On devotion & faith

[Affinity]

We Dream Of Genies

To practice devotion you don’t have to believe anything. Jesus, Buddha, and the rest of the advance scouts in our explorers’ club are not dictating beliefs: they’re extending a jolly invitation. They’re beholding the staggering beauty of creation, the all-grief-shattering perfection of each moment, and, just as amazed as anyone else, proclaiming: “Whoa, check this out!” They’re way too busy enjoying the kingdom of nirvana to care what you believe.
Faith is something else again. Remember the overwhelming feeling, when you were a child, of knowing you were “in trouble, “as if a giant weight had been rolled upon your heart? And noticed how laughably weightless the same trouble seems now? Faith is not belief that someone is going to miraculously take away your problems, but that confidence (based on growing experience) that, from a larger, truer perspective, your problems are weightless-not just that everything will turn out all right, but that, even if you can’t see it yet, everything is all right. People often turn to faith when, say, they fall seriously ill, but if you define faith as belief that God won’t let you die, you’re playing a game that you must eventually lose. Deep faith is trusting that somehow its fine to live and fine to die-that the nonidentical twin frogs of living and dying are both guises of the same prince.
It’s only human, when you’re in desperate straits, to call out for help. But it’s a more workable strategy if you also widen out your prayer to embrace the bigger picture. Jesus the role model showed how to do this when, facing his own death, he prayed, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me,” but then added, “yet not my will but yours be done.” I often see NBA teams praying before a game and giving thanks to God after a win. Do they offer equally heartfelt thanks when they lose? I’d like to think that God is a Knicks fan like me, but if everyone prays to win, half of all prayers must be denied. Equating faith with the granting of your desires makes it a tool for the ego and reduces God to a servant with superpowers, a genie in a lamp. Real faith and devotion bow to that which is bigger than the ego and supremely indifferent to its demands. If you don’t worship something higher than your own desires, what’s going to free you from that prison?

[serendipity]

Hi Aff,
Interesting title, that.

The word "genie" is derived from the Arabic "djinn".

I dream of djinn,........