Faith or Will

[Steppingfeet]

What is a thought, my friends? What can be thought about? What is the scope of this thing we call "thought"? The answer is virtually anything. A cognitive object (that is to say, a mental object) can be anything. You can think of ducks, baseballs, vases, math problems, relationships, sunsets, particles, or even the cosmos itself.

Most excellent... thought, Anagogy. Perhaps this is a way of considering Ra's statement regarding the mind containing all things.

So we can see, from these examples, more clearly what thought really is. What we call "thought" is simply a gathering of attention on whatever is the object of that attention. It is, in other-words, simply a focus of attention.

Love this definition!

I would add that it is thought, or the faculty of the mind itself, which is creating the object. Without something which "thinks" it can stand apart from unity --- and divide unity into endless categories and sub-categories, and reflect/compare/contrast the resulting objects, and find identity in relationship to the objects ---- there are no objects. At least not an "object" that is independent of and separate from the All.

When you think a thought, you see things in a certain way -- the way you have painted things in your mind through the direction of your focus. So a thought is kind of like an affirmation of how things are -- a statement about reality in other-words. Or, at least if you are thinking about "what is", in any-case. As Ra says, if you think about something in a general contemplative sense, it manifests else where, having no particular attachment to the energy field of the creator of said thought-form (16.14 if anyone is curious).

So we can further see what thought really is. Isn't it essentially just a statement about reality? Even when it is a "what if" thought, it is still a statement about a reality. You say, "What if (X) occurred? What would that reality look like?"

Now, what is a belief? Isn't it just a more consistent statement about reality? Could it be just a deeper and more habitual thought you keep thinking? And, what is will, if not just a more *conscious* statement/intention about reality?

When you "will" something, do you not intend that it be so? So will is more like making a conscious and deep statement about reality.

I essentially agree with everything you've written thus far and appreciate the light that you've shed for me, personally, on this matter. I love how you've woven attention, focus, thought, and will into a continuum of experience, differing only in degree.

A belief IS a "statement about reality".

I would be very interested to see how you incorporate 54.28
where Ra describes will as a desire which is "emanating from the awareness of inner light".

In the picture that you've painted, what is "awareness of inner light" and how does it fit into this pattern?

So when Ra talks about nurturing ones will, we can see its relationship to what we call "faith". Will *IS* faith. Faith *IS* belief. A belief is just a thought you keep thinking consistently and habitually. Belief is when thought has become a very definite and habitual vibrational offering. A thought is just a focus of attention. Will, faith, and intention, are the conscious focusing of attention. All these items we've discussed are only different in degree.

I cheered at everything till the connection to faith was made in this post. It feels like there is something lacking in this description, something needed to more adequately elucidate faith and its relationship and congruency with will.

Among the many ways I view faith, I tend to see it as has been previously described over the years: a "willing suspension of disbelief".

Willingly suspending disbelief could itself be called a "belief", but to me a belief has shape and form, name and identity --- a belief is something within the realm of the manifest, pertaining to the illusion.

Whereas faith is open and formless, mysterious and sacred, and beyond the illusion, or rather, a dismantler of illusion. It is that which transforms beliefs, not necessarily into higher belief (though certainly that too), but more so as that agent which renders belief as a secondary, derivative means of knowing the Self which already is.

Faith is the direct, immediate experience of Self which needs no belief, as I perceive these things. If you already are who you are, that being the one infinite Creator, whether in third density or seventh, no belief will create a true representation of who you are. Only through the release of belief does the self merge into the self in the infinite.

Perhaps faith itself has a spectrum of experience, from simple, "I believe I can do this or I trust that this thing which has not been achieved/accomplished/seen is achievable/accomplishable/knowable", to, "I am all that there is, I am the Creator".

As Ra says:

42.11 Ra: I am Ra. There is but one technique for this growing or nurturing of will and faith, and that is the focusing of the attention. The attention span of those you call children is considered short. The spiritual attention span of most of your peoples is that of the child. Thus it is a matter of wishing to become able to collect one’s attention and hold it upon the desired programming.

This, when continued, strengthens the will. The entire activity can only occur when there exists faith that an outcome of this discipline is possible.

Do you see the relationship? They are all the focus of consciousness -- the focus of attention. Pure faith, or pure will, is simply the non-contradicted focus of consciousness. In the absence of contradiction, the statement about reality is NOT negated, and if the faith is pure the manifestation is also pure. The reason thoughts don't always manifest is particularly do to the fact that they are not as intense or defined as beliefs are. They aren't as "sure" of themselves, in a sense.

Well said!

And actually this ties into what I was writing above. I link the "suspension of disbelief" to your statement about the "non-contradicted focus of consciousness". Faith informs and enables the will by saying that this particular willed activity/desire IS possible. The purer the faith, as you say, the less negation, the less "no" function, the less belief in illusory limitations of the great Illusion, the more the will is empowered to do that which it sets out to do, results/outcomes notwithstanding.

This is why pure faith moves mountains. It is a pure focusing of intelligent energy.

Anagogy, this verse came to mind when reading your post. I'd be most interested in your take on this quote:

52.11 "Questioner: Is there then, from the point of view of an individual who wishes to follow the service-to-others path, anything of importance other than disciplines of personality, knowledge of self, and strengthening of will?

Ra: I am Ra. This is technique. This is not the heart. Let us examine the heart of evolution.

Let us remember that we are all one. This is the great learning/teaching. In this unity lies love. This is a great learn/teaching. In this unity lies light. This is the fundamental teaching of all planes of existence in materialization. Unity, love, light, and joy; this is the heart of evolution of the spirit.

The second-ranking lessons are learn/taught in meditation and in service. At some point the mind/body/spirit complex is so smoothly activated and balanced by these central thoughts or distortions that the techniques you have mentioned become quite significant. However, the universe, its mystery unbroken, is one. Always begin and end in the Creator, not in technique."


Specifically, what do you think Ra means by saying that the entity is so "smoothly activated and balanced by these central thoughts or distortions".

Do you see this as fitting into what you've written in this post? That being that an entity thinks about unity, love, light, and joy so frequently, thoroughly, and with such intensity that an, as you said, affirmation regarding the nature of reality is made, an affirmation which happens to, in the purer entity, correspond with reality?

This ties into Ra's four exercises. There it seems they say that to direct the mind to think about, or see, or contemplate, or meditate upon what is already there – i.e., love – is to make love manifest in the awareness and the experience.

In both cases (of being “smoothy activated’ and “seeing love in awareness and understanding”), will is enabled by faith to maintain a certain focus. That focus - sustained and negated less and less - creates that which it seeks. Or rather, uncreates the illusions which obscure that which is already there, allowing the entity to see/know/experience love, light, unity, and joy.

I’m not sure if I’m getting anywhere, my thoughts aren’t terribly organized. Your post made the hamster wheel turn.

Thank you, Anagogy.