Faith and Absolute Knowing

Can we talk about the meeting ground, the connection between not knowing and doubt and faith? How can they exist together?

My first reaction is how can they not exist together? They seem so natural. The deep questions about life and death and spirituality or not being able to have a deep conviction that spirituality in an afterlife is real seems like it lends itself to a split, a natural split, which is the miracles that we see. You know, the planets revolving around each other, how things grow. How does a human organism generate itself? Seems so miraculous. How can you not have faith? How can you figure out how life itself started? And could it have possibly started from absolutely nothing? And so it seems like you have to have faith. If you really look at the miraculousness of how life really began, no part of me has ever been able to believe that life was absolutely nothing and then all of this came out of absolutely nothing. Yet on the other hand, when I look at the conviction of, well, for sure we're going to have an afterlife, or for sure we're going to go to heaven, I know in my feeble little brain that I don't know anything with certainty in terms of experientially. So that differentiation of pure faith which I do have, and that sense of not knowing which is an experiential understanding, seems like a marriage partner. It seems like it needs to coexist.

Are you saying that faith is easier than when it's related to a general existence of the world and understanding of the complexity and the doubt and the rest of it really, or more related to the personal will I survive death? That that's the harder one, that that's where faith can be overcome by doubt and fear comes in or other kinds of things happen.

I'm saying that where doubt really comes in is trying to understand really anything on an absolute level. It's both personal and the absolute nature of the universe. When it comes to knowing, faith is more of a feeling and it's more of a guess. And my guess is that something of a unified kind of intelligence that's higher than we can imagine is probably the source of all this that we see and that we are. But when you ask me what do I know, I have to plead ignorance and be content with that ignorance.

What good is this partial half assed faith?

The faith is really assuming a lot of beauty. And when we broaden the definition of faith to include believing in goodness, believing in the worthwhileness of having a good character, the worthwhileness of doing good deeds, then it's the only reason why we're alive from the most important place. But when it's meant to be an ideology and a certainty, and especially when it's brought up into compartments, into specific religions that compete with each other, it's dangerous. So the good is the common motivation to do good and be good and. And to support life. So it's really the cornerstone of compassion and the very best there is in life. It's only when it comes to ideology and thinking that our particular line of faith is the source of goodness that we have a problem. So ask yourself, do you have faith?

And then right after that, ask yourself, do you have an absolute knowing that.

Your faith is true?

And when I say absolute knowing, I mean you're positive.

There's no doubt.

Now, my experience is that if you differentiate between those two places, then it leads to a very grounded place. What do you think? Do you think that your faith is an absolute certainty of knowing? Do you ask yourself that question? So I'm encouraging you, as we're here together, to just inquire, is having absolute faith or faith and having an absolute sense of knowing the same thing? Now, my view is I do have faith, and I don't have an absolute knowing of anything when it comes to the nature of the universe. Now, some people would say, well, you're not supposed to have an absolute knowing. Just have faith and that's enough. And the absolute knowing is just your ego or is just the more material side of the human brain. Well, my experience is again, and I'm asking you more importantly about your experience, is that we need to be supportive of both places and not just go one way or the other. So if we have faith and we're one of the ones that are fortunate enough to have a sense that the universe has a purpose and that we're a part of that purpose, then that's wonderful. And at the same time, when we recognize that we don't absolutely know anything, it leads to a certain sense of humility. It allows us to recognize that we have a part of us that is helpless or doesn't really know anything. And when we have the sense of faith or courage to live a certain way and at the same time recognize we're not positive of anything, then we're in a position to join with everyone else around us because we recognize we're in the same boat as everyone else. When we really are experiencing the fact that we're vulnerable, that we're human, that we're in a body and in a brain, and in a kind of quandary about what's the nature of where we live in this existential question, we really don't know. And yet we have some kind of an instinct that for many of us is quite profound and deep, where this faith is the primary driving force of our life. This complementary relationship between faith and not knowing can lead to the most grounded form of living our lives. On the one hand, we want to do things that are going to be for a greater sense of well being. On the other hand, we're not going to be endangered to be one of those zealots that feels like we are chosen, or we are the ones that really are the superior knowledge as to how the universe works, or we have the right God. In this, again, complementary relationship, we're in.

A place where we can identify with.

Everyone else as being the same as we are.