Without faith, the Now-to-New wayfinder seeking to activate natural imagining will find it almost impossible to enter primal world.
In its secular form, faith is “a critical but curious mind’s readiness to adopt a reality model – even if provisionally – for which there is less than absolute, empirical proof” (Jay B. Gaskill – longer passage below).
The wayfinder talks about faith in much the same way as don Juan Matus, the teacher of Carlos Castaneda, talks about believing without believing.
Believing without believing means proceeding as if you believe something is worthwhile, possible or true, and doing so with total commitment yet without ideological investment, then letting go of the belief when its time has come.
This stance must be grounded in profound integrity and unwavering intent – what don Juan calls impeccability.
Quotes about believing without believing
“Your suit scares me more than anything you’ve done to me,” I said.
“You’ll get used to it,” he said. “A warrior must be fluid and must shift harmoniously with the world around him, whether it is the world of reason, or the world of will.1 The most dangerous aspect of that shifting comes forth every time the warrior finds that the world is neither one nor the other. I was told that the only way to succeed in that crucial shifting was by proceeding in one’s actions as if one believed. In other words, the secret of a warrior is that he believes without believing. But obviously a warrior cannot just say he believes and let it go at that. That would be too easy. To just believe would exonerate him from examining his situation. A warrior, whenever he has to involve himself with believing, does it as a choice, as an expression of his innermost predilection. A warrior doesn’t believe, a warrior has to believe.”
Tales of Power (download complete book), pp 61-62 | First speaker is Carlos Castaneda; second speaker is Don Juan Matus
1. The world of reason is the tonal (mundane world). The world of will is the nagual (primal world). This is accessed by freeing up energy through practices like impeccability, recapitulation, not-doing, stalking and gazing, allowing the warrior to see the true nature of reality. Source: Carlos Casteneda (my terminology in brackets).
Choosing to believe or not believe in anything wholeheartedly is a question of faith.
T. Bone, commenting on the UnHerd arfticle The trouble with political Christianity by Alex O’Connor
Don Juan tells us that warriors have to believe as an expression of their innermost predilection. They do this as a choice, as an impeccable response to their intuition and their intent. Warriors are individuals in touch with the spirit, and as such, they have to believe without believing. […] All any of us can ever do is release ourselves to magic and trust that we have to believe. I have seen that reason and analysis cannot guide us where we need to go. It is intuition and impeccability that will always dictate the road that we are meant to follow.
Tomas, Creative Victory, pp.163–164
Warriors know they must evolve a specific perspective on believing; they do this as a choice, as an expression of their innermost predilection; the warriors’ secret of believing is that they believe without believing.
Tomas, Creative Victory
Sorcerers call the ability to manipulate their mental attachments ‘believing without believing’. They have perfected that art to the point where they can identify sincerely with any idea. They live it, love it, and discard it without remorse if it comes to that.
Carlos Castaneda, cited in Further Conversations with the Nagual (pdf; 117 pages), by Armando Torres
Quotes about faith
Faith is a much-abused term, often derided in modern secular circles as the blind obedience to some arbitrary authority. But it has a wiser and more useful meaning: faith as a critical but curious mind’s readiness to adopt a reality model (even if provisionally) for which there is less than absolute, empirical proof. I propose that this kind of faith is the necessary adaptation by any rational mind to the challenges of life in the real world in which reality presents us with far too much, far too quickly. Events, personalities and relationships that carry embedded meaning and value are not the sorts of existents that can pass any rigid absolute-empirical-proof test.
All trust relationships contain a measure of faith. So when the term faith is used in this essay [The Dialogic Imperative], it refers to reasonable faith, as in the faith that is necessary for a reasonable mind to operate in the real world. Faith in this sense requires courage. Reasonable faith is heuristic in the sense that it is only by means of growing trust that we can open ourselves to the full range of knowledge that the universe presents to us.
There is a faith path from Isaac Newton through Baruch Spinoza to Albert Einstein that has propelled the scientific enterprise: Each of these great minds was moved by the faith-based conviction that the universe has been endowed with an elegant underlying deign, so miraculously intelligible to human intelligence that scientists are justified in doggedly pursuing its secrets.
Jay B. Gaskill, The Dialogic Imperative (download)
Faith represents an existential commitment of the heart, a way of life, a set of behaviors and emotional responses woven into every hour of everyday life – expressed through constant choices both when alone and in social situations.
Peter A. Georgescu, Faith isn’t irrational, but beliefs may be, on Huffington Post | Peter A. Georgescu is Chairman Emeritus of advertising agency network Young & Rubicam, Inc.
Everything is faith, including faith in science. The extent that science can reduce the world into objective certainties is absurdly limited, and most of human life and experience will always remain faith-based.
Benedict Waterson, commenting on the UnHerd article Shroud of Turin shows that science only enhances mystery, by Esme Partridge
FAITH is the only agency through which the cosmic force of Infinite Intelligence can be harnessed and used by man.
Napoleon Hill — Think and Grow Rich, Chapter 2
Download pdf of entire book
Read about Infinite Intelligence
“With faith no larger than a grain of sand, a man can move mountains.”
If we substitute the word ‘intent’ for faith, the equation takes on a somewhat more visceral and actionable meaning.
Della Van Hise, The Energetic Marriage of Love & Intent
In this skeptical age we, anyway, dwell far too much on the intellectual side of faith. shraddha (Pali: saddha) the word we render as “faith,” is etymologically akin to Latin cor, “the heart,” and faith is far more a matter of the heart than of the intellect.
Edward Conze, The Way of Wisdom: The Five Spiritual Faculties
What you may not understand is: the whole game you have been playing is also based on faith. You have had faith in the rational. We are living in a society which is a temple dedicated to the rational man.
Ram Dass, Be Here Now
Gitta Mallasz: How can I know that I join spirit and matter?
Gitta’s angel: By the fact that you recognize it afterwards.
Talking with Angels, Dialogue 32
The fruit of faith is love.
Mother Teresa
Faith has its etymological roots in the Greek pistis: trust, commitment, loyalty, engagement.
Brian Davis, cited by Peter A. Georgescu in Faith isn’t irrational, but beliefs may be, on Huffington Post | Peter A. Georgescu is Chairman Emeritus of advertising agency network Young & Rubicam, Inc., owned by WPP
Faith is an oasis in the heart which will never be reached by the caravan of thinking.
Khalil Gibran
Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe.
Voltaire
Doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith.
Dieter F. Uchtdorf
Lili: Does everyone have an angel, an ‘inner teacher’?
Lili’s angel: No. We consist of faith — purely of faith.
To those who have faith, who believe — we are.
And faith is the force of the divine.
If you believe that I have a voice … I can speak.
If you do not believe it … I am mute.
If you believe that I am you … I become you.
Believe in the high!
You can also believe in the low.
Today devils clamor and Angels are silent.
But through your belief we descend.
For belief is the bridge.Talking with Angels, Dialogue 23
CREATED WORLD – AND CREATING WORLD.
BETWEEN THEM: THE ABYSS.Look at yourself: You are the bridge.
You cannot wish for creative rays,
you cannot long to be the bridge,
for to be the bridge is given to you.
The bridge is not wishing – but faith.Talking with Angels, Dialogue with Gitta, Friday October 29, 1943
Read more
The Now-to-New wayfinder’s embodied model | Download slideshow
Search the site
Not case sensitive. Do not to hit return.