"...And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God. For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith. Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them. And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any: that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses. But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses..."
Mark 11:22-26 KJV
From the Gospel of Mark above, "...What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them..." is a simple, yet profound instruction to prayer. But is it that simple?
What is belief?
Gurdjieff, in his book "Life is Real Only Then, When 'I AM'", Penguin Arkana 1999, page 132-136, says something equally as remarkable about belief, yet in his own unique way [note that the bold italics emphasis in the following passage is the authors]:
"...The first of the aforementioned secrets is that as a means for self-perfecting a man can use a certain property which is in his psyche, and which is even of a very negative character. This property can serve as an aid to self-perfecting and exists in people in general, particularly in contemporary people, and especially in you, and is none other than that which I have many times condemned and which people themselves consider an unworthy manifestation for a man who has reached responsible age—of course in this respect also excluding themselves—and it is called "self-deception."
Such an, at first glance, illogicality and deduction not corresponding to any human sane reasoning, namely, that such a property unbecoming to the psyche of a man of adult age can consciously be made use of for such an immeasurably high aim, is obtained owing to the fact that the cognizance of truths concerning the possibilities of self-perfection, and the real forming in oneself of what is required for this, must proceed not in the ordinary consciousness of a man, which for the given case has almost no significance, but in what is called the subconscious, and since, thanks to all kinds of accidents ensuing from the various abnormalities of our ordinary life, it has become impossible for a man, particularly for a contemporary man, to take in anything at all and so to say "digest" it directly with his subconsciousness, therefore it is necessary for him, as has in the course of many centuries been experimentally proven by persons of Pure Reason, to use a special means for inculcating in his subconsciousness some reasonable indication accidentally grasped by his ordinary consciousness and not contradictory to his instinct, and this can be done only by means of this self-deceptive imaginativeness inherent in him.
If you have understood without any doubt what you must do, and how, and fully hope at some time to attain this in reality, you must at the beginning often imagine, but imagine only, that this is already present in you.
This is necessary chiefly in order that the consciousness forming in oneself during an active state should continue also during a passive state.
For the correct understanding of the significance of this first assisting exercise, it is first of all necessary to know that when a normal man, that is, a man who already has his real I, his will, and all the other properties of a real man, pronounces aloud or to himself the words "I am," then there always proceeds in him, in his, as it is called, "solar plexus," a so to say "reverberation," that is, something like a vibration, a feeling, or something of the sort.
This kind of reverberation can proceed also in other parts of his body in general, but only on the condition that, when pronouncing these words, his attention is intentionally concentrated on them.
If the ordinary man, not having as yet in himself data for the natural reverberation but knowing of the existence of this fact, will, with conscious striving for the formation in himself of the genuine data which should be in the common presence of a real man, correctly and frequently pronounce these same and for him as yet empty words, and will imagine that this same reverberation proceeds in him, he may thereby ultimately through frequent repetition gradually acquire in himself a so to say theoretical "beginning" for the possibility of a real practical forming in himself of these data.
He who is exercising himself with this must at the beginning, when pronouncing the words "I am," imagine that this same reverberation is already proceeding in his solar plexus.
Here, by the way, it is curious to notice that as a result of the intentional concentration of this reverberation on any part of his body, a man can stop any disharmony which has arisen in this said part of the body, that is to say, he can for example cure his headache by concentrating the reverberation on that part of the head where he has the sensation of pain.
At the beginning it is necessary to pronounce the words "I am" very often and to try always not to forget to have the said reverberation in one's solar plexus.
Without this even if only imagined experiencing of the reverberation, the pronouncing aloud or to oneself of the words "I am" will have no significance at all.
The result of the pronouncing of them without this reverberation will be the same as that which is obtained from the automatic associative mentation of man, namely, an increase of that in the atmosphere of our planet from our perception of which, and from its blending with our second food, there arises in us an irresistible urge to destroy the various tempos of our ordinary life somehow established through centuries.
This second exercise, as I have already said, is only preparatory; and when you have acquired the knack, as it were, of experiencing this process imagined in yourself, only then will I give you further definite real indications for the actualization in yourself of real results.
First of all, concentrate the greater part of your attention on the words themselves, "I am," and the lesser part concentrate on the solar plexus, and the reverberation should gradually proceed of itself.
At first it is necessary to acquire only, so to say, the "taste" of these impulses which you have not as yet in you, and which for the present you may designate merely by the words "I am," "I can," "I wish."
I am, I can, I am can.
I am, I wish, I am wish.
In concluding my elucidations of this assisting exercise, I will once more repeat, but in another formulation, what I have already said.
If "I am," only then "I can"; if "I can," only then do I deserve and have the objective right to wish.
Without the ability to "can" there is no possibility of having anything; no, nor the right to it.
First we must assimilate these expressions as external designations of these impulses in order ultimately to have the impulses themselves.
If you several times experience merely the sensation of what I have just called the "taste" of these impulses sacred for man, you will then already be indeed fortunate, because you will then feel the reality of the possibility of sometime acquiring in your presence data for these real Divine impulses proper only to man.
And on these Divine impulses there is based for humanity the entire sense of everything existing in the Universe, beginning from the atom, and ending with everything existing as a whole—and, among other things, even your dollars..."
Is belief fantasy or reality?
For Gurdjieff, and the intimations of Christ, belief is orchestrated from our potential faculty of "consciously directed imagination" and the reality that underpins it. However, you can't just believe in any old tale or fantasy and expect it to come to fruition - but neither can you not believe in anything for reality demands belief in something.
So, the question of belief becomes a matter of what aligns instinctively with reality while also capable of extending it from our normal perceptions - firmly rooted, as Gurdjieff indicates, in what he calls "subconsciousness", our real consciousness, an aspect of the energetic intelligence of the body. Or put another way, when one's potential is fully sensed as "visual and visceral", the reality of Being can follow.
In this author's experience, every approach made to a spiritual exercise has been with a healthy dose of scepticism, a proverbial "Doubting Thomas" to everything the exercise might have to offer to test its veracity. It was only after long suffering with exercises, and eventually seeing their results, that an understanding grew that it was the scepticism itself that prevented the results manifesting in the first place. And yet, also from experience, blind faith to spiritual pursuits is often disastrous.
Alas, here lies the human condition with its ever-present question...What do I believe?
The spiritual axiom of "...experience first, understand later..." comes to the surface. For all practices and exercises must first be approached with a belief (or perhaps just a little trust) that "...they will work...", otherwise, you wouldn't try anything that you hadn't already experienced.
Belief, if it is to be practical, must progress with small steps of faith before a much larger belief can be enabled. And once believed, it can become a matter of fact, tangible, and realisable...it can become "Faith made Flesh".
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