Loss of Faith, Now What?

I didn’t sleep well again last night. I’ve had this disturbing question running through my mind. Am I the only one who feels that the true understanding of reality is impossible? The more I skim the surface of physics, biology, chemistry, psychology ect… The more I realize that there is so much more out there that our puny little minds don’t grasp and from what I can see are incapable of grasping at this stage in our evolution. I think people find comfort in believing in certain things and maybe that is the best way to be but… What happens when you just can’t believe? Are some people better able to handle the uncertainty than others? Am I one who needs a belief system?

I’ve been reading in The Tibetan Book of the Dead. I’ve mostly only read in the introduction and the glossary so far. Today I understood, from what I read, that only through understanding the true nature of reality will we be released from suffering.

I can see this as being true but is it possible in our life time or do we try to understand and grow as much as we can and accept the suffering that accompanies being a human with limited senses and brain capacity?

The other morning I stood in my bathroom with a huge weight in the pit of my gut. I was uncomfortable. Not because of something I ate but maybe a little bit due to the fact that I have been up every night this week at 2am not being able to fall back asleep.

I used to be comfortable with coincidences, in fact I thrived on them. They gave meaning and structure to life and often proved to me that as small and insignificant that I am there was a god who loved me and paid attention to me. Since then I’ve lost my faith in a solid male god.

However, I’ve traveled down other roads of belief.

Two weeks before I learned that my step father was dying of pancreatic cancer I read a random book about vampires. The main character in the book was a young girl who learned after becoming really ill that she would be dying soon of pancreatic cancer. The first few chapters gave detailed information on the disease. Like my stepfather she thought it was her gallbladder that was giving her trouble. So when my stepfather told me the horrible news I had a tiny bit of knowledge under my belt that acted like a pin prick of light in a darkness so thick that it would take me more than a year to pull myself out.

My stepfather’s quick and painful death knocked me on my butt, took the wind out of me, and changed the way that I viewed my world instantly.

That one thing, reading that book, opened a door. I hadn’t thought about tiny little coincidences being anything other than random things for a long time. But this one thing was too much. It was uncomfortable. I came to the conclusion that maybe just maybe there was a universal force out there and that maybe the coincidence had something to do with the strangeness of time. Maybe when something so huge and significant happens in our lives time folds in on itself, gosh who knows? I decided to feel loved and just a little bit less uncomfortable. Since then I’ve lost my faith even in that.

That one tiny coincidence has multiplied itself by a thousand at least. Am I looking for things like I used to when I was Mormon? I remember opening the bible or the Book of Mormon up at random and reading a scripture. More often than not the scripture fit my situation and emotions perfectly. Much like a daily horoscope sometimes sounds way too familiar to my own situation.

In the past when strange coincidences would work towards some awe inspiring moment I was totally comfortable with that because I believed in a god that paid attention to those things.

Since then not so much. So yesterday as I stood in my bathroom I was uncomfortable with all of the coincidences that seem to have bombarded my life over the last year. Yesterday I was reading in “The Tibetan Book of the Dead” A Buddhist text. I was trying to understand what dualising consciousness means. I randomly opened up the book and holy crap I landed on the pages that discuss this topic. I started flipping through the book to find out how common this term was and couldn’t find it any where. Well poop. That book has over 500 pages in it.

Here’s a movie I found on Dooce.com called “Two Men”.

If that was the only coincidence I would be fine but it’s not and so I’m uncomfortable.

However, I refuse to just blindly grab a belief to make myself feel better. Over the last year I’ve been grasping and pulling trying really hard to understand the universe. I’ve exposed myself to a lot of information but never really understanding one topic thoroughly. One thing I haven’t done is allowed myself to learn to be uncomfortable. Equanimity maybe. How am I going to gain new insight if I keep falling back on old patterns of thinking and reacting and my old belief systems?

Here is a poem I wrote about discovering new ideas, new ways to view our situation, and new ways to live.  Sometimes I think it is important to be patient, to be uncomfortable to not decide right now how I am going to solve a problem or get what I think I want.

The Missing Flower

She curls up with tears in her heart.

Where did it all go she wonders

my dreams of this

my dreams of that?

It’s not what I thought it would be.

Is it ever?

You think just once the bouquet will be full.

But every time you’re wrong.

That one tiny flower is gone.

So you sit back in your chair and think

and think

until it all bleeds out

from the thorns.

That’s when it comes

the vision of the flower

the missing one.

You think about that

its color

its smell

the way it curls in your hair

into new ways and views.

So you sit with it just like that

almost as if its already in your lap.

What you have now

is a vase not quite full

and on the right in your head

you watch as it swirls

round and round

until the flower is found.

The way it comes

no one knows

It’s all new

never been done.

So sit with it still

and wait

until it comes.

Your heart

may split.

Your heart may spill

but your soul, your life, your love

and what matters most

will always come.