Faith

I have been trying to trace back my spiritual trajectory from atheism to something approaching religiosity.

Part of it was just that atheism wasn’t working. Believing in myself and my inherent wisdom had failed miserably. When tested, when left by myself, I wasn’t as pure in motive as I thought I was; I would turn to selfishness, give in to temptation, like everyone else. There was not a clear, logical, rational way out of every situation.

Part of which was better understanding religion, and realising how limited my previous understanding was. Religion isn’t just a crusade against sex above other seemingly more urgent and destructive social issues. Religion doesn’t entail a subtle undermining of other religions. Religion isn’t just Christianity. That all, or at least most, other religions are completely legitimate, serve their own purpose in a particular time and/or place, and that there was even a religion that not many people have heard of that brings everything together.

Part of it was meeting more religious people, and finding out that they aren’t all fanatical, smug, judgmental and humourless. They can also be detached, welcoming, open minded, and — very importantly — have some of the best sense of humours you have encountered.

 

**

So that was all just logical stuff. Then there was God. Yuck.

Scientific explanations helped here. They say the world is connected in a non-local way, where time and space is irrelevant. That there is an underlying field of information that links everything, and that certain states of minds, certain substances, certain utterances, certain combinations of words, allow us to access and influence it. It could be called, as the great Eastern sages did, the Akashic, an omnipresent, all penetrating existence:

“It is the Aksaha that become the air, that become the liquids, that becomes the solids; it is the Akasha that becomes the Sun, the Earth, the Moon, the stars, the comets; it is the Akasha that becomes the human body, the animal body, the plants, every form that we see, everything that can be sensed, everything that exists… At the beginning of creation there is only this Akasha. At the end of the cycle the solid, the liquids, and the gases all melt into the Akasha again, and the next creation similarly proceeds out of this Akasha…” (1)

I like the poetry of this explanation, and the purpose and reassurance it gives. No action is worthless, no thought is lost, it all remains, it all accumulates, and it all informs the future, maybe not our cycle, maybe not before the universe collapses in on itself (or whatever the current scientific theory is), but for when it reemerges again from this field, which remains, but now has more to share with, teach and inspire those who succeed in their search to access it — an everlasting journey of material life towards increasing complexity and consciousness. You don’t even have to call it God, although you still could.

 

**

So the idea of God was fine. It seems logical, as this underlying field of information, the source and destination of all actions and information, as the Akashic. I can get my head around that. But its the religious interpretation of this, when the Akashic has agency and an agenda — when a hand emerges from this field, into our material world, and starts actively intervening in our affairs when it feels necessary — where things becoming challenging.

I still find it difficult to get my head around the full implications of what a religious God means. That an all knowing, all powerful Being watches us, knows us, despairs in us, and at the last moment, intervenes, sends down the essence of itself in human form, and alters our trajectory, reorientates us, has enough love to save us when there is no apparent need for it to, as it will still continue on, unchanged, forever. That we should have faith in this fact, and have faith that this help will always be there, especially when we ask for it.

It could make logical sense if this is something gradually instilled in your mind as it is developing its own framework for understanding the world. It seems something less easy to get your head around, once your head has already developed around a defined worldview. You need events that actually challenge this established worldview, and that over time and after much reflection leave this worldview substantially wanting.

These are three examples, three occurrences unique to me, three breezes of confirmation, that have lead me to keep the faith when my head has been inclined to think otherwise.

 

**

The first one is, of all things, fantasy football (aka dream team). It something that a group of us, including my high school friends, have for a long time taken very seriously. With this year looking likely be the first year we aren’t all participating, this story also serves as an ode.

Fantasy football works on many levels. It makes watching footy more interesting — makes some games worth watching at all. Creates a deeper storyline behind players, both good and bad. Provides a fantastic source of banter between friends. Harmless fun, for the most part. For a lucky few, you can also win stuff. For a very select few, you might win officially: weekly prizes, or even a car. For the rest of us, it’s cash. Cash that pays two ways: not just in hand, but knowing that it came out of that of your mates. For groups like us, who do take it seriously, it can end up being a fair bit. Especially when you are stone cold broke.

I started my PhD on March 31^st 2011, on a 3 year scholarship, $30,000 tax free a year. Almost drowning in cash when you have spent your time since high school almost solely living student life. Come March 31^st 2014, still drowning but now in my thesis, I managed to score a 3 month extension. I tried for 6 months, but that would have been too easy. I had some savings, but not a lot. Come July, it was all that I had left. I tried for a completion scholarship: 3 lots of $2000 over four months, at the start middle and end. I didn’t get it, and with good reason — I didn’t end up submitting for another year. Luckily, I managed to score a few tutorials and lectures from my supervisor, who was on the road to retirement, along some casual research work to get my foot in the academia door. Not that the door was particularly enticing. In my own universe of first world problems, things were pretty dire: broke, single, aimless, borderline unemployed. The fact that fantasy footy was pretty much my only excitement is a good demonstration of that. I’m glad I never have to be there again.

This was my first evidence that things do indeed work in mysterious ways. You could say, because I needed the cash more than anyone else, and I had the time on my hands and my hands on a keyboard, the odds were on my side to win. You would probably be right. But you also would be misunderstanding fantasy footy. There is no science. Despite all my research, I should have lost my prelim (sorry Dayno, blame Priddis.) I won: not just once but in two leagues. Two cash leagues, each with $1000 for the winner. $100 for the loser (you don’t play fantasy footy to come second). And the final kicker, I was playing the same bloke in both leagues: double or pretty much nothing.

I won’t take you through the specifics, but it was ridiculous how it unfolded, this series of apparently random yet connected, in my life, events — the combined statistics of 18 assorted AFL players that were unique to our two teams. Players were withdrawn at the last minute, players scored wildly below or above their averages. All weekend it looked like I was gone, then on Sunday, things fell into place. It was never in doubt.

It didn’t solve all my problems. I still had a thesis to finish with one foot out the door. Still no job, but with casual work on the horizon. It wasn’t a miracle. But it was enough: enough financially for a few months (yes months, I had student life down to both an art and science by this stage), enough to revive hope in general. Anything more or less wouldn’t have done the trick. It was the first evidence that I would be looked after. That faith will manage to find you, will manage to surprise you and, best of all, has a brilliant sense of humour.

 

**

Second story.

On the day after Boxing Day 2016, I was driving home from my parents, along Bennett Street next to Wellington Square, up to the intersection of Wellington Street. I was in the left lane going straight, and someone was in the right lane, awaiting to turn right with a green light but no green arrow. For reasons they potentially don’t even understand, they veered out into my lane and sideswiped my poor blue 2004 Mazda 3. Likely panicking, they quickly took off and turned right down Wellington Street. I’m still not sure if it was just an instinctual reaction, and whether they would have soon snapped back to consciousness and stopped, or if they would have taken off and left behind the scene of the crime. Luckily, I didn’t get the chance to find out, because on the opposite side of the intersection, watching the whole thing unfold, was an undercover police car.

I was fine. The poor P-plater in the other car seemed fine, as did his three friends. I though my car was fine, except for a door that didn’t quite open with the lack of friction that was originally intended. The police took our details, we exchanged our details, he seemed relieved that my first was reaction was joking that it was lucky he had a shit car, which in hindsight was slightly if appropriately passive-aggressive. I drove the 2 minute drive home, and tried to comprehend what had just happened. Looking back at my steam of consciousness now, it appears I found confirmation:

“We don’t choose our circumstances, but we choose what to make of them. What was that? I can choose to see that as a sign, a warning, a wake up call. But I don’t. I can can choose to see nothing, but I don’t. I choose confirmation. A car crash, maybe — but not all crashes are the same. Some are not our fault, some are still unavoidable. All can be faced with grace…and humour? Above all… You will be watching; I will be protected.”

But back to the car. Turns out it wasn’t fine, from an economic perspective anyway. My beloved blue 2004 Mazda 3 had been my only car, and while I had never had a crash, it did bear the battle scars of the great storm of 2010, when Perth was peppered by you-wish-they-were-only-the-size-of-golf-ball-sized hail stones that caused the most expensive natural disaster in the State’s history. Turns out these dings undermined the value of the car against its market value, and it was to be written off. I was gutted — such injustice!

I did a bit of searching for a new car, and knowing nothing and caring almost less about cars, was looking at another 2004 Mazda 3. Preferably blue — why undertake more change than necessary. Then my dad was walking the dog, and noticed that our neighbours two blocks up were selling a 2004 Peugeot 307. A slightly darker shade of blue, regrettably. I walked up the street and had a test drive the next day, It wasn’t my car, it didn’t have the weirdly loose gear stick, but it seemed to drive ok. It seemed a bit overpriced and needed new tyres, but they were flexible on the price. And they were neighbours who we knew and trusted, so I could avoid all of the normal BS that comes with buying a car. And at this stage it wasn’t worth overthinking, so I bought it. Or we bought it. The money from the insurance hadn’t come in yet, and as per usual I wasn’t flushed with excess cash, so my parents agreed to transfer the money. And which I still haven’t paid back. Whoops. So while I do sincerely plan to change this, at present I have a free car out of it. Also from what I can work out, Peugeots are relatively unique in having 2004 models with cruise control, which is very handy for solo 8 hour drives to Esperance.

So yes, shit happens, you will be protected, and I’ll even chuck in a new car, just in case you thought I didn’t have your back, and didn’t have a sense of humour.

 

**

Last one, I’ll keep it short.

When I declared as a Bahá’í, a pretty big decision for me, it took a while to find someone to give my declaration card to. Turns out they have to live in your community, and be part of the Local Spiritual Assembly. To hand my card in and formalise my declaration process, I was invited to the next LSA meeting, held at the home of one of the 9 members.

The estimated population of the City of Perth in 2018 is 28,326. In 2016 there were 12,105 household residences in the City of Perth. I’m guessing a few more than that now. There are, I think, 30 residences in my apartment complex: 2A Goderich Street. The first LSA meeting after I declared was in 2A Goderich Street, across the pool courtyard from me. Not sure what the odds of that are, but you are welcome to try and work it out.

 

**

Just how normal or ridiculous these events are, are a matter of perspective. I have noticed a few instances where things that I find ridiculously profound — signs of eery alignment across time and space — seem to people of faith merely logical acknowledgments of a basic and self evident truth. I felt grateful that I am still able to see the inherent wonder in such cosmic synchronicity, when perhaps others may have lost it.

It got me wondering about the pros and cons of having found faith or having always had it. That’s not to say that people are born having complete faith in a higher power, and that this concept doesn’t still develop in everyone individually. But I mean having the seed of faith planted when you are young, allowing it to grow as you grow, mature as you mature, arriving at a near-fully developed worldview as an adult.

While I know I have wasted a lot of time lacking faith, perhaps I am able to better make use of it, having seen what life is like in its absence. I definitely feel like I appreciate it more. So, don’t take it for granted, because I never will.

 

1. Laszlo, Ervin. 2007. Science and the Akashic Field. Rochester, Vermont: Inner Traditions.