Faith is a tricky concept, and sort of muddles with the other principle of trust. They aren’t identical. We know in this day and age that our senses can deceive us, yes? Yet what do we have to rely on but our senses? So knowing they deceive we still have to use them, don’t we?

Is faith trust? No. Trust is acceptance of what you experience, and that you experience it correctly or as correctly as you need to. Faith goes beyond trust. When you find faith…well, let’s use an example. If you trust your partner, you accept that loyal behaviour is loyalty, yes? When you have faith also, not only do you trust that loyal behaviour is loyalty, but that your partners place in your life has greater meaning than even your senses register. That even in the moments when your partner seems to be behaving in a way that runs counter to loyalty, ultimately they are loyal.

Will faith allow you to forgive when the trust is broken? It will, or prevent you from it. Faith is more intuitive than reasoning. Faith sees beyond circumstance.

It doesn’t mean you only have faith of positive behaviour then? No, it means that you have faith that there is a reason, there is purpose, that there is more than just circumstance. Circumstantially, your partner may betray your trust. That is a circumstance. Circumstantially, your partner may reform. That is also circumstance. Faith sees beyond this. Faith tells you if reform is a false front, or if it’s genuine.

Trust is in what we know, faith is in what we don’t? Yes, and both are part of a dynamic. One realm of consciousness. In physics there is a term, and it has spawned more popular ideas. Maybe you have heard of it, psi. The psi factor. Originally it was the value they used to describe that though electrons seem to be separate particles, they function as if they were one object though the unifying force is not evident. Just observation tells us that they behave as a whole object, and this is unvarying. Synchronicity, as Jung was exploring it, was an early understanding of that. Not only does the world function as a coherent whole, but the observer and the world are not separate. Trust is letting the observer function. Faith is understanding there is a reason why it functions and delving more into that.

What is the difference between faith and gullibility? Faith cannot be gotten from outside of yourself. Faith stems from an over belief arising from experience. Gullibility stems from some other influence and is externally adopted.

Is it possible for a person to have faith in a particular religion without external influence? Yes, when a religions teachings correspond with your faith, and it doesn’t have to be total, then yes, you can be Christian or Buddhist and have it arise from inside yourself, but these people are usually distinct from the “gullible.” Their faith doesn’t lay dead inside them, nor do they adhere to group dogma. They take and explore the teachings. As many of you might have already learned, there is often a huge difference between the creed and the dogma of a religion. The dogma is often at odds with if not directly opposed to the creed. Has this been your experience?

I dislike dogma intensely which is why my faith is more personal, and not associated with any organised religion. As is mine, and a connection to an organized religion is not necessary. In the creed of Christianity, and it’s made more clear in those writings the church judged apocrypha, that it’s gathering in the same spirit that matters. It goes on to elaborate that the kingdom or domain of God is people, not nations or temples. Yet, in this day and age still, we’re still about nations, still about temples. The trust in God notion, well it’s a false pretence. They trust in preachers, and think maybe one day they will have experience, maybe after they die.

Misdirected faith? Well, it is a misunderstanding of what faith is.

Your thoughts are welcome. Be well friends.

Travis Saunders
Dragon Intuitive
~science,mysticism,spirituality~