FAITH

Most of my life I did not believe in God. God did not exist for me. I grew up thinking that I was the one that achieved everything in my life and that everything I had I owed to my work, dedication and personal effort. We, Jews, are very traditional, and I, like a good Jew, respected these traditions. But I did not believe in God. When I finally woke up, I discovered inside myself a new world that I was completely unfamiliar with. A little later I told my oldest son, “Jonathan, life can be easy.” He looked at me completely confused and said, “That’s not what you used to tell me before,” to which I answered, “I know. But now I know better.” At that moment I didn’t have the slightest doubt. It was an intangible feeling that could not be expressed with words, I found it in my heart. We can all find it because we carry it within us. Like a good accountant, I look at the results, I observe, and when I look back on my life since my awakening, it seems unbelievable all that has happened to me. Some find God in a temple or church. Others, like me, do not find it there. One day we wake up, we start to look and we realize that it is not even necessary to rise from bed to find God. It doesn’t matter the denomination, or what we call God, He (She) is always with us. Wherever we go, He (She) accompanies us. We do not know, nor do we have the slightest idea, how God (Love) works. We don’t know what it can do for us. We cannot even imagine it. The so-called miracles do really exist. We can experience them in every moment of our lives if we stop trying to understand everything with the intellect, and if we let go of our judgments and opinions, and learn to let ourselves be taken by the flow of life. It is necessary to become aware that we, ourselves, are our own greatest obstacles in our own lives! We say that we trust but we don’t really. We say that we give our problems to God (Love) but we still hold on to them. When we don’t stop thinking about them, and we get upset and worry, we let God (Love) know that we want to solve everything alone because we do not have faith in Him (Her). In that way, we do not get answers to our prayers because we have “expectations.” We believe that we know what is right and perfect for us, and when we ask something of God, we do it in an almost commanding way. We tell Him (Her) what we want, how, what color and at what time we want it. However, God knows before we ask. He (She) is so close that we do not need to shout. It is sufficient to think it. God has much more for us than we can imagine. He (She) is only waiting for us to give Him (Her) permission to give it to us. If we ask for specific things, like for example, “Oh God, I would like to have money to travel to Europe,” we put limits on our request. God grants us what is correct in every moment. In the case of the example, perhaps the correct thing for me was to go to South America instead of Europe, but in being so closed off, the money does not come because what I requested is not correct for me. Maybe I was going to have an accident and die in Europe. In closing ourselves off in this manner, we are left without the possibility of receiving what is correct and perfect in a given moment. Sometimes God says no, like a good parent does when his/her child cannot measure or realize the danger or the consequences of what he/she is asking for. For this reason, the secret is in requesting what is correct and perfect, and we do not know what that is. It is necessary to let go of expectations. In the precise moment the most appropriate and perfect thing will arrive. We never know where it will come from. To receive the surprise, we must give permission. God (Love) works in mysterious ways. If we allow it, if we believe and trust with all our hearts, everything will come to us without effort. God is the only one that can open certain doors and bring us close to the people who can help us and support us on our path. He (She) puts us in the correct place in the perfect moment only when we stop talking so much to our neighbor instead of asking Him (Her) directly. Just thinking about God lifts us away from our problems. Also, being thankful for what we have automatically changes our vibration. There are always good reasons to be thankful. The Indigo Children say, “If you imagine and believe that something will happen, it happens. If you imagine it but you don’t believe it, it will be difficult for it to happen. It’s about having faith and not ‘waiting for’ or ‘wishing’ for something to happen.” Having faith is being open to the possibilities. It means that we are willing to allow life to surprise us, that we dare to enter into the unknown and to stop being afraid of what appears uncertain to us. Whenever someone has faith, his/her heart opens. Many times we remain stuck and go around in circles in the same place for lack of faith and fear of the unknown. It is worth it to learn from the seed, which despite its inability to imagine itself an orchid, has the courage to open, get broken, and give itself to the process entirely to sprout from the earth’s surface and emerge to the light. A heart full of pain cannot imagine what it feels like to be loved or to be at peace. And that is how it is with everything. Many times we have to break with old patterns, old ways of thinking, and old beliefs. This implies having to pass through a dark tunnel, and at times having to feel pain, but it is the only way to come out ahead and to see the light. Jesus said that we must be like children to be able to enter into the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom of heaven is here and now. It is dependent on us to experience it. We only have to stop thinking so much and stop believing that we know everything and we are always right. Many times, all our thoughts, information, and education distance us from what we really are. Innocence is no more than God’s wisdom in us. Of course it is necessary to be brave to take this path, but victory is one hundred percent assured. It is necessary to dare to believe, try, trust, and surrender. When we begin to trust and have faith, something inside of us transforms and our thinking clears up. Everything looks different. We try to explain this transformation with words, but it is not possible. There are no words to define it. We only know that we have found the wisdom of the heart. Now I would like to discuss the most important kind of faith, faith in oneself. It is not imperative to believe in anything outside ourselves. It is not necessary to believe in God, Jesus, Buddha, or Moses, unless this makes us feel good. What is necessary is to believe and trust ourselves and in the power that is inside of us. To reach it, we must renounce many beliefs, opinions, and judgments about ourselves, in order to like and accept ourselves exactly the way we are. I know that this is not easy. We do not even consciously know what these beliefs are that affect us, but with the process that I teach in this article, it is not necessary to know them, just to give permission for them to go away. When we believe in ourselves and we love ourselves unconditionally, we become invincible. People perceive this quality. It is not necessary to speak or to say anything. When we believe in ourselves, we will notice that certain people begin to distance from us while others come closer, bringing with them the opportunities we yearn for. The secret lies in accepting ourselves just the way we are, no longer believing that we are not good, that we are not intelligent enough, that we do not have enough money, or that a university degree is necessary first to be worthy. Only we can change what we believe about ourselves. The most important thing is to put ourselves first in order to stop being that person that others want us to be. It is necessary to wake up and understand that the power is inside of us and not in the approval of others. When we have faith in ourselves, our inner talents automatically begin to grow and we begin to feel happy. Faith in ourselves has to do with the capacity to love and to enjoy life. Our lives go by in our own minds. The war is inside our heads and only we can return the peace. It is essential to remember that in one sense we are always right. If we say we can, we can. If we say we cannot, that’s how it is, we cannot. We are here to live, enjoy life, and be happy. Faith in ourselves gives us the freedom to be authentic, and this in turn begets the happiness that we yearn for so much