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One-Pointed
Faith
by
MSI
The secret to success in any area of
human concern is really no secret at all, it is so obvious: whenever you
whole-heartedly focus your attention, you will progress. The master key
in that sentence is "whole-heartedly." Half-heartedly doesn’t
work. Neither does 99.9%-heartedly. Wherever there is a crack in
commitment, doubt and then mistakes and then failure rush in. Whole
means complete, entire, with every fiber of one’s being dedicated to
the goal. That works. When one is 100% complete, the almighty forces of
Nature align behind one to bring success in countless unforeseen ways.
Anytime we think the problem is somehow
"out there," we have missed the essential point of human life.
All of our experience, all of our creation comes from inside, from here,
from our heart. To change the outer world is impossible without first
changing the inner world. As Thoreau put it, For every thousand hacking
at the leaves of evil, there is one striking at the root. The power of a
life that stems from inner strength is incomparable. Life dedicated to
external solutions will lead to ever-increasing frustration as one is
disappointed again and again with all the noble efforts to change the
outer world. The outer world has a certain wonderful disdain for the
attempts of the human to change it, if the human is not coming from the
place of whole-heartedness.
It is not difficult to become
whole-hearted. It takes a reversal of the typical direction of
awareness. From birth, we have been trained to use our senses in a
vertically outward direction. This was necessary for survival and has
served us well. We needed to learn to identify that of the outer world
that nourished, that which was safe, that which was not. Then we went to
school and learned some ability of using the mind horizontally: thinking
about things. Both of these directions of the mind we accept without
question as being utterly natural and normal, simply because we are so
familiar with them.
With both these motions of awareness
being natural, outward vertical and horizontal, why should anyone think
that the third obvious motion of the mind, inward vertical, should be
unnatural and involve effort in order to accomplish? It is a curious
result of waking state thinking, that the inward direction of the mind
alone should involve work. The Reality is quite other: it takes less
energy to think at deeper or more inward levels of thought, therefore it
is actually easier to go inside than it is to use the senses in an
outward direction or even to think about something! It is just that the
average person has never been trained to take the attention inward. Too
bad, because it is precisely by taking the attention inward that one
learns to be whole-hearted.
The Ishayas’ Ascension process is the
most effortless means available in the world today to train the mind to
move gently inward. No effort is required in order to Ascend. None.
Zilch. Nada. In fact, the single most common mistake among individuals
new to the practice is that they try to do it. They try and try and try
and it doesn’t work and so they stop Ascending. A great tragedy, that,
and all based upon the simple misunderstanding that it involves effort
to Ascend. It is explained—over and over again—in the First Sphere
Weekend that Ascension is a completely effortless process, but there is
so much information being communicated there, it is not surprising that
some of it gets overlooked, particularly this fact. The life-long habit
is to use effort when one thinks. The inward direction of the mind alone
is effortless. Small wonder then, it takes some time to learn this
concept.
As one moves gently inward, several
remarkable things begin to happen. First, the body settles down to very
deep rest, deeper than that of sleep at night. This allows deep stresses
and strains to be released from the physiology. Second, the mind starts
erasing the old grooves of doubt, of limitation, of fear, of
self-destructive behavior patterns. This is true because the inward
movement of the mind takes one to greater levels of subtlety that
automatically start erasing the boundaries of limits. Third, joy and
peace start spontaneously developing in the life, freeing one’s heart
from the painful shrouds of past experience. Life begins to be lived in
innocence and unconditional love.
Every area of life changes for the
better with Ascension, because the mind controls every area of the life
and the mind begins immediately to expand, to lose the boundaries and
limits of old, fear-based thinking. As this process continues, one
begins to become more and more innocent, to live life more and more
fully in the present moment of time, without preconceived ideas or
judgments about the nature of reality. The constant chatter of the
internal dialogue gradually stills, freeing one to experience pure
creativity and joy in every moment.
As life becomes simpler and more
innocent, one naturally finds that one’s desires become increasingly
one-pointed. As the full power of attention is directed onto a single
desire, the fulfillment is instantaneous. What is desire like in the
waking state? You desire an apple and go to the refrigerator only to
find that the only apple there is mushy, half-rotten, with a worm
sticking out of it, laughing at you. With increasing evolution, you
desire an apple and go to the refrigerator and your roommate has just
purchased a bag of the most beautiful, ripe, crisp apples you can
imagine. Evolve a bit further, and you don’t have to get up out of
your big overstuffed chair: you desire an apple and your partner walks
in the door bringing you one, saying, "I just thought you might
like an apple…." Evolve further still, no partner is necessary to
produce the apple at your side, in your hand. These are stages of growth
of physical mastery, of one-pointed faith.
For verily I say unto you, if ye have
faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain,
Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be
impossible unto you. –Matthew 17:20.
Faith as a grain of mustard seed is
one-pointed faith. When the intellect is firmly focused on a point, the
awareness is free to experience itself as it truly is: unbounded,
infinite, absolute. When the intellect is established in one-pointed
faith and learns to entertain desires in one-pointed faith, the
unbounded nature of Ascendant Awareness acts instantly to fulfill the
desires. This is known as the Miracle Power; it automatically develops
in anyone who continues Ascending long enough to clean all the internal
machinery completely.
The waking state sells itself far
short. Created in the image and likeness of God, the average human lives
a life more akin to the animals than to the glorious potentiality of
full human realization. Unfortunate misinterpretations of the world’s
scriptures have contributed greatly to the distorted and unfortunate
self-images that keep humanity locked into limitations and boundaries
instead of freeing the human race to soar with angelic wings into the
heart of Heaven.
Fortunately, any mistake, even those of
centuries-long duration, can be changed by simply choosing again for the
Truth. The Atonement patiently awaits all humans’ simple choice to
flow with the Ascending currents of Natural Law, rather than continue to
be caught by the darkness of the ego’s created universes of fantasies,
of pain and death. This is a choice, a simple choice; once the choice is
made, whole-heartedness naturally follows. And following
whole-heartedness is the most remarkable series of transformations that
leaves, in the end, the human as a full manifestation of God’s perfect
Creation.
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