A Letter to Neale

Reader Question:

Dear Neale...Regarding your comments about moving from faith to knowing I'd like to suggest that it's difficult enough for most of us to accept elements of faith, never mind the absolute of knowing. That's an immense shift in consciousness! Faith is believing in things unseen (and is) by itself a huge step in one's spiritual evolution, and has to be continually tested and proven until one eventually comes to "know. "

Without an epiphany it is an earned increment that is cumulative in its reward. Faith in and of itself is liable to misadventure. It is not a rote learning. Your remarks have the effect of down playing the ability to accept the value of spiritual truths by faith alone.

I am an 80-year-old seeker. I am adaptive and capable of feeling the importance of a sustained faith. Knowing, to me, is an end product of continued faith. Perhaps you might care to comment on the above.

With every good wish,
Bob

Neale Responds

Hello, Bob. I think that, yes, faith may "have to be continually tested and proven until one eventually comes to know." But then again, it may not. For instance, to use a simple, earthly, example. I "knew" from the outset, from the very beginning, of my marriage to my wife, Em, that she would never "run out" on me. I knew it then and I know it now.

I didn't have to "have faith" that she would be true to me, I knew that she would. This "knowing" did not require me to first have "faith," and then to have my faith "continually tested and proven." I didn't have to live with Em for years and years, and watch her "behave well" in tempting situations over and over again, in order for me to finally come to "know," through the test of time, that she was going to be faithful. I knew she was going to be from the outset; from the moment she put my ring on her finger, and even before.

This is because I was aware, from that first moment, of her deep and abiding love for me. I never doubted that for a minute.

Now, having used that example let me apply it to God. I have the same "knowing" about God's deep and abiding love for me. And so I know that God only wants the best for me. And I therefore know that whatever happens in life IS what's best for me. Do you know how I know that it's best for me? Because it happened. Nothing happens in my world that is against the Will of God...or that is, for that matter, outside of God's control. We are not, as someone once wrote, "children of a lesser God."

Since nothing can happen that God does not WILL, and since God's love for me is deep and abiding, I know that Life is on my side. You see, Bob? And so, yes, it MAY take a long time for "faith" to turn into "knowing"...or, it may not. It may be that "faith" is not even necessary, from the outset, but that it is possible to move into "knowing" immediately . It certainly was with me and my wife. Hope this answer, and my example, helps you in understanding the kind of Knowing that I am talking about.

Hugs and Love,