

Originally Posted by bito

In dividing faith into a I-subject and an I-object, which you have done above, you have projected upon the screen of your awareness, an illusion that you are two selves. Do you have faith in this illusion of your being one "I" cut in two, one "I" that can judge the other "I" as to the true measure of its faith?

You cannot post an answer that I could have faith in, for true faith is to stand in the spirit of life, aka, pure awareness. In standing in pure awareness/the spirit of life, where the belief in the reality of being a subjective you and an objective you has been dropped, would you not be the living metaphor "faith?"

After a brief consultation with me, myself and I, we are sorry to say that we have no idea what you are talking about.

[Michael]

To have faith is to believe in a constructed idea, whether the idea is valid or not holds no meaning for the person who holds to the faith. Even athiests have faith in the idea that there is no God.

Being, bito, is not faith. In fact, I suspect that faith gets in the way of being.

And Schrodiner, I suspect your reply is more a rhetorical put-down than the considered response you are so capable of supplying. I would also like to digress and add how deeply impressed and moved I was by your post on your near-death experience. I'm sure that it continues to teach you every day. Thank you for posting it.

Have you read Revealations of Divine Love by the English Christian mystic, Julian of Norwich? The revelation came to her when she was 30 and dying. Even though it is utterly Christic it may have significance for you.

I love her for giving us perhaps the most redemptive words I know -

'All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.'

Amen to that

[j000han]

Originally Posted by Michael

To have faith is to believe in a constructed idea, whether the idea is valid or not holds no meaning for the person who holds to the faith. Even athiests have faith in the idea that there is no God.

Yes,
prior to the rejection of a believe and/or faith in any deity and/or creator one must have constructed an id of what one rejects or accepts.
In other words it matters not wehter one believes or does not believe, WHAT matters is the believer or non believer.
It can be fairly asserted that the (non) believer is at the core a product of various cultural imbibed notions be these the latest notions with regard to scientific believes or old fashioned spiritual notions.
Thus the (non) believer is the perpetuation of that cultural movement either s/he rebels against or accepts.

[schrodinger]

Originally Posted by Michael

To have faith is to believe in a constructed idea, whether the idea is valid or not holds no meaning for the person who holds to the faith. Even athiests have faith in the idea that there is no God.

Being, bito, is not faith. In fact, I suspect that faith gets in the way of being.

And Schrodiner, I suspect your reply is more a rhetorical put-down than the considered response you are so capable of supplying. I would also like to digress and add how deeply impressed and moved I was by your post on your near-death experience. I'm sure that it continues to teach you every day. Thank you for posting it.

Have you read Revealations of Divine Love by the English Christian mystic, Julian of Norwich? The revelation came to her when she was 30 and dying. Even though it is utterly Christic it may have significance for you.

I love her for giving us perhaps the most redemptive words I know -

'All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.'

Amen to that

You are right, Michael; I was having a bit of fun with word play, and not trying to give Bito a serious thoughtful response. But it was not meant to be a put down of Bito; just a playful way of answering.
As for my ND experience; it has given me a perspective that I never imagined I would have and I still don’t know how to make the most use of it. Even as profound and powerful as the experience was, I sometimes allow it to slip into the dark recess of my mind. Thank you for reminding me of it again.
Although somewhat reluctantly, I am willing to talk about it, if I am asked, but no one is asking. Maybe that is just as well as I could never use it to preach to others, as I have not fully learned from it myself. You are absolutely right, in that I am still learning from it as I move along with my life.
No, I have not read anything by Julian of Norwich, but now I will surely look to do so. I do believe that all will be well, even though there are times that it certainly does not look that way. The one thing that I can say with absolute certainty is that I now have a greater appreciation for everything, and everyone.
Thank you for writing, Michael.

[Flux]

Actually, this is one of the first posts of bito's that has made some measure of sense to me (no offense intended) and I find it insightful. Bito--to assure myself that I know what it is that you are saying, I'll paraphrase it in my own words, and you can tell me whether I have interpreted you correctly or not. I am highly curious about whether I understand you, so if you would render me the courtesy of a response, I would appreciate it.

I don't have faith enough in my faith, to post an answer that you could have faith in.

--schrodinger

I presume that by "I-subject" bito is referring to the state you are in at a point when you are having faith--faith as a part of the subject, a conceptual act which the subject carries out. I further presume that by "I-object" he is referring to faith as something considered as a separate entity, something that someone has i.e. "my faith". He is objecting to this alleged dichotomy between faith as a part of the subject and faith as an object of which the subject is aware of or has. If I understand what bito means, he is saying that you cannot have or not have faith in faith--to say either is incoherent, a confusion between subject and object, which bito evidently considers to be illusory.

I don't agree with this, but there you go. What I do agree with are elements of what bito has in his second paragraph:

You cannot post an answer that I could have faith in, for true faith is to stand in the spirit of life, aka, pure awareness. In standing in pure awareness/the spirit of life, where the belief in the reality of being a subjective you and an objective you has been dropped, would you not be the living metaphor "faith?"

At this point, Michael supplies his own definition of faith, and accuses bito of conflating faith with being.

To have faith is to believe in a constructed idea, whether the idea is valid or not holds no meaning for the person who holds to the faith....

Being, bito, is not faith. In fact, I suspect that faith gets in the way of being.

I'm not sure that this definition of faith is coherent. "constructed idea" seems to suggest that there is such thing as an "unconstructed idea". What in the world would that be? Even if one holds that a mind can exist for periods of time wherein it does not make constructs, it would seem to me that at such times the mind is simply devoid of ideas, since ideas almost invariably have some sort of structure to them.

There are other possible definitions of faith. One of the most useful ones is "the belief in propositions even when one has insufficient evidence to render the truth of the proposition probable". As useful as this definition is, I don't think that this is the definition that bito is using.

I believe that bito is saying that faith among a class of mental acts that needn’t necessarily have an object. We usually insist that certain mental act must have a subject. i.e., when we have faith, we assume that it is in something, and when we are happy, we assume that we are happy about something. But upon closer inspection, it would appear that happiness doesn't always have an object--one can be happy without being happy about a specific phenomena. The happiness may have been caused by a particular object, but this does not mean that the happiness is about that object. Happiness can be about something, but needn't be.

I think that bito wishes to say something similar about faith--that faith can exist without their being faith in something. If this is to be true, then bito is, as I have already mentioned, evidently not using either of the definitions of faith that either I or Michael supplied. He is rather using faith as the emotion, the mental act--a sort of yielding, letting go, passive awareness. This view of faith is consistent with the existence of times that we have faith in something, such as when we yield to dogma and passively accept it. But like happiness, it is not necessarily for faith to be in something. One can have a feeling of letting go, of "standing in pure awareness" even without having an object towards which these feelings are directed. And in this I think bito is correct.

But then again, I may well have misinterpreted everything that bito said, so he will have to tell me himself whether or not I have understood him properly.

[Michael]

Flux, you wrote:-

'Even if one holds that a mind can exist for periods of time wherein it does not make constructs, it would seem to me that at such times the mind is simply devoid of ideas, since ideas almost invariably have some sort of structure to them'.

I do not 'hold' that a mind can exist for a period of time wherin it does not make constructs.' I have experienced this, so I don't speak from a theoretical position. I think the deference here is that you are speaking about ideas, I am speaking about experience and attempting to pass a little of what I learned on to others. That moment without constructs is indescribable, it was the most beautiful moments of my life. The only problem is that it came out of the blue and went the same way, so I can't suggest how you might access it. Meditation would be the nearest. The experience is simply the realization that all is one, without the concept of one, without the concept of all, without the concept of 'I'. It was a bitter moment when these concepts resumed. Such an experience meets no criterion of faith, nor is it a something as that brings in objectivety. It has led me not to have 'faith' in anything.


Also, examples of unconstructed ideas include not realizing you are in love (realizing it is the constructed idea), attempting to formlate an equation is another example, an unfinished house is another...I could go on.

[bito]

Originally Posted by Michael

Flux, you wrote:-

'Even if one holds that a mind can exist for periods of time wherein it does not make constructs, it would seem to me that at such times the mind is simply devoid of ideas, since ideas almost invariably have some sort of structure to them'.

I do not 'hold' that a mind can exist for a period of time wherin it does not make constructs.' I have experienced this, so I don't speak from a theoretical position. I think the deference here is that you are speaking about ideas, I am speaking about experience and attempting to pass a little of what I learned on to others. That moment without constructs is indescribable, it was the most beautiful moments of my life. The only problem is that it came out of the blue and went the same way, so I can't suggest how you might access it. Meditation would be the nearest. The experience is simply the realization that all is one, without the concept of one, without the concept of all, without the concept of 'I'. It was a bitter moment when these concepts resumed. Such an experience meets no criterion of faith, nor is it a something as that brings in objectivety. It has led me not to have 'faith' in anything.

Also, examples of unconstructed ideas include not realizing you are in love (realizing it is the constructed idea), attempting to formlate an equation is another example, an unfinished house is another...I could go on.

What Michael experienced, albeit for a brief moment, was the dropping away of his constructed self, and during this brief moment of not being aware of any attachment to idea, he experienced union with the very ground, the very source of thought itself.

Michael, you describe the return from this 'beautiful' moment of union, of oneness to the world of constructs as being a bitter moment. The question that begs asking is: why did you forsake the beautiful for the bitter? Where was your faith in the you of no constructs that you could not be, but for a moment, your non-constructed you? You agree with Flux when you say you do not ‘hold’ that a mind can exist for a period of time wherin it does not make constructs’ - are you basing this on this one brief moment that you refused to hold for lack of faith in what it would reveal to you about you?

A question related to faith and to what has been shared about near-death experiences. Near-death experiences are called 'near-death' for a reason. Could it be that this invisible thoughtbody of you of is the you that greets you when your constructed, conditioned thoughtbody of flesh is no more? And if you have not become familiar with this non-constructed, unconditioned you, what will happen to the you in that moment of non-recognition of your non-constructed, unconditioned you? Will you not return to the conditioned you, the flesh of you, again and again until you demonstrate your willingness to forsake the you that is known to you and stand in the living metaphor of faith so as as to be able, without fear, to enter the you that is unknown to you?