We All Have Faith

"I had lost religion...but discovered spirituality."

                            -David Hawkins, M.D., Ph.D.
 


This past Sunday I went to a new church.  Prior to this, the last time I deliberately chose to go to a church was fifteen years ago.  I did go to church two years ago when my father passed away, just to pay my respects to family solely because that is what my dad would have wanted, even though I did not want to be there. I do not believe many of the things my family's church teaches so I stay away.

I have done much learning and healing in my life to realize how ignorant and sometimes even dangerous to humanity religion could be.  But this Sunday I found my people. It amazed me how many of the topics that I write about in this blog were covered during the service. I would like to share with you some of the things Reverend Ray shared with us.

Perception
What you perceive will be your experience. As I have mentioned in many of my articles our perception was developed as a child. However, children are not able to analyze and determine whether what they are experiencing, hearing, and seeing is the truth. All they know is that in order to survive they need to emulate their parents as much as possible.

As we grow older many of us realize that their way (meaning our primary caretakers) was very ignorant, dysfunctional and a lie. However, there are core beliefs that remain with us at an unconscious level. For example, let's say that as a child one or both of your parents told you that your value was determined on how selfless you were even if it meant sacrificing your own well being. When you get older you will have a hard time saying "no" to others even when you really want to. But you are afraid that they will perceive you as unworthy and selfish. When you do sum up the courage to say "no",  your experience will be that the people you come across will consider you to be unworthy and selfish because you are not doing what they think you should be doing.

This experience will only change when you change your perception. I finally understood this concept recently when I was being judged by others within my family and by a couple of my friends. I had been spending extensive time with my critical mother and subconsciously I was absorbing her views even though consciously I know they are distorted.  Because part of me still held the perception that her negative opinion of me may be right, the day after she left I began to experience the same negativity and criticism from people I normally get along with and who are usually very supportive of me.
 
Rev. Ray reminded everyone that when someone judges you or criticises you it is their perception and not the truth. But also that your perception can keep you experiencing the same negative circumstances unless you remind yourself  that your perception needs to be altered in order to experience something different.

We All Have Faith
Ray declared that everyone has faith. The problem is that we have faith in the wrong things. Some of us have faith that we will never get a job or life partner. Or that we will get sick like our parents.  We may have faith in positive things, but it is very little faith. Maybe you do believe you will find your life partner, but a bigger part of you believes that you wont.

You need to do what you have to do to increase your faith in the good and positive. Stay away from negative people and situations as much as possible. Find people whose faith is strong in what is good and real. Some of us were raised in extremely religious ways, however we were never shown to have true faith and to maintain a relationship with God even when it is not a Sunday. Instead we were taught to fear God and consider ourselves unworthy of His blessings. This is a distortion of the truth. Many of us are just now learning how to fully believe and trust in God.  It has been a challenge because of the negative wedged in beliefs of our past.

Feed Yourself Spiritual Food Regularly
It is crucial that we all do this because we are experiencing a time of great change. We need to feel connected to God in order to reduce the stress and fear that this transition is going to bring up to the surface.  We are surrounded by ignorant and negative people and in order to protect ourselves from these low energy people we need to keep ourselves plugged in to God. Ofcourse God is always with us. We just forget when we get caught up with the heavyness of life. But if we regularly feed ourselves with spiritual food we wont be so affected by the negative things in life.

Follow Your Inner Guidance and Take Action
We all have the answers within. No need to buy another book, product, seminar, etc. Ray said we don't even have to go to church to get answers. It is good to seek out outside sources and attend church for support during these hard times. But remember that most of what you learn from others is not really learning. Outside sources are more like reminders of the truth. If the information from others resonates with your heart and soul then it is your truth.

In my own experience, when I am contemplating a thought, insight or idea, I suddenly get the information from an outside source. At first this freaked me out. But now it no longer surprises me. In fact,  this is exactly what happened during the service on Sunday. I was reminded of what I already knew. Sometimes we do need these reminders, don't we? Many people do not take action because they do not know what the end result will be and they are afraid of not knowing. But is  important to take action. If you keep getting gentle nudges to do something or go somewhere, you do it. I have not always gotten the results I thought I would get when I followed my intuition, but I am learning to trust that whatever the reason was, it was for my greater good.

 I have learned that God does not normally tell us the whole reason and the results of following a certain path. We are guided in little steps. Once you are done with one step, you are given another step, and so on. Don't do anything crazy though until you learn to determine if it is God speaking to you or your ego. Most people can not tell the difference between the two. I made many serious mistakes thinking I was hearing God when it was actually just my ego.


I will probably write some more in the future about Rev. Ray and about the new friends I made on Sunday. I have a strong feeling that many of you will find their insight and wisdom beneficial which will serve as reminders of your own truth.

If you would like more information on this article, please email me at carbajalzulma@gmail.com. You can also visit the the church site at http://www.unityriverside.org