"your faith is just that - a belief"
Absolutely! And even though people may belong to a particular Faith, and be a practicing member thereof, their CONCEPTION of what that is, and the portions of it that they truly BELIEVE are individual and variable from person to person.
However, that is not what is generally understood to be the case. More typically I think it is assumed that if you belong to a particular religion that you are coming from the same place as everyone else in that religion.
My Teacher, Adi Da, suggests that you never know what a single thing IS. You may know lots about it (all being personal conceptions and value judgments), but you never know what it actually IS. He says more about this in this paragraph:
Reality Is An Immense Paradox That Cannot (From any conditional point of view) Be Comprehended. Ultimately, All conditional Efforts To Investigate Reality and Figure It Out Are Confounded. Only Reality Itself Comprehends Itself (and whatever and All That Is conditionally Existing). Therefore, Paradoxically, The Context For Realizing Truth Is The Condition Of Absolute Confoundedness (or Divine Ignorance). Truly, Most Perfect Divine Self-Realization, or Divine Enlightenment, or Most Ultimate Divine Awakening, Requires (As A Prerequisite) That You Be Absolutely Confounded, Absolutely knowledgeless, and Absolutely Surrendered-Utterly Free Of Any Effort To Control or To Survive. Indeed, The Basic Law and Process Of the human being Is A Matter Of Going Beyond Separate self, and Going Beyond The Search For Control and The Search For Survival and The Search For knowledge and The Search For Power, and Investing oneself In The Divine Oblivion, Utterly Surrendered, Without Control.
FROM: The Dawn Horse Testament
So I think it is appropriate for us to realize that while we may have strong views about our individual chosen path,
there are virtually endless conceptions existing, and NOBODY knows for sure what anything IS.
(of course I expect that virtually everybody will disagree with the above, or have a different take on it) <ggg>
Namaste!
Jim |
