Inspired by Chapter 3 of Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill.
An older lesson written 9/22/2010 – my birthday (woo-HOO!)
CHAPTER 3 – FAITH
Visualization Of And Belief In Attainment Of Desire
Here is some of what I’ve learned or realized so far
about Faith.
Some of this is going to be Green stuff. Well, Luther
Brotherton DID accuse me of being a quantum physicist.
But I promise, as my writing coach tells me, to include
some word pictures and a story or two.
I would usually begin with…
FAITH is the SUBSTANCE of things EXPECTED, the EVIDENCE
of things NOT SEEN.
…or some similar poetic tripe.
Listen, Faith is NOT wishing, hoping, dreaming,
yearning, planning, or any of that kind of stuff.
You see, I’ve lived most of my life trapped in the
flat, illusional, horizontal dimension of psychological
time – a prisoner of my Egoic mind. My thoughts were
dominated by the word/concept [IF].
The FUTURE: “What IF…?”; “What if it rains on
Sunday?”; “What if someone gets sick?”; “What if my
check doesn’t arrive before the bills are due?”; and
on, and on, and on…
The PAST: “If only…”; “If only I had taken that other
course, job, route, etc.”; “If only we hadn’t gone to
New Hope that night, or if only we had returned 5
minutes earlier or later, then that 21-year-old father
would not have died in the car accident we were in.”;
“If only I had not volunteered to umpire that one more
softball game in the Fathers Day Tournament, then maybe
I wouldn’t have had the stroke.”
Good Lord, those last two were 35 and 10 years ago!
My Ego is built on identification with past glories and
accomplishments – but also on identification with the
PAIN of GUILT and REGRET.
It is also identified with WORRY, WAITING, and FEAR
about the future.
None of this past or future stuff is ultimately REAL –
they are all phantom projections of my Egoic mind
trapped in time. (Not Clock Time, mind You. We need
that so we can all be together for the Mental Cleanse
Call and stuff. I’m talking about Psychological Time.)
AH! FAITH is the opposite of FEAR. There’s a clue!
But that still doesn’t tell us what Faith IS.
I cannot affect what happened a moment or more ago, so
why feel its PAIN?
I cannot deal with the future right now, so why feel
its FEAR?
The only thing ultimately REAL is the PRESENT MOMENT.
Should I be injured right now, the Pain alerts me
something’s wrong. Should I be physically threatened
right now, the Fear gives me energy to cope with it.
Pain and Fear are only useful in THE NOW… AH! Another
clue!
So, the horizontal dimension of psycho-time is
infinitely FLAT.
But, the Vertical Dimension of THE NOW is infinitely
DEEP!
REALITY and TRUTH Discovery can only exist in THE NOW.
Digging deep for the Truth: My good friend and personal
mentor likes the word picture of the onion – peeling
away the layers.
We all inherited our own Onion – and FAITH is inside
it. We must peel away the layers of DOUBT and the
psycho-time junk (the layers of Egoic Mind Chatter) to
get to it.
I discovered there are infinite layers of the Onion.
It’s like there’s some kind of reverse black hole at
its core. Beyond inherent FAITH there’s more, More,
MORE.
Story time…
Almost 2000 years ago a guy from Nazareth decided to
retire his carpentry business and launch a 3-year
spiritual ministry. Before he sponsored his 12
front-line associates, what did he do?
What did he do?
He went into the wilderness and did a 40-DAY MENTAL
CLEANSE!!!
There was no radio or TV back then, so how much chatter
did he have to stop? I mean 40 FLIPPIN’ DAYS!
I believe he successfully resisted the temptation of
the Ego and went deep, Deep, DEEP into the infinite
vertical dimension of THE NOW – perhaps deeper than any
human soul has ever gone.
During His ministry, it’s reported the retired
carpenter sometimes touched a blind dude, and then the
dude saw – or some lame guy reached out and touched
Him, and then got up and walked.
On these occasions the retired carpenter always said
something like, “By Your FAITH are You healed,” or,
“Your FAITH has made You whole.” Stuff like that. He
never said. “MY Faith,” or, “MY Power,” or anything
like that.
He talked about His Dad a lot, His Father – OUR Father,
the SOURCE.
He taught us FAITH the size of a mustard seed will move
mountains.
Before him, another dude named Gautama Siddhartha went
really deep too. But that’s another story…
I believe folks have been and always will continue to
be moving mountains. Think about it some time.
So, what is FAITH?
OK, now the lesson learned:
Faith is simply KNOWING – right HERE, right NOW. That’s
it. It isn’t complicated.
I KNOW I’m OK at this moment.
I KNOW I’ve learned from past mistakes – and they are
mistakes no more, they are lessons learned.
I KNOW I will cope with future moments coming my way –
I have no problems, just life situations.
Yes, I’m on a journey. I KNOW where I’m going because I
KNOW where I AM RIGHT NOW.
The journey has millions of steps, but… Never mind,
that’s another lesson.
YOU might say I’m a retired Musician/Customer Service
Specialist from Spring Hill, and a front-line associate
of a retired Carpenter from Brooksville who is
conducting a spiritual “ministry” RIGHT HERE, RIGHT
NOW.
Your Friend and Servant,
Ken Klemm
P.S. If You are attempting to read more into what I
wrote than what is there, STOP IT! Just STOP IT!
We are not spreading a religion here. Remember,
Religion is what happens when Egos get their hands into
scriptures – dogmatic brainwashing.
We ARE talking about Spiritual Stuff here. HILL is
teaching us Spiritual Stuff – just in case You hadn’t
noticed.
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TRUTH CANNOT BE TAUGHT,
IT CANNOT BE BOUGHT,
TRUTH MUST BE DISCOVERED!
That is why, at Mentoring For Free, We Teach You HOW to
Think, Not WHAT to Think.
FREEDOM MEANS SEIZING OWNERSHIP OF YOUR MIND!