Philosophy Ruminations upon Ultimate Matters and their relationship to playing the guitar |
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Faith
Along the way to any great accomplishment in this life, we will find, sooner or later, that the next step we must take requires a power that is more than human, a power that is not readily available for some people, a power that must be earned through trial and tribulation. It is the power of Faith. Faith is one of those words so misunderstood it is often useless, and sometimes dangerous to employ as an instrument of mutual understanding between persons. Nonetheless, it has a use; it has a meaning, if we approach the matter carefully and thoughtfully. One of the reasons the word “faith” has become worthy of suspicion and even disdain is because we see it used for the nefarious ends of various individuals, and have seen it so throughout history. In history, we see people march off to a Crusade because of their “faith”, killing and plundering for their own glory and satisfaction under the shield of their “faith”. In today’s world, we see people blowing themselves up in order to take others along with them, because their “faith” tells them it is laudable to kill the enemies of their God, and so earn glory for themselves, and a great reward in the hereafter. Like fire or nuclear energy, and whether used for good or evil, Faith is a great power because it is based on THE greatest power that exists in the human world; the power of belief. The Power Of Belief Whether we realize it or not, everything that will be possible for us to achieve will be determined by our beliefs. Our beliefs shape our world, and our lives, and the alarming fact is that most people have no idea what their true beliefs really are, or where they have come from. And so, many people have no idea how their life has assumed its present state. For those who want to boldly move forward, creating a new and more expansive world for themselves, knowledge of their own beliefs is primary and essential. If we do not, in the core of our being, believe we are good enough to succeed, if we do not believe we deserve success and happiness (and many people do really believe they are not worthy, and have been assured of it by others, no matter what face they may show to the world), we had better know that these are our core beliefs. Once we know this, once we understand the cause and effect relationship of our beliefs and what we call our life, we can change our lives. The power of belief has been known and used by saint and sinner alike, and so every loathsome dictator seeking absolute power over their people, from Stalin to Saddam, has made sure they controlled the beliefs of their people. Every organization, Church or State, makes sure to carefully control the beliefs of its members as well. And this is why rulers throughout history, in their efforts to control their subjects, have known that their real task is to control the beliefs of their people. From self glorifying dictators, to self sacrificing leaders and saints, from Communism to Capitalism, from religious dogma to the true teaching of spirituality, and to the Principles of human freedom and dignity developed and offered to the world during the Age of Reason of the last several centuries, the battle for beliefs is the real battleground of this world. And so, every individual would do well to carefully inspect all of their beliefs, and be clear on where they have come from, whether they can be verified to be true, and most important of all, are they useful, really useful to us in the living of our lives and the achievement of our goals. The Utility Of Beliefs On the mundane level of life, it is important to know whether our beliefs are “true” or not; but on the higher levels of life, it is often not possible, and often un-important. It is important for me to know and believe that my car is safe when I am driving on the highway, and I can, to a great extent, determine the truth of that for myself before putting my trust in that belief. I can look both ways before pulling out in traffic, and verify the fact that no one is coming my way, and it is safe to move. These are “verifiable beliefs”. But in many areas of human life, it is not possible to know whether a belief is “true” or not. Is God an all powerful “superman” with a long white beard, watching me from a cloud, or a nameless energy field that created the universe and is now off doing other things? Is there life on other planets? How would anyone know these things, yet most people have an opinion nonetheless. Am I a wonderful person who deserves, and is capable of success? As in matters of religion, I will have a belief about it, based on my psychology, my character, and my experiences, but essentially, it is a case of “if you believe you can, or you believe you can’t, you’re right”! No, the test to which we should subject these “non-verifiable” beliefs is not whether they are true or false, but simply this: are they useful. When it comes to the matter of you or I being a wonderful person who deserves and is capable of success, it certainly is more useful to believe we are, we do, and we can, than the reverse! When I drive on the highway, I believe that everyone is a danger to me. I believe that every person is predisposed to do the wrong thing and put my life in danger. If someone signals right, I believe they will most likely go left. Why do I believe this? Because it is useful; that is why. Believing this, I will drive in a manner that is extremely cautious, extremely alert, and I will most likely stay alive! It does not matter at all to me whether it is true or not; I have consciously chosen this belief because it is manifestly useful to me. If someone were to present me with statistics showing me I am “wrong” and that most people do the right thing, I would reject that belief, considering that belief a dangerous assumption, and dangerous for me to use while driving. The “truth” of things doesn’t matter to me in this case, only how useful the belief is to me in achieving my goals, in this case, staying alive!
The Birth Of Belief The fact is, all of our beliefs are accepted on some level of our being. A very aware and developed person will tend to inspect all “incoming beliefs” with conscious awareness, and utilize all of their powers of intelligence and discrimination to determine whether a belief will be accepted. Most people are not so lucky, beliefs, mostly negative, invade our minds and souls like bacteria. When our parents tell us we “have a bad attitude”, we believe it, even though we (and probably they) do not really know what it means. The opinions of our friends, many or most of them reflections of their own negative beliefs, affect our feelings and image of ourselves. It is because, on the deepest level of our being, we accept it as true, we believe it, we consent to it with our will, although we are not conscious of doing so. I call this place within me that accepts beliefs the “level of volition”. When I am in the process of understanding myself so that I can create a change, I know I must reach the level of volition regarding the beliefs upon which that part of me is structured. Once I do, I am in the possession of the greatest power a human being can attain: the power to change my inner world. The Meaning of Belief What does it mean to “believe” something? It means “what we will leave to be”. It is that to which we grant the status of “being”, and we do it through the power of our own being, which operates as what we call our “will”. We see demonstrations of this every day. How often do we hear someone say “I don’t believe it!” about something that just happened right in front of their eyes! Maybe you are driving and someone cuts you off and almost runs you off the road: you say “I don’t believe it! Did you see what that idiot just did!” You would like to refuse granting the right of “being” to what that idiot just did! That is why you said “I don’t believe it”! Observe yourself every time you use the phrase “I don’t believe it”, you will see that each time it is something you wish were not true. The power of belief is the greatest power we have, and most of us have no idea how it operates, or how to take control and use it to our benefit. Once we do understand this, we achieve a new level of life, we become capable of consciously creating our lives. When we are young, our will is not under our conscious control, and so we are largely at the mercy of others as to what beliefs we hold. This means our power to achieve our desires is handicapped. However, when we can align our desires with our beliefs, through achieving conscious recognition, at the level of volition where those beliefs have been granted the right to exist through the power of our will, then, our will becomes conscious. And conscious will is Intention. It is then that we can access the power of Faith, and the courage that true Faith makes possible. True Faith What is faith? People tend to think that faith is “belief in what we cannot see”. That is part of the story, but if that were all faith is, then every kind of delusion would deserve the name “faith”. Belief in the boogeyman himself would deserve to be dignified by the term. Mere belief in what we cannot see is aptly called blind faith. Blind faith has no power. Those who rely on it will always fail the test of faith when the test comes, and it always comes. True Faith is the belief in what we cannot see because of what we can see. True Faith is the power that enables us to take our next step, to lift our foot up in the air, feeling the emptiness and uncertainty underneath, because of the solid ground upon which the other foot rests. That is why it is called a “leap of faith”; but we must understand that we cannot make a leap if we start with both feet in thin air! Faith is a form of trust, of sharing our power with the unknown, based on the known. Many people operate on blind faith in many areas of their life, because blind faith is easy and cheap, and like most things that are easy and cheap, it has one problem: it doesn’t work! Blind faith can have power, it can bring us to new places, but those places will ultimately be empty, and perhaps even ugly. The effort required to achieve true faith, the outer work of searching and the inner work of thinking and feeling, is not something most people are willing to do, it is a price most people are not willing to pay. Those who pay this price, find themselves, over time, with their feet resting on the solid ground of Knowledge, a true inner certainty that was earned, and is deserved by themselves, not blindly accepted from others. And from that knowledge, they will draw the power of faith. From that firm foundation of knowledge and the certainty it brings, they will find the courage to lift the “foot of faith”, and place it into the unknown, toward the future they desire, secure in the knowledge that there will be a new ground upon which it will land.
Courage True faith is based on knowledge; real knowledge and inner certainty. I can reach for what I desire with one hand because of what I hold in the other. But even so, Faith alone is not enough, for even though we reach into the unknown based on what we do know, we are still reaching into the unknown, and that is simply scary! There is something else required, and true faith gives us access to it. True Faith gives us the power of Courage, and with that courage, we overcome fear. The passage through fear is always the test of Faith. Examples abound. There are many people who have a “faith” in a God that has a name, a location, and a set of rituals and beliefs handed out to everyone in the group, and yet, the foot of faith has never touched solid ground within themselves. Their faith is based on wishful thinking, personal prejudice, and the accident of birth. When they are tested, when they are asked to raise the foot of faith into the unknown and leap, they will fall. It is because of the shallow nature and origin of their beliefs that they do not have access to the Faith that would enable them to traverse the chasm of doubt and even despair that afflicts all people at some time or another. There are others whose faith in God has great power, it may be God with a Name, or without a Name and perhaps no need for one, because their recognition of God on the outside is based on their discovery and recognition of God on the inside. When they are tested, they will not fall; they will be flooded with the power that true faith, based on true knowledge, (real inner knowing, not “book learning”) brings. That is the power of Courage. How can we tell the difference between these two types of people? As the Bible tells us, “by their fruits ye shall know them”, if you know how to look, that is! Courage is the power we receive when we have made the decision to face our fears to attain our desires. Every fear is simply a negative belief, a belief that is not useful to us. When we can penetrate to the inner level of volition where that belief was accepted, we can align our beliefs to our desire through knowledge, and form conscious will, or Intention. Then, Faith and Courage will move us forward, and achievement will be ours. Without courage, we can achieve nothing in life. Without courage, we will not be able to withstand the considerable challenges we will face to become guitarists, whether amateur or professional. We all have our inner doubts and demons, and most of us have our outer ones as well, people telling us we can’t or we shouldn’t, and situations that sometimes seem hopeless and insurmountable. It takes courage to hold onto our dreams, and work toward them day by day. If we understand the true nature and relationship of these dynamics of human life, Desire, Knowledge Belief, Intention, Faith, and Courage, we will truly say to the mountains in our life “move”, and they will move. In my work, in The Principles and all the other material I have created for GuitarPrinciples, I have tried to give you that firm ground upon which you can depend, and on which you can base the certainty of your belief that you can achieve your dreams with music and the guitar. Likewise, I want to give you the knowledge of what the process of teaching and learning music and the guitar really is, so that you can faith in the teachers you find, and know when your faith is mis-placed, and is merely blind faith and wishful thinking. We are not spinning theories here about how to play the guitar, and how to develop as a musician, guitarist and artist. We are offering real knowledge that really works. Use it, and you will find your feet on solid ground, and you will also find the courage to lift the foot of faith into the future you would call your own.
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