A question of Faith: Do you need to believe in Enlightenment to pursue it?

[GeorgeLawson]

One thing that's constantly been nagging me in pursuing no-self is this question; 'In order to become enlightened, do I need to have so called 'faith' in it becoming a real possibility in my life?' Can anyone offer any insights?

(Please note that this is not a religious discussion).

[charlie cho]

currently, you are believing in enlightenment. otherwise... you wouldn't be studying it. If you didn't believe in it like my dad.... you wouldn't even study it. so yeah I think we need faith. In the end... faith will have to be destroyed too because faith is a form of belief too.

Just like you need a dagger to cut through the forest to the end..... but when you get to the end of the forest.... you don't need the dagger so you throw it out... the dagger is faith

Edited February 7, 2016 by charlie cho

[Ayla]

I would call it "Hunger", not necessarily faith 

[GeorgeLawson]

So desire rather than 'trust in'?

[Ayla]

Something that pulls you towards it no matter how your Ego (mind/personality) tries to avoid or deny it. 

Exactly like hunger. No matter what you do, at one point you need to eat

 

[GeorgeLawson]

Ah so it's a need!

[Leo Gura]

Faith has become somewhat of a dirty word. But let's put it in proper context.

Does a scientist need to have faith in order to verify an existing peer-reviewed lab study?

Is it proper for him to act like a fundamentalist cynic and refuse to allow the possibility that the study was accurate, to the point where he refuses to verify it for himself?

Even to disprove something requires that you first take the possibility of it seriously. Otherwise why even bother disproving it?

From a pragmatic point of view, you wouldn't even be able to take a piss without the faith that it won't miss the bowl and squirt in your eye. All action requires a baseline level of faith. Self-inquiry is no different.

[Guersom]

i think you need to discover what you really want in live ,which is  happiness and then see what can get you there

[Lord God]

I would say you either need faith or a complete lack there of.

For example you either need to have faith in enlightenment being possible, which given it's impossibility to communicate means faith in a lot of fantasy. Or you need to have a complete lack of faith that you know the truth or what existence is. Either the faith that it exists will create a magnetism towards finding it through the view point of a fanatic, or the complete lack of faith that you have any idea what exists at all will also create that same magnetism through the eyes of doubt.

What is important is the awareness of truly not knowing existence, and following the conscious traction that brings until you find something you truly can "know".

Edited February 7, 2016 by Zotikos

[Azrael]

Actually from doing this for a good year now, I can tell that you need a good amount of faith. Not in a kind of religious "Wu-Wu" sense but the faith to meditate every day, to watch and re-watch Leo's videos, to read book after book and get a real good understanding in which direction to go, to integrate new realizations and so on.

But here is the thing, you can exchange "faith" for actual first-person experiential Truth on the way. And when this starts to happen it kind of goes automatically (at least for me) and then someday you cross the point of no-return because you have seen a few goodies from the other side and can imagine what else might be there.

So yeah, have some faith man. It'll treat you well.

[Emerald]

It will be very difficult to commit yourself to the emotional labor if you have no faith in enlightenment as a possibility. Paradoxically, holding too tightly to belief or non-belief in enlightenment can impede your progress too. Ask yourself if you have any resistance to belief in enlightenment or faith in general. Resistances of any kind will likely impede your progress. 

[Ben]

Faith is a belief, a belief is a thought that you think is true. Could it be that your belief that enlightenment may/may not be true be the very thing that's holding you back from enlightenment?  

[Keyblade Viking]

A child that have never heard of any of this stuff can still seek it by asking questions and being honest to himself.
What Faith is really about (the real version, not the one everyone use) is being honest to yourself and have faith that as long as you live in truth things will work out and they might not even work on on a physical level but you will be fulfilled etc and that's what matters.