What could be more difficult to write about than one's spiritual beliefs? Beats the hell outta me.
My whole day is a spiritual trip, regardless of whether I feel 100 per cent, or if I am in conscious contact with mystical forces, or if I am behaving well. Most of the time I am aware that I'm on my trip, and
probably you are as well. I think that people can go under, emotionally and spiritually, when they forget that their spirituality has to allow for pain, troubles and hard travelling
– they forget one of the best tools we can have in our toolkit: the cliché, 'Pain is mandatory; suffering is optional'.
I want to talk about what I do to stay happy, which you will know was my basic promise and premise at the outset.
Does that mean I will spend this chapter, our second-last, talking about my spiritual beliefs? Noooooooo, because, like you, I can't squeeze them into a page. I doubt I could begin to cover my beliefs even if I were to write non-stop for the rest of my life, and if I were to do so I'd miss out on too much fun.
Seeing I can't really talk much about the myriad and labyrinth of beliefs that I hold, I will just give the headlines, and the main headline is Precept 16: I will hold on tight to faith every day.
If there is anything I would like to communicate to my dear readers in the chapter before my summing up next chapter, it is the importance of faith.
But faith in what?
Don't you like it when a cross-heading talks like that? "But faith in what?" It's a great literary device
– I'm putting questions in your mouths – sorry! 
Personally, I do not think that if the goal is to feel better in the short term, it matters greatly what one has faith in. I have seen people put faith in all sorts of gods, goddesses, groups, ideas and concepts and they seem to get better, sometimes quite dramatically. In the long term, what we believe in is more important. Without a faith that is integrated with a framework of principles for ethical behaviour, for example, the individual will very soon find himself or herself alienated from other human beings. Common deviations from ethical behaviour include lying, cheating, stealing, being violent, and so on, and these lead to unhappiness.
It seems clear to me that a framework of ethical beliefs can only be built on a foundation that has qualities that are ontological, teleological, philosophical and a few other ogicals and osophies. We cannot delve into these in this chapter, as I said above. However, as my goal in each page of this manual is to tell you what I do, and if I can't tell you all I do and think about the role of spirituality and faith, I hope to leave you with this:
Faith will only develop, by you developing faith.
Do it!
If you are miserable, I believe you have to find a greater depth of faith in something, and do it fast. Do it today. The main criterion is that your faith should be placed where the following principles are to be found:
- Personal power;
- Good behaviour;
- Optimism;
- Dignity of all human beings.
Yes, there are many other aspects to faith and a spiritual path, but if you are in pain and confusion, go quickly to a place in your mind and soul where these principles obtain.
This might lead you to churches, cults, gurus, tea-leaf readers or stargazers. Here I say, most strongly: Beware!
It seems to me that it would be better not to fall into the trap of faith outside the norm at first, unless you have done much study previously and have a sure foot on the many rocky paths of spirituality. This is where many people take their emotional pain and end up with a reduction both in their pocketbooks and their brain cells.
I think I have a better idea than signing up with the latest program (though I have no opinion on any programs you favour
– it's your life).
I think a really good way to go is with the healing power of the Universe. If you are hurting, KISS it better
– Keep It Simple, Stupid (no offence).
There will be time later for honing your beliefs to suit your ontology, teleology and tea-leafology. It seems to me, also, that any spiritual path that denies the healing power of the Universe, is not worth its weight in dehydrated dingo dung. Could you or I even imagine a religion or faith that denies the bloody obvious?
Let's look very briefly at what you can gain by holding tight to a faith in the healing power of the Universe.
- You can trade it in at any time;
- It's free;
- It's evident all around us ... like when you cut your finger, or mow the lawn (it grows back);
- It can be held in your mind with absolutely no confusing or distraction dogmas;
- It can be very broad in your visualisation of it.
Broad view of healing
Let me explain the last point up there. Spirituality is a very subjective thing, and I do not presume to try to spout off on it. It's clear, though, that, while there may be many paths, there are two broad roads. One says that there are forces that intervene (be they faeries, gods or goddesses), and the other says there are not. We can't have it both ways.
What you believe is up to you
– I hasten to tell you that I do not believe in intervening powers.
But this is my main point: both of these roads, and the many paths that human beings travel, are amenable to a broad visualisation, or conceptualisation, of the healing power of the Universe. I make this point because in my experience (of myself and others), where there is misery there is confusion, and one of the great tools we have out of confusion is to simplify.
I respectfully suggest that even if we are usually well and happy, on those occasions that we are messed up, a simple paradigm like this will help us cut through the briars that have grown over our path.
Imagine, if you will, that even if the Universe does not 'intervene'
– like help us win the lottery, or cure Cousin Fred's cancer, or Save the Queen, or Bless America
– that nothing stops it healing in general.
Yes, of course there is pain and suffering in the world, but, as
Helen Keller (who was deaf, mute and blind) said:
Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.
Even when there is pain and illness, the principle of growth and healing is all around us. Sometimes we just need to open our eyes a bit wider. Spirituality has many dimensions, far too many for this chapter, but we can at all times attune ourselves to the Source, the healing power that restores our minds and our spirits. And we do it through our six senses. Yes, the usual five, plus that other one that is beyond defining. (Perhaps more than
six – choose any number greater than five that suits you.) The very clever people don't know ... but you and I do (no offence again)
– don't we?
No into Yes
I will end with this: the energy, or power, or feeling, or light, that your seven senses can tune into, whatever this Great Mystery is, is always available. It has healing and growth functions that go beyond the growth of grass or skin cells:
As if by magic, if I just have a little faith, it can change
- My lies into truths;
- My delusions into reality;
- My every No into a Yes;
- My doubt into certainty;
- My confusion into clarity;
- My pain into pleasure;
- My stupidity into wisdom;
- My crankiness into pleasantness;
- My hate into love;
- My misery into ecstasy;
- My darkness into light;
- My emptiness into meaningfulness;
- My fear into courage;
- My tiredness into energy;
My resentments into forgiveness.
It's slow, not like instant coffee or drive-thru restaurants, more like acorns sprouting and growing into oak trees. Take a look at a tree today, and consider the growth. It may be slow, but it's there. We need to cultivate (ugh!!) patience ... not very appealing to us 21st century people.
This energy keeps growing, if we just get out of our own way. Start small, if you are miserable, and have faith that if your good feelings grow by just 1 per cent per day, they will double in 70 days. It's mathematical, my dear Watson.
How do I know? Is it because I am very spiritual, or very good? No, it's because I started on my suicide day with just a little faith. Not much, but it seems I don't need a lot, and it keeps growing anyway ... nothing can stop it except me.
When I was trying to 'top' (as we say in Australia), or kill myself, out of the blue I suddenly remembered that many years before, someone had told me that Carlos Castaneda once wrote, that when all else fails, and when everything is completely dark, you can always find one cubic centimetre of light to go into.
That's what I did. I went into a tiny bit of light that was even smaller than that. And I went in with the faith that, even though there would be painful days ahead, the cubic centimetre would keep growing, incrementally, for the rest of my life. I don't know why I believed, apart from the fact that someone had told me, much as I am telling you now. It works. And it not only saved my life, it has turned it into a better one than I imagined
– in just four years.
At any rate, I don't really think I was such a bad man trying to get good. I was more like a sick man trying to get well. I couldn't find this manual at the time I needed it, is all. Only at the last minute did one small seed of light enter my brain.
I don't like religiosity very much, so that, and the fact that the page is full, requires that I stop here. That's my chapter, and your homework. The healing power of the Universe is light and warm and loving. It's free, and it's everywhere. It is the Source of your own magic. I have only been able to express here one aspect of my faith and my experience/understanding of the spiritual dimension; if you don't relate to the way I express the inexpressible, powerful Good, find your own expression. Go for it. I rest my case.
Abundance and gratitude,
Pip
The
FeelGood Manual is now
available as a printed book
Progress, not perfection!
Happiness is not for sale.
Freewill contributions, according to what you think this is worth,
are gratefully accepted for the continuation of this work.
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