Faith is the act of believing in the illogical. If something makes sense then you don’t need faith to believe in it it. You only need your mind. Although logic is a highly valuable, it does come across certain limits. It get’s you to certain point and then you can’t go on. Once you lost faith and reached the limits of your logical abilities, what are you supposed to do? Where do you turn? How do you proceed? You can always choose despair. But that answer doesn’t satisfy me.

I suggest that you listen to this music while reading this blog post. Here is The Mystic’s Dream by Loreena McKennitt from her album The Mask And The Mirror.

I’ve talked about losing my religion in the holy land here.

Then I wrote about my attempts to become a very bad person here.

This is part 3 in my adventure with faith. How to regain faith after you have lost it? The short answer is that it happened on its own and without an effort on my part. Gradually. The long answer is this:

Religion is where the eternal touches human. The human made bits draw from our nature and therefore is corruptible. I grew up in certain society. Others around me behaved a certain way and I imitated them. That is what you do when you young and green. I can see now how losing faith was like hitting a reset button on a computer. It allowed me to get rid whatever mental conception I had about faith and find my own connection with the eternal that is genuine.

I no longer believe, I know. My faith is a direct experience. My heaven is a place on earth in the here and now. My hell as well. Both are of my own creation.

I can see how doubt and disillusion was a necessary step to rid myself from the false bits in order to get to the genuine bits.

Does the ocean care if a fish says:” I don’t believe in water, it doesn’t exist?”

So how can we convince that fish that water does exit?

“Pull the fish out of water”

Ah! the near death experience. That is one way. I wonder if a fish can discover water without jeopardizing its life. A gentler more loving way of discovery.

Contemplate your hand for example. Not the way your hand looks, nor the sensation of somebody touching your hand, but rather the way your hand feels on the inside. Simply close your eyes and sense the aliveness of your hand. Draw your awareness to just one hand  right hand for a minute. Don’t take my word for it, I am not asking you to believe, have your own experience. Experiment on your own.

“How could God create such injustice and cruelty in this world?”

You are asking the wrong question.

“What is the right question?”

Ask yourself what answer would comfort you. Imagine if god with all his majesty was sitting here on the couch in this living room with us. What would you like him to say? What explanation would satisfy you?

“I don’t know.”

There is a way of knowing that in between rational thought and faith. Have you ever found yourself sitting in a dark yet familiar room? You know exactly where the door knob is. You can get up and reach for it without any hesitation even though you can’t see a thing. It is that type of knowing. Has nothing to do with faith. By being aware of the living force that is inside my body I am beginning to sense the aliveness pulsating all around. Like a fish, I was swimming in it all along.

It is humorous to me that you think the ocean would be offended by a disbelieving fish. It keeps on giving life, no matter what.