Faith and Doubt
by Diane Linsley
In the book, A Sociable God, Ken Wilber identifies four stages of
spiritual development. These stages are belief, faith, experience
and adaptation.
Think of it as a pyramid with four levels. The largest number of
people are at the bottom of the pyramid. These people have a set of
beliefs, or a map of reality, that tells them how to interpret the world. A person at this stage is attached to the map. He feels like his very existence is threatened if someone questions his beliefs. This is because he has confused the map with who he is. He has not yet experienced himself as the map maker.
Stage One: Belief
People at stage one are sure they know the truth, and they must tell you their point of view. Of course, they are only interested in hearing what you believe so they can argue with your position. In extreme cases, the belief system of a group can lead to war or genocide, as people attempt to eradicate those who don't think like they do.
Belief itself is not a bad thing. Every time you are introduced to a new concept, you have to choose whether or not to believe it. All learning begins with belief. But it shouldn't end there.
One of the things I do as a life coach is help people become aware of their unconscious beliefs. I have processes that help clients uncover these beliefs so they can examine them more closely. It's always a shock for people to discover that unconscious negative beliefs have been running their lives. You can only change your life if you change your beliefs.
Stage Two: Faith
Sometimes a person has positive beliefs, but their life is not reflecting positive results. In this case, they may be struggling with a lack of faith.
What's the difference between belief and faith? Belief is conceptual. Faith is active. Faith is the willingness to experiment on a belief in order to prove whether or not it's true. Not all beliefs hold up under the bright light of experimentation.
The experimental stage of faith usually involves taking action in the physical world. Whenever you take action, you get some sort of result. This is the feedback that helps you to self-correct. I write more about this in Secrets of Success.
Here's an example of belief and faith: Maybe you believe that eating fresh fruits and vegetables will make you healthier. This belief does you no good if you don't actually eat these foods.
Prayer, meditation and other spiritual practices are the experiments for spiritual seekers. You may have lots of spiritual concepts, but these are just beliefs until you apply yourself to a practice. As the seeker faithfully practices for many years, he has experiences that change his map of reality, bringing it into better alignment with the real Reality.
Great Doubt
Faith and doubt appear to be opposites. But opposites are actually two ends of the same stick. They come as a pair. Opposites go together and define each other. They are inseparable like the two poles of a magnet. You cannot have joy without pain, up without down, life without death. When you pick up one end of the stick, you also pick up the other end. You cannot have faith without doubt.
Until people develop the ability to question everything, they live in fear of their beliefs being attacked by others. Doubting your beliefs is healthy. In fact, the stage that precedes enlightenment is often called Great Doubt. At this stage, the spiritual seeker questions everything. The beliefs that survive the fiery furnace of Great Doubt come out refined like pure gold, while everything else is burned away.
In the process of Great Doubt, the spiritual seeker develops the ability to see paradoxes. Paradoxes are the opposites that coexist in the oneness of reality. When you can't see the paradoxes, you are stuck in them. When you finally see them, you transcend them and discover a new perspective that integrates the opposites.
There is a beautiful Zen saying that expresses how faith and doubt go together:
Great doubt, great enlightenment.
Small doubt, small enlightenment.
No doubt, no enlightenment.
Some people suffer from the misconception that doubting mean they don't have faith. This can cause unnecessary feelings of guilt. If they could see that their doubt is in proportion to their faith, they might relax. People of faith are always questioning. But they don't stop there. They do the experiment of faith, which means acting on their beliefs in order to have an experience.
One of my favorite books is Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. Because of her painful childhood, Jane begins to ask questions at a young age. She reads books and thinks deeply. Jane's aunt doesn't approve of questions, which she interprets as rebellion. So she sends Jane away to a boarding school where the pupils are abused by the authorities. Throughout her life, Jane learns to stand up to many people, including the man she loves. Jane lives by internalized principles, not by external rules and mindless obedience to those who want to control her. This is a story of great faith and courage.
People who are stuck on the level of belief are afraid of doubt. They run away from it every time it arises. So they are unable to work through it and arrive at a higher level of understanding. I've known many otherwise intelligent people who stay on a low level of spiritual development because they run away from doubt. Consequently, they are stuck in pre-rational, magical thinking in their spiritual lives.
Fear arises with doubt - the ego's fear of being wrong. This can happen when a person is taught that doubt is bad. What's so bad about doubt? Without doubt, there would be no human progress. Doubt is a natural part of the learning process and the development of the rational mind. Doubt causes you to ask questions. When you ask questions, you find answers.
Genpo Roshi says, "Have faith in your doubt." The moment you stop asking questions, you stop progressing. Humility is admitting that you don't have all the answers. Then you become teachable.
When I was going through the stage of Great Doubt, there were two processes that were very helpful for me - Holosync meditation and Voice Dialogue.
Stage Three: Experience
Faith and doubt motivate a person to seek for experience. Experience alleviates the tension of the faith/doubt polarization. A direct experience is shocking because it's never what you expected. Personal experience alters your map of reality. Knowledge replaces faith. The ego's fear is replaced with a feeling of peace, a sense of wholeness, and an increased ability to love yourself and others.
Ken Wilber says, "Authentic transformation is not a matter of belief but of the death of the believer; not a matter of translating the world but of transforming the world; not a matter of finding solace but of finding infinity on the other side of death. The self is not made content; the self is made toast."
The person at this stage doesn't try to force his views on others. He is more interested in listening to other people's perspectives because it broadens his own understanding. This is an exciting stage because everything seems new and wonderful.
Stage Four: Adaptation
After many experiences, a person eventually goes to the stage of adaptation. He now lives from the higher perspective that was previously only an idea. Instead of having a map of reality, he lives in Reality. This stage has been described as "just like normal life, but two inches off the ground."
Eckhart Tolle says, "Many concepts disappear when the reality to which the concept points arrives. The very mental concept of it is not really necessary any more." For example, the person who has gone beyond the concept of love doesn't need to talk or think about love. His life is the embodiment of Love.
At this stage, you cannot be controlled or manipulated by others because you have your own integrated experiences, which are more real to you than any map.
Of course, this is an ongoing process. In my own spiritual journey, there have been tremendous breakthroughs and life-altering shifts in consciousness. These shifts are followed by long periods of adaptation and integration. At each level, you have to build a new foundation from which to launch into the next stage of development.
Here's a meditation for expanding consciousness.
Be well,
Diane Linsley
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