11. The fight of faith: why give up when the time comes to fight this important battle?
The fight of faith is a very important battle in all areas of life. And the way each person handles their own battles will determine the outcomes of a lot of events in their life.
We start this chapter with a narrative about “king conscious” and “magician subconscious”; a story that will help buttress a few important points: A powerful magician (the deeper part of our mind: subconscious) once informed his king (the shallow part of our mind: conscious) that he had discovered a way to turn sand into gold. The king got interested and knew that his kingdom would be on top of the world if the magician turned sand into gold.
The magician explained the process which sounded quite easy although it placed a demand on the king: he had to leave his habitation and office, and spend an unspecified number of days in a small building where the sand could be turned into gold.
Everyone knew it would be difficult—but not impossible—for the king to leave his habitation, lifestyle, official duties, and kingdom temporarily unguided for an unspecified number of days. It would even become more difficult for the king if his wife, counselors, or officers conspired against him and put someone else in power before his return. And if for any reason he ended up leaving the building before time, then the process would come to an abrupt end, and sand wouldn’t be turned into gold.
Finally—when the time came—after a few days of staying in the building for the operation, the king became weary and tried his best to remain in the building. But alas, he couldn’t stay anymore; so he ended up leaving and not getting any gold.
Moreover, he went back to his habitation and office, and thereafter, was called the most foolish king and leader of all time. Why? Because, with all the wisdom, and high status in society— or so he thought—he was made to stoop very low, and got nothing in return.
What the citizens of the kingdom didn’t know was that the king didn’t get anything in return because he was unable to meet up with a demand that was uncertain and required a lot of patience—the demand was that he was required to stay in a small building for an unspecified number of days.
This story expresses the experiences of many people who are engaged in the fight of faith—the battle of conquering the mind and achieving important goals. This fight involves an interplay between the conscious mind and the subconscious mind.
Just a brief diversion to make something a bit more clear: at times when someone is walking forward, they won’t take notice, or they won’t be conscious of oncoming danger because their conscious mind is elsewhere. But at the same time when their conscious mind is elsewhere, their subconscious mind—the seat of memory—sees and records everything. This is one of the reasons why, if an accident or something dangerous happens, a gifted person can still “read” or “see” what actually happened from subject’s subconscious mind; a well-trained hypnotist can do the same, even if the subject wasn’t conscious, or didn’t remember what happened.
Now back to the story which can be interpreted in many ways; it has a lesson that can be summarized in one sentence: the conscious mind often behaves in ways that bottle up the great inspiration, power, and genius residing within the subconscious mind. One thing that most people are either not aware of, or fail to recognize is that the conscious mind can exercise negative influence on the subconscious mind.
If an individual consciously believes they will fail despite all the success they have achieved, they will end up failing; the reverse is also true—if an individual consciously believes they will succeed despite the failure they have been experiencing, they will end up succeeding.
The reason why some multimillionaires or rich people commit suicide and poor people live happily is because their conscious minds hold a certain belief to the extent that it sank into the subconscious, and caused them to either be happy or unhappy— thus leading to other actions or consequences.
If a person doesn’t have any faith deep within (in the subconscious, or subconsciously), then it will be difficult to stimulate the subconscious mind and arouse the power or genius that usually sleeps deep within it.
Despite our knowledge about positivity, why do many of us lose the battle of faith?
Most of us grew up from childhood to adulthood, and have heard a lot of positive messages from religious teachers, motivational speakers, and mentors.
We have been fully aware of popular statements such as: “you shall ask for what you want, and it will be given unto you”; “verily I say unto you, whosoever shall say unto this mountain, ‘Be removed and cast into the sea’, and does not doubt in their heart, but believes that those things which he has said will come to pass; he will have whatsoever he says”; “The kingdom of GOD is within you”.
But despite hearing these statements and others, and thinking we believe, doubt usually comes with a big bang in our hearts, and most of us lose the fight of faith, even before it gets started.
It’ll be difficult to win the fight of faith (for example: against poverty) to become rich if we always expect to be (or remain) poor. Doubting the ability to materialize a wish is like trying to reach the north by going directly to the east.
Regardless of any situation, if we always speak negatively to ourselves, we will end up building a great wall of disbelief against our progress in the future. And regardless of how hard we might work for success, if our thoughts are saturated with negativity and fear, our efforts will be neutralized, and it will be difficult to achieve success.
Faith is something that has to be pampered, fed, nourished, and even looked after if one wishes to get good results from it. To obtain faith, we must consistently believe in what we want to achieve until the knowledge and impressions of it are driven from the surface of our consciousness into the depths of our subconsciousness.
According to many studies, the subconscious mind takes up about ninety percent of the whole mind, while the remaining ten percent is conscious, and not as powerful as the subconscious mind which is the seat of memory.
The thing is that if we always strengthen our thoughts with what we believe (have faith) in, especially in a positive manner and with a positive attitude, our powerful subconscious minds wouldn’t help but respond positively. And once the knowledge of our faith (deep belief) sinks into the subconscious part of our minds, then we will have automatic faith.
If anybody fights the fight of faith and succeeds in acquiring faith, then they wouldn’t have to bother about getting faith anymore because they will always be reminded that they have faith and can be able to do certain things, regardless of what others can or cannot do. If you keep on telling yourself, time after time, again and again, that you are going to achieve one particular objective or another—or whatever it is that you want to achieve—then in time you will achieve it.
All successful people, millionaires, inventors, and great achievers have a lot of faith in themselves and whatever they set their hearts to do. They have a lot of belief in their capabilities, and by having strong and positive belief over a certain period of time, they generated the faith and power that turned their belief into reality.
So if we keep telling ourselves in a positive way that we are going to succeed, then we will succeed—but we will only succeed if we keep declaring success to ourselves, and not allow doubt (negativity) to sink through our conscious minds and take hold of our subconscious minds.
Conclusion
What made great men and women to be as great as they were in their heydays? One thing is sure: they had a strong belief in their destinies, and they successfully fought the fight of faith by believing so much in themselves, up to such a depth that their thoughts became powerful, occupied their whole being, and worked wonders.