The Power of Faith - How to Lead a More Fulfilling Life

"Faith is a quality endowed with a most potent creative power", said Helen P. Blavatsky, the founder of Theosophy.

You can read the eleventh chapter of the Letter to the Hebrews to see what faith can do: it can show us the origin of this world we live in, it can put us on a harmonious relationship with God, it made Enoch escape death, man's most dreadful enemy, it saved Noah and a remnant of humanity from complete extinction, it gave Abraham a child through a barren woman, from whom innumerable descendants sprang, it saved Joseph and his brothers and their families from famine, it enabled Moses to form a new nation from the descendants of 12 brothers, it gave the Israelites courage to successfully invade Canaan, the land promised to them, it raised the dead to life, etc.

Faith is indeed powerful. It was by faith that we came into this world. Our parents believed that by their sexual union we would be born and they were right. We too produce our children by faith.

Faith is most necessary in leading a more fulfilling life. How is this done, how does the power of faith help us to lead a more fulfilling life?

Everyone Has Faith

There is no human being who has no faith. Atheists and agnostics are not exempted from this statement. They too have faith.

Faith is simply sure and certain knowledge of realities that are not visible to our physical eyes and reason, like knowledge of our worth, our talents, and our capacities. And everybody has this knowledge. The little child did not see itself coming out from the womb of its mother but it has faith that this or that woman is its mother. The atheist has faith that his ideas are correct though nobody can see these ideas in his head. So also with the agnostics, they too have faith in their learning.

I remember a famous correspondence between Fr. John Catoir and avowed agnostic Carl Sagan which lasted for more than 2 years. In this exchange of letters Fr. Catoir was insisting that Carl had no faith. In his explanation Fr. Catoir said that this man was unable to make the leap of faith. This is not true. Carl had faith. He had faith that the letter he wrote would reach Fr. Catoir, even if he did not see the priest opening his letter. Perhaps it is more true to say that Carl had no faith in the God portrayed by the priest, because the image of this God was foreign to the expectations of Carl of what God should be.

Faith Is Powerful

Faith enables us to live normal lives. By faith we know that tomorrow there is another day, although we never see the turning of the earth on its axis. It is by faith that we recognize our parents, our older brothers and sisters, our nationality, our community. It is by faith that we go to school believing that there we will learn reading, writing, arithmetic and the complexities of these three basic skills. It is by faith that we choose our work, our partner in life, our residences, our travels, our recreations.

Faith Leads Us to Lead a More Fulfilling Life

By a more fulfilling life is meant a life that is free of disturbing stress, that is more and more productive, in harmony with family members, relatives, and others. It is a life that enriches others and you know that this is so. It is one that feels and displays compassion for others, a source of encouragement for others, provides meaning to one's life and the lives of others, encouraging them to go on with life.

A more fulfilling life is one where a healthy ego or self-image is being developed, balanced in diet and exercise with self-discipline and self-control, productive, a life that makes you inventive and creative, bringing joy to others, and taking more and more control of your life.

A more fulfilling life is one where failures are looked upon not as a reflection of our incapacity but as reflection of our creativity to know the right way of doing things, as experiences for learning and growth.

It is a life of humility in success because you know by faith that it is not you who has accomplished the success but the Spirit in you.

Such is a more fulfilling life. And it is the power of faith that leads us to this kind of life.

It is faith in a being who is the origin of all that we see, one who loves us so much as to bring us to this existence or series of life, one who sustains us everyday with all the things around us. It is basically this faith which leads us to a more fulfilling life because by this we know where we came from, we know where we are going to and we know the way how to get there.

Maybe an example of such a more fulfilling life produced by the power of faith will bring home my point.

The example I refer to is George Washington Carver (1864-1943) who was born a slave and later exchanged for a racehorse as an infant. He met many difficulties in life, even getting out of slavery, going into school, teaching and doing research. But he enriched our lives by providing crops as alternative to the production of cotton which depleted the soil, inventing 145 products made from the lowly peanuts, and more than a 100 more from sweet potato, uplifting the Negro race. He achieved fame and was given many awards even many years after his death.

At the end of it all Carver said that God guided his research. He was criticized for making this statement. But it was his faith in himself and God which make his life more fulfilling both for himself and others. He said on many occasions that his faith in Jesus was the only way by which he could effectively do his research in science.

I want to end this article by quoting a passage written by an anonymous author which encapsulates what I have written here:
"Believe in yourself and in your plan, Say not - I cannot - I can, The prizes of life we fail to win, Because we doubt the power within...". Never doubt the power within. It is that which leads you to a more fulfilling life.

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Here are my other blogs which may be of help to you:

http://bit.ly/spiritdev for your spiritual growth

http://bit.ly/alterhealthcare for your health

http://bit.ly/novotrends for learning about the new trends around us

http://bit.ly/bepaidonline for earning some income from the Internet

Here are your links to download the e-books for FREE. To download a copy of A NEW CHRIST by Wallace D. Wattles click this website http://bit.ly/anewchrist. To download a free copy of A NEW EARTH by Eckhart Tolle click this website http://bit.ly/ebookanewearth. I hope that you enjoy reading these free e-books and profit much from them, as I have also profited greatly from them.

How to Find the Beauty of Life in Nature

"We do not see nature with our eyes, but with our understandings and our hearts", said William Hazlitt. And so to find the beauty of life in nature we need another pair of eyes, one that is better than our pair of physical eyes.

The Eyes of Poetry

Poets have better eyes than us when it comes to seeing beauty of life in nature. They see more than most of us can see. We see a flower, they see a whole world unfolding before their eyes. We see a pile of garbage the poets see lush vegetation. We see a tree, the poets see a person praying all day. We see daffodils, the poets see stars.

We need to borrow their eyes to see beauty in nature. We do this by reading their poems. We read Joyce Kilmer's "Tree", Wordsworth's "Daffodils", John Keats' "Endymion", etc. As we read these poems a whole new world opens before our eyes, the world as seen by these seers of nature. They lead us to the hidden beauty of nature.

The Eyes of Science

Science is another key to discovering the beauty of life in nature. In science we realize the immensity, the diversity of nature. We discover plants and other organisms that never die by themselves. They continue to live unless destroyed by man or by a major disaster. Bamboos, banyan trees, water spinach are immortal plants. We discover plants that continue to have green leaves until they die like some species of pepper.

Science tells us that the ground teems with life and everywhere life is being multiplied in countless ways. Life is just superabundant when we look at nature.

One time as I was traveling I was struck by the fact that vegetation abounds everywhere and life is taking on different forms in all places.

If we have a microscope we can peer into the beautiful symmetry of the cells and their different parts, beauty that is not seen by our naked eyes.

We use the eyes of science in finding the beauty of life in nature by reading articles on nature such as we find in magazines like National Geographic Magazine.

The Eyes of Faith

These eyes of faith refer to those eyes which are given to us by the Owner of nature. We have been endowed with these eyes though we may not be aware of it because of the culture around us, a culture which pushes us to acknowledge only what is visible to our physical eyes. There is more to life than can be seen by our bodily eyes or reason. Reality that is hidden to our bodily eyes may be fully revealed to us through the eyes of faith. Faith is the sure or certain knowledge of invisible reality. Those of us who have faith know for certain that God is real. How do we cultivate the eyes of faith to find the beauty of life in nature?

1. Live with nature. Live in a rural area if this is possible. If you cannot live in a field but have been forced by circumstances to live in the upper floor of a condominium, bring at least a pot of plant into your room.

2. Listen to nature. Listen to the noise or music of the crickets, of the frogs, of the wind, of the typhoon, of the rain, of the thunder, of the swaying of leaves, etc.

3. Talk with nature. Experiments have shown that plants grow better when a human person speaks with them regularly. Nature has a way of conversing with you if you carry on a conversation with it. Most of us think that plants and animals cannot understand what we say to them. They may not be able to understand the words but they certainly understand the attitude with which those words are spoken.

4. Cultivate nature. Plant a vegetable. When I was young I planted eggplants. I observed them. I talked with them. I knew what happens from the seed of an eggplant to an old eggplant tree. Today I am fascinated by the banyan tree whose seeds I find almost anywhere I go. I notice that these seeds have intelligence all their own. When I put two seeds on the branch of a tree one of them would fall down. No matter how carefully I put the two seeds, only one would remain on the branch of a tree to grow there.

5. Rest with nature. If possible take a vacation with nature. Bring a tent and simple provisions to last for a few days and rest in a secluded forested area. I like to rest in our farm where I can commune once again with my old time friends, the trees, the fish, the birds, the plants. Nature is restorative, reinvigorating. If you cannot do this go to a park planted with trees. Or have some days in a beach.

6. Walk with nature. Go out in the woods and walk some distance into a forest. There you will find life in all its richness. When I did this I was surprised by the size of the trees in the forest. I never thought such huge trees existed.

7. Read the book LAST CHILD IN THE WOODS: SAVING OUR CHILDREN FROM NATURE-DEFICIT DISORDER by Richard Louv. You will learn here the necessity of being connected with nature. Nature is as necessary to our health and well-being as the food we eat.

8. Pray with nature. Follow the example of Jesus who prayed in a garden, in a desert, in a mountain. Faith grows best with prayer because in prayer we talk to the Invisible One. This Invisible source of all that is visible makes our faith grow. As our faith grows we see more of the beauty of life in nature.

The eyes of poetry, the eyes of science, and the eyes of faith enable us to discover the beauty of life in nature. Let us use these eyes in addition to the physical eyes we have.

Click Here!

Here are my other blogs which may be of help to you:

http://bit.ly/spiritdev for your spiritual growth

http://bit.ly/alterhealthcare for your health

http://bit.ly/novotrends for learning about the new trends around us

http://bit.ly/bepaidonline for earning some income from the Internet

Here are your links to download the e-books for FREE. To download a copy of A NEW CHRIST by Wallace D. Wattles click this website http://bit.ly/anewchrist. To download a free copy of A NEW EARTH by Eckhart Tolle click this website http://bit.ly/ebookanewearth. I hope that you enjoy reading these free e-books and profit much from them, as I have also profited greatly from them.

How to Fill the Void You Feel Within

You have come to a point in your life when you feel that deep inside you there is something lacking that should be there. You feel there is a void within you that needs to be filled with something you do not have any idea about. So what do you do?

Many Paths, Same Destination

You are not alone. Millions of people around the world feel the way you do. All of you have come to a point where you think there is something lacking in your life and you cannot define it. But you come to this point from different backgrounds and through different paths.

Some of you may be successful professionals: doctors, nurses, lawyers, government officials, etc. Others may be failures in their line of work. Some of you may be respected in your society: clergymen and bible women, evangelists, actors, actresses, role models in one way or another. Others may be just plain farmers or housewives.

Some get this feeling after succeeding in their chosen careers. Despite their success they feel empty deep inside. Others fall into this depressing state while trying to succeed and failing in their attempt.

Many Pastimes, Many Advices, None of Any Avail

Some of you might have tried to fill this void with drugs, with alcohol, with sexual excesses and chain smoking. But the void has not gone away. Others might have tried clubbing and pubbing, getting to know more people in a socializing atmosphere and drinking to your heart's content with your friends. But the void keeps on tugging at your heart.

If you have contacted some religious people they might have advised you to pray, to practice meditation, to put God into your heart, because they say there is a God-shaped vacuum in your heart which only God can fill in. A Christian might have told you to accept Jesus as your Savior and Lord. A Muslim might have told you to read the Qur'an and follow the will of Allah. A Buddhist might have advised you to look deeper into your self and see what is lacking there and contemplate nothingness. But all these advices have left you empty deep inside yourself.

You might have gone to a psychiatrist, and she has prescribed some medicines for you to take and mind exercises for you to undergo after patiently listening to your stories and complaints. But still the emptiness is there in your heart.

So what can you do to fill this void you feel within?

The Cause of this Void

Most do not realize what the cause of this void or feeling of emptiness is. And because they do not know the cause, they do not know the cure or answer to this problem. They indiscriminately fill this void with things which really do not satisfy.

The cause of this void is in our being, the way we are. We are beings who experience and long for, the infinite.

While everyday we experience finiteness or limitations, we also experience the infinite. Given any number, we can always add another number, even if the length of that number has gone around the earth many times. Given any information we always long for more information. We are always on the lookout for something new. And there is no end to this. This is the indication that we long for something beyond ourselves, something infinitely greater than ourselves.

Because we experience and long for the infinite we are always searching for this and unless this longing for the infinite is satisfied we can never fill that void in our heart. That void needs to be filled with something infinite. It cannot be filled with money, things, sexual enjoyment, gadgets, think what you may.

Fill the Void with the Infinite

If you want to escape this feeling of emptiness deep within you, then fill your life with the Infinite. Notice that I did not say God, because again for most people their God is someone who is just greater than themselves in some ways. In fact for many people God is a concept only. They have not experienced him.

You ask then, How can I fill my life with the Infinite?

The Infinite is in you and around you. You can experience him or her now. If you have gone to a field consider the infinite variety of plants and other organisms there. Within you there is an infinite power which drives you to move on and on. If you are in your office consider the infinite data pouring in and passing through your office, through your computers and mobile phones.

Acknowledge the presence of this Infinite and surrender yourself to him or her. Is doesn't matter what gender you put the Infinite under, masculine, feminine or in-between. In a sense he is genderless, in another sense he is gender-full.

Why do you need to surrender to this Infinite? Because he or she loves you with an infinite love. He/she wants you to live with you forever. He fills you with all the things you need in life. And until you surrender to his/her love you will never be satisfied in life.

If you are a Christian, you believe that this Infinite has manifested himself completely in Jesus. If you are a Muslim you believe that Allah is your infinite destination. If you are a Buddhist you know that Enlightenment about this Infinite is your goal in life.

The void you feel within can only be filled by the Infinite who is inside you, around you, over you, under you, and you fill this void with the Infinite by surrendering your life to him, accepting his total unconditional love of you.

Click Here!

Here are my other blogs which may be of help to you:

http://bit.ly/spiritdev for your spiritual growth

http://bit.ly/alterhealthcare for your health

http://bit.ly/novotrends for learning about the new trends around us

http://bit.ly/bepaidonline for earning some income from the Internet

Here are your links to download the e-books for FREE. To download a copy of A NEW CHRIST by Wallace D. Wattles click this website http://bit.ly/anewchrist. To download a free copy of A NEW EARTH by Eckhart Tolle click this website http://bit.ly/ebookanewearth. I hope that you enjoy reading these free e-books and profit much from them, as I have also profited greatly from them.

Acknowledging Your Ego - How the Ego Is Connected to Spirituality

There are many factors which have built up your ego or self-image, who or what you think you are in relation to others who live around you. Some of these factors you are not even explicitly aware of, but they are there.

Factors Making up Your Ego

To begin with your parents have the first determining factor in the process of forming your ego. The color of your skin, the contour of your face, the blood in your veins, and a host of other physical characteristics come from your parents and you formed your self-image according to these data about you.

If you are born of black parents your skin by the genes transmitted from them is also black. And you see your self as a black guy or gal. On the other hand if your parents were white you inherit their white complexion and so you think of your self as a white guy or gal.

But the image of your self goes beyond your skin. Your parents also influenced your image of your self in the society where you live. If they are well to do, then your tendency is to consider your self as well off. If your parents are poor then you think of your self as a poor member of society.

Teachers, especially religion or values education teachers, your peers, your neighbors, your friends, your enemies, the animals around you, the plants that give you oxygen, the total environment around you influenced the making of your self-image.

Redefining Your Ego

As you grow up you redefine or remake your ego. Your poor parents won in the lotto and suddenly you think of your self as a rich person. You got the highest score in an exam in your class and you think of your self as not so dull. A handsome man falls in love with you and you think you are a beauty queen in your community. Your ego or self-image does change.

Sometimes the image in your ego hardens and becomes difficult to change. You think you are the underdog and you fight anybody who comes to oppose you. I know of an old man, he is a senior citizen now, who has maintained this image of being an underdog from the time he was in the elementary school and he has no friends.

Acknowledging Your Ego

Most do not reflect upon their ego, who or what they think they are. They just go through life acting without reflecting on their identity.

But a crisis may come which forces them to reflect on who they really are. A courtship break-up occurs and the man reflects what in him caused his girl friend to leave him. He begins to ask who or what he is to himself and to his girl friend.

A valedictorian in a law school fails in a bar exam and she asks, Why? Is there something in her personality which disqualifies her from passing that exam?

The ideal and proper thing to do is not to wait for a crisis to change or redefine our ego for the better. If a person is perceptive of herself and asks the great questions of life (Who am I? Where did I come from? Where am I going?) then she can begin to investigate her ego and acknowledge it for what it is.

You do not have to wait for a critical moment in your life. Right now you can take stock of your ego or self-image, acknowledge it and if you are not satisfied with it, then change it.

The Ego’s Connection to Spirituality

Spirituality is the life of the real you, the spirit in you. As the Christian existentialist philosophers keep on saying, you are an embodied spirit, a spirit enclosed in a body of flesh, blood and bones. And the task of spirituality is to discover your real self, who you really are. Once you discover your real self, or as some have expressed it, once you have reached self-realization, then you can function as a full human being.

To reach self-realization you have to cut your way through the ego, because in a sense this ego has blocked your view of your real self. You have an image of yourself as defined by others, your parents, teachers, peers, friends, and even enemies.

The first steps then in living the spiritual life consist of knowing your ego, acknowledging it and then discovering or realizing our true self. Once you discover this true self you redefine or remodel your ego to conform to this real self so that you can function as a full human being.

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Here are my other blogs which may be of help to you:

http://bit.ly/spiritdev for your spiritual growth

http://bit.ly/alterhealthcare for your health

http://bit.ly/novotrends for learning about the new trends around us

http://bit.ly/bepaidonline for earning some income from the Internet

Here are your links to download the e-books for FREE. To download a copy of A NEW CHRIST by Wallace D. Wattles click this website http://bit.ly/anewchrist. To download a free copy of A NEW EARTH by Eckhart Tolle click this website http://bit.ly/ebookanewearth. I hope that you enjoy reading these free e-books and profit much from them, as I have also profited greatly from them.

What Is the Purpose of Your Ego?

"How was the exam?" Somebody might have asked you before. And you probably answered, "I thought I did well." That image of yourself doing well in your exam was your ego. When the teacher informed you of your score and grade in that exam that image of yourself which was your ego was either built up (if your expectation was fulfilled or more than fulfilled), shattered (if you got a low score or one you did not expect), or just disregarded (if it didn't matter to you either way).

What Your Ego Is

If you look at the dictionary you will find that the word "ego" has many meanings, from the simple translation of the Latin ego as an emphatic "I" in English to the more complicated understanding of this word in psychoanalysis. But the meaning which is apropos to our discussion here is that it is the image we have of our self, or self-image. This is one of the meanings we find in the dictionary and it is one which we can use with consistency.

Your ego is what you think of yourself in relation to others around you, whether persons, animals, plants or simply things. It is your identity as you see it. Thus it may be different from what you really are. It is only your estimate of yourself. That is why some understand the ego as self-esteem. This image of yourself, if it is positive, gives you self-confidence. If the image of yourself is negative then your ego gives you the feeling of dejection and even depression.

Tendency to Identify Your Ego and Your Self

There is a tendency in you, as with the rest of mankind, to identify your ego with your real self. Most people think that what they think of themselves is what they are. For example, in underdeveloped and developing countries most people think of themselves as poor, as poverty ridden and unable to get out of the curse of poverty. There is even a joke circulated in one developing country that God so loved the poor that he made so many of them.

The truth, as so well pointed out by Bob Proctor, is that all of us were born rich. Our real self is rich, not poor, as those living in poverty tend to think of themselves. It is only in our self-image, in our estimation that we are poor. In reality our self is rich.

There are times when a person is hurt because he was despised for something that he did. Maybe he was not able to answer an oral question in class and the rest of the class laughed at him. He may not realize that what they despised was only their image of him as a dull student, not his real self. This is because we tend to identify our real self with our ego. He may in reality be a brilliant student although nobody knows about this.

The Purpose of Your Ego

The purpose of your ego is to influence the way you think, talk and act. Your ego is as it were the natural, built-in pre-conscious rudder in your life. It is pre-conscious because normally you do not think about this ego as guiding your life. If you think of your self as someone with potential for music, you are going to think of learning more about music and engaging in musical activities. If you think of your self as someone with a broken, out of tune voice, then you are likely to decide to overcome this musical disability or keep out of singing in the presence of other people.

In school our teachers helped to form our ego or self-image. If a teacher told us that we would not amount to anything in life and we believed her then indeed we would go through life not amounting to anything because that is what we think of our selves. On the other hand if we believed otherwise we would go on proving to ourselves and our teachers that we would amount to something in life later on.

We might have teachers also who praised us for our work and told us we would succeed in life and so we did. This was because we believed the image of ourselves as presented by those encouraging teachers. Belief led to actions which helped us to succeed.

So it is very important that you build up your ego in the right way, if possible nearer to the reality that you are. You are a champion, a rich person, endowed with so many abilities by your Creator.

If you do not have the correct self-image it is better that you abandon this and learn more about your real self. Then you form your ego or self-image according to your real self.

Click Here!

Here are my other blogs which may be of help to you:

http://bit.ly/spiritdev for your spiritual growth

http://bit.ly/alterhealthcare for your health

http://bit.ly/novotrends for learning about the new trends around us

http://bit.ly/bepaidonline for earning some income from the Internet

Here are your links to download the e-books for FREE. To download a copy of A NEW CHRIST by Wallace D. Wattles click this website http://bit.ly/anewchrist. To download a free copy of A NEW EARTH by Eckhart Tolle click this website http://bit.ly/ebookanewearth. I hope that you enjoy reading these free e-books and profit much from them, as I have also profited greatly from them.