The Messenger Speaks | The Fortress of Belief
Published on 1 Aug 2017,
I have a vivid memory of visiting a very beautiful mosque in Istanbul earlier this year, an immense building with a huge school and teaching compound associated with it, at the heart of a very conservative district of the city. And as I entered the mosque and sat within it for some time—a very quiet, open, spacious sanctuary, with no seats, just a beautiful carpet, people praying, some people sleeping—the words came into my mind: "The fortress of belief." And the words came so strongly that ... imprinted them in my mind. And I reflected on some of the other great sanctuaries that I have visited and prayed within, which also felt like fortresses of belief. And I have met individuals who seem to demonstrate themselves to be fortresses of belief.
The critical thing to know about belief is that it is here to serve something greater, something more inexplicable, something more unpredictable, a greater power, a greater attraction, a greater force of the Divine as it moves through people, places and things. Belief in the mind is here to give structure and support to a growing realization that one day will outgrow that structure and support. It is like the launch platform for a rocket to be launched into space. The rocket absolutely must have that platform, and it must function well. It must be enduring and strong and properly designed. But when the rocket takes off, the need for that platform no longer exists.
This is a good way to think about belief–—that it’s a platform for launching you into a greater life. Even within the greater life, you will have beliefs, but they will always be seen as serving a supporting and substantiating role. They will not be fixed. They will not be leaden or solid. They will not be inflexible or immovable. They will be part of the wings that help you fly, but the flight itself is greater than the wings.
To be a fortress of belief yourself means that your mind has been walled in, further separated from life around you and others—walled in, circumscribed by firm and fixed beliefs, the prison of the fundamentalist, the prison of the fixated mind.
Yet God’s intention is to liberate you from the mind and of all its seductions, its overriding fear, its addictions and its traps. The mind is the perfect servant, but you must know of the Master for that servant to function properly and appropriately.
To be a fortress of belief means that you believe you have enemies because at the level of belief, there will always be other people and groups and even nations of people who seem to stand in marked contrast, opposed to your beliefs. And from this position, you become condemning and judgmental, you make people enemies who you do not even know. You make vast assumptions about other people’s faith traditions, not really understanding them or how they too are connected to God’s greater Plan for the world.
You build your identity, your sense of self, on a set of fixed beliefs: social beliefs, religious beliefs, beliefs about people, beliefs about God. When this happens, God cannot reach you. You have built a prison for yourself of the very things that are meant to support you in gaining greater freedom and expansion, greater liberation. Now your servants, your beliefs, become your gatekeepers. They stand guard over you, warding off anything, fighting anything that seems to contradict them, or to challenge them, or to question them. So your mind becomes like the great edifice—solid, immovable, unchangeable, resistant, fixed, unalterable.
And yet God moves through people, places and things like the wind. And God has put within each person a greater intelligence called Knowledge, which is beyond belief, and functions beyond belief—rewarding those who are truly devout, whether they seem to be believers or not; holding back those who think they believe in the truth and that they know God and God’s Will and Purpose, but who are not truly devout. They are governed by their thoughts, their mind, which has become hard and fixed and resistant.
God’s first purpose is to unburden you so that you can begin to respond to a greater calling and the power of Grace that is always there for you if you are open to it. Here you step off the pavement into the wilderness. Here you enter a reality that you cannot logically understand or organize for yourself personally. For you are standing within the Grace of God, which exceeds any person’s understanding and capacity.
The critical thing to know about belief is that it is here to serve something greater, something more inexplicable, something more unpredictable, a greater power, a greater attraction, a greater force of the Divine as it moves through people, places and things. Belief in the mind is here to give structure and support to a growing realization that one day will outgrow that structure and support. It is like the launch platform for a rocket to be launched into space. The rocket absolutely must have that platform, and it must function well. It must be enduring and strong and properly designed. But when the rocket takes off, the need for that platform no longer exists.
This is a good way to think about belief–—that it’s a platform for launching you into a greater life. Even within the greater life, you will have beliefs, but they will always be seen as serving a supporting and substantiating role. They will not be fixed. They will not be leaden or solid. They will not be inflexible or immovable. They will be part of the wings that help you fly, but the flight itself is greater than the wings.
To be a fortress of belief yourself means that your mind has been walled in, further separated from life around you and others—walled in, circumscribed by firm and fixed beliefs, the prison of the fundamentalist, the prison of the fixated mind.
Yet God’s intention is to liberate you from the mind and of all its seductions, its overriding fear, its addictions and its traps. The mind is the perfect servant, but you must know of the Master for that servant to function properly and appropriately.
To be a fortress of belief means that you believe you have enemies because at the level of belief, there will always be other people and groups and even nations of people who seem to stand in marked contrast, opposed to your beliefs. And from this position, you become condemning and judgmental, you make people enemies who you do not even know. You make vast assumptions about other people’s faith traditions, not really understanding them or how they too are connected to God’s greater Plan for the world.
You build your identity, your sense of self, on a set of fixed beliefs: social beliefs, religious beliefs, beliefs about people, beliefs about God. When this happens, God cannot reach you. You have built a prison for yourself of the very things that are meant to support you in gaining greater freedom and expansion, greater liberation. Now your servants, your beliefs, become your gatekeepers. They stand guard over you, warding off anything, fighting anything that seems to contradict them, or to challenge them, or to question them. So your mind becomes like the great edifice—solid, immovable, unchangeable, resistant, fixed, unalterable.
And yet God moves through people, places and things like the wind. And God has put within each person a greater intelligence called Knowledge, which is beyond belief, and functions beyond belief—rewarding those who are truly devout, whether they seem to be believers or not; holding back those who think they believe in the truth and that they know God and God’s Will and Purpose, but who are not truly devout. They are governed by their thoughts, their mind, which has become hard and fixed and resistant.
God’s first purpose is to unburden you so that you can begin to respond to a greater calling and the power of Grace that is always there for you if you are open to it. Here you step off the pavement into the wilderness. Here you enter a reality that you cannot logically understand or organize for yourself personally. For you are standing within the Grace of God, which exceeds any person’s understanding and capacity.
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