Originally posted by Fr. Kenneth Nelan on October 27th, 2010
Formless Being
We call The Divine by so many names and give It so many attributes that we sometimes forget there is more to the whole God thing than just defining It – there is also experiencing It. We forget we are a part of the larger consciousness that exists throughout all things known and unknown.
Almighty God, in whom we live and move and have our being, you have made us for yourself, so that our hearts are restless until they rest in you; grant us purity of heart and strength of purpose, that no selfish passion may hinder us from knowing your will, no weakness from doing it; but that in your light we may see light clearly, and in your service find our perfect freedom; through Jesus Christ our Lord. ~ Augustine of Hippo
From our righteous mountain tops we proclaim with great certainties, “God is what I have defined,” or “I know God, and you don’t!” We war over concepts, definitions, and minutia which hold little matter in the greater scheme of All Being. Still, in doing so we set limitations on a Thing that has existed far longer than any of us could ever imagine; it is far more powerful than we can ever conceive. In Its omnipotence, It can BE anything, anyone, or anytime it wants – otherwise, It wouldn’t be omnipotent would It?
We frail beings find comfort in assigning anthropomorphic qualities to the Great Divine because of our limited awareness and limited abilities. It comforts us to know there is greatness that resembles our own beings, but to a tree, the Divine is a tree, to a dog, it is another dog; and to a child, it is the world. Whose is the right view? They are all perfectly correct as the Divine is All!
We bring ourselves to what we think is the fullness of understanding, but seldom take pause to smell the proverbial roses or listen to the rush of wind through the leaves; we forget to pause and listen to the Divine interacting with us as we celebrate our daily lives. We forget about faith.
Faith
Faith is that which is believed on any subject, whether in science, politics, other people, or religion, especially concerning theology, but is more than just a defined practice — it is something that requires action, thought, personalization, determination, and even change. Faith is the final stage of acceptance of a thing seen or unseen which coincides with personal feelings of trust and well-being, security, and acceptability. It is something that evolves over time and Becomes as much as it begets.
Faith is a stirring of deep currents which extends from the soul and permeates every ounce of being. It too is formless and indescribable. It is our very essence made manifest in that which we hold as truth. And just like belief, it too is dynamic and ever-evolving, becoming and begetting that which is made manifest through thought. Because it is dynamic it must not be something that wars are fought over. What is trusted today may not be tomorrow, and what is absolute can be called into question through uncertainty.
Our souls are migrants until at last, they have reached the Beginning where they will find their peace.
Belief
Belief is no different from faith in any regard except that it is held to a higher standard of scrutiny by the soul and with help from others with similar outlooks. “Belief admits all degrees, from the slightest suspicion to the fullest assurance” (Reid, Retrieved from Webster, 1913).
Belief and faith are interchangeable words that convey a deep sense of trust in a thing and which expose us to the possibility that we have become, or can become misguided or lost from our core structure of understanding.
But a belief usually stems from something that cannot be proven whereas faith can be based on something proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. Belief is always cast in doubt and subject to deeper personal scrutiny. Belief is the mind accepting what the heart holds to be true through intuition and feeling.
Formless Being
It is an inescapable certainty that something greater than ourselves exists if for no other reason than because we think it is real and out there somewhere. We spend great amounts of energy discovering its meaning and trying to put it into a neat little package which we then carry around in our emotions and personal makeup. Our definitions and boxes collide violently with those which are inharmonious or incompatible with our own and defend our views through actions and words which resemble the antithesis of our beliefs. In defending our beliefs, we throw the Divine, the teachings, and the very core of our beliefs out the window, and in so doing we show others that our own truths are nothing like our beliefs.
When we live what we believe, that is when we become Formless through action, our true selves may join in the harmonious transcendence of being and become equally as formless.
When we let go of our preconceptions of the Divine we begin to see that all things are equally a part of, and equally in union with that force that surrounds all of existence.
We discover that we are the immutable and that the Divine is simply…
…formless.
Peace
