Cultivate Faith in Your Life

No hope is too grand or too impossible for the all-seeing eye of intuitive faith, or ultimate perception through which we know all things as they are, to bring into manifestation. That is why in ordinary mortals we see the manifestation of Hope. When hope is used properly to work for the acquisition of the soul’s lost intuition, then faith, or intuitive Self-realization, develops. 

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Faith gives birth to the human hope and the desire to achieve, but it also hides behind the wall of ignorance. Ordinary human beings know practically nothing of this intuitive faith latent in the soul, which is the secret spring of all our wildest hopes.

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The word “faith” is often erroneously used for “belief,” as, “I have faith in him.” Belief is problematic and may be followed by disillusionment. Belief is the initial experimental feeling about the truth of anything. Untested belief crystallizes into dogmatic sentiment or, if discouraged, it may change into skepticism or unbelief. 

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When belief turns into dogmatic sentiment or skepticism, it is destructive. Constructive belief is the attitude of mind necessary for testing the truth about a thing in the beginning. The person who refuses to believe in anything, refuses to test and experiment. These are the only means by which to know Truth. 

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Constructive belief is good when one continuously believes and experiments with a truth until its real nature is revealed. Destructive disbelief is limiting because one disbelieves for the fun of doing so. Constructive disbelief or doubt is good because one assumes an attitude, not of final skepticism and turning forever away from Truth, but because one says, “Well, I am from Missouri; I shall not believe your statement until you prove that it is true.”

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According to Jesus, faith is the proof of things unseen; that is, all phenomena or visible matter can be recorded by the senses, but not invisible substances, such as vibrations, subtle Cosmic forces, and super-electric lights, which are unseen or unknown to, and unregistered by, the limited power of the senses.
 
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The proof of the existence of all subtle forces and of God as final substance lies in faith, or the instantaneous all-knowing, all-seeing, intuitive power developed through deep meditation and soul contact.

--Excerpted from How to Increase Your Magnetism by Paramhansa Yogananda