Faith

"Faith" is the essence of Taoism, a very beloved tradition in mysticism. Even though we might not be able intellectually to define or limit "God (Tao)," for She/He is infinite, not subject to human language, we can still have faith in Love.

Love will not "obey us," or always give us what we want; instead, It is always teaching us not to have, or to cultivate, personal desires. We cannot perform the will of Love-- do what Love wants-- if we are always busy with a personal agenda of our own. For Love often wills, through karma, something very different from our personal wish-list.

So, Love is not a "Santa Claus," genie, or "white knight" that gallops into our lives and "saves" us from the inconvenience of suffering. For it is through suffering and/or loss that we learn empathy, an indispensable aspect of Love.

So, although we do not believe in the petulant, mentally disturbed "god" of the culture, an image that appeals to only the interior child, we do have faith in a much greater God. For our God is the sum total of all the Love in all the hearts in all the creatures on all the planets in all the galaxies. This God is vast and immense, leaving all language behind.

As Neanderthals would not have the language to describe nuclear physics, so we humans do not have language sufficient to describe our sweet Lord/Lady of purest Love.

In mysticism, there is an old tradition called the via negativa. This teaches that we can say many things that God is not, but cannot say, in human language, what God is. For any description, no matter how beautiful, falls so short of the divine beauty that it is an insult, a thing of stinking filth and tattered rags.

I do not believe that all positive comment about God is impossible, but do understand this perspective. And, from many angles, it is true.

Faith in God is, as the word itself implies, faith in the good. It is faith in Love-- that, when all else passes away, Love will still remain in the active heart, and will still bind us to loving Souls. On this endless Love, the Soul thrives.
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