Your Faith in Yourself
Brings You Into a
Closer Connection With the Divine World
Closer Connection With the Divine World
O.S. Marden
Where there is Faith there is Love,
Where there is Love, there is Peace.
Where there is Peace, there is God.
Where there is God, there is no need.
There is a divine
voice within us which only speaks when every other voice is hushed, - only
gives its message in the silence.
“I shall study law”, said an ambitious youngster, “and
those who are already in the profession must take their chances!”
The divine self-confidence of youth, the unshaken
faith that believes all things possible, often makes cynics and world-weary
people smile. Yet it is the grandest, most helpful attribute of man, the finest
gift of the Creator to the race. If we could retain through life the faith of
ambitious, self-confident, untried youth, its unquestioning belief in its
ability to carve out its ideal in the actual, what wonders we should all
accomplish! Such faith would enable us literally to remove mountains.
Confidence, the
Great Healer
All through the Scriptures faith is emphasized as a
tremendous power. It was by faith that Moses led the children of Israel out of
Egypt, through the waters of the Red Sea, and through the wilderness. It was by
faith that Elijah, Isaiah, Daniel, and all of the great prophets performed
their miracles.
Faith was the great characteristic of Christ
Himself. The word was constantly on His
lips, “According to your faith will it be done to you.” [1] He often referred to it as the measure of what we receive in
life, also as the great healer, the great restorer. Whenever He healed He laid
the entire emphasis upon the faith of the healer and the one healed. “Thy faith
has made thee whole”, “Believe only and she shall be made whole”, “Thy faith
hath saved thee”. Or He reproved his disciples for the lack of faith which
prevented them from healing, as when He addresses them, “O faithless and
perverse generation, how long shall I be with you and suffer you.”
Faith Opens the
Doors
Faith believes; doubt fears. Faith creates; doubt
destroys. Faith opens the door to all things desirable in life; doubt closes
them. Faith is an arouser, an awakener of our creative forces. It opens the
door of ability and arouses creative energies. Faith is the link in the Great
Within which connects man with his Maker. It is the divine messenger sent to
guide men, blinded by doubt and sin. Our faith puts us in touch with Infinite
Power, opens the way to unbounded possibilities, limitless resources. No one can
rise higher than his faith. No one can do a greater thing than he believes he
can. The fact that a person believes implicitly that he can do what may seem
impossible to others, shows there is something within him that has gotten a
glimpse of power sufficient to accomplish his purpose.
Men who have achieved great things could not account
for their faith; they could not tell why they had an unflinching belief that
they could do what they undertook. But the mere fact of such belief was
evidence that they had had a glimpse of interior resourcefulness, reserve power
and possibilities which would warrant that faith; and they have gone ahead with
implicit confidence that they would come out all right, because this faith told
them so. It told them so because it had been in communication with something
that was divine, that which had passed the bounds of the limited and had veered
into the limitless.
Men and women who have left their mark on the world
have been implicit followers of their faith when they could see no light; but
their unseen guide has led them through the wilderness of doubt and hardship
into the promised land.
The Great
Universal Plan
When we begin to exercise self-faith, self-confidence,
we are stimulating and increasing the strength of the faculties which enable us
to do the thing we have set our heart on doing. Our faith causes us to
concentrate on our object, and thus develops power to accomplish it. Faith
tells us that we may proceed safely, even when our mental faculties see no
light or encouragement ahead. It is a divine leader which never misdirects us.
But we must always be sure that it is faith, and not merely egotism or selfish
desire that is urging us. There is a great difference between the two, and no
one who is true to himself can possibly be deceived.
When we are doing right, when we are on the right
track, our faith in the divine order of things never wavers. It sustains in
situations which drive the self-centered egoist to despair. The man who does
not see the Designer behind the design everywhere, who does not see the mighty
Intelligence back of every created thing, cannot have that sublime faith which
buoys up the great achievers and civilization-builders.
Our supreme aim should be to get the best from life,
the best in the highest sense that life has to give, and this we cannot do
without superb faith in the Infinite. What we accomplish will be large or small
according to the measure of this faith. It is the man who believes in the one
Source of All who believes most in himself; it is the man who sees good in
everything, who sees the divine in his fellow-man, who has faith in everybody,
who is the master man. The skeptic, the pessimist, has no bulwark of faith,
none of the divine enthusiasm that faith gives, none of the zeal that carries
the man of faith unscathed through the most terrible trials.
Without confidence in the beneficence of the great
universal plan we cannot have much confidence in ourselves. To get the best out
of ourselves we must believe that there is a current running heavenward,
however much our surroundings may seem to contradict this. We must believe that
the Creator will not be foiled in His plan, and that everything will work
together for good, however much wars and crime, poverty, suffering and
wretchedness all about us may seem to deny this.
The abiding faith in a Power which will bring things
out right in the end, which will harmonize discord, has always been strong in
men and women who have done great things in the world, especially in those who
have achieved grand results in spite of the most severe trials and
tribulations.
The Benefactors
of Mankind
It takes sublime faith to enable a man to fight his way through
“insuperable” difficulties, to bear up under discouragements, afflictions and
seeming failure without losing heart; and it is just such faith that has
characterized every great soul that has ever made good. Whatever other
qualities they may have lacked, great characters have always had sublime faith.
They have believed in human nature. They have believed in men. They have
believed in the beneficent Intelligence running through the universe.
Some of the most important reforms in history have been brought about by
very fragile, delicate men and women, not only without outside encouragement,
but in the teeth of the most determined opposition. They have agitated and
agitated, hoped and hoped, and struggled and struggled, until victory came. No
one could even attempt the herculean tasks they accomplished without that
instinctive, abiding faith in a Power superior to their own, - a Power which
would work in harmony with honesty, with earnestness, with integrity of
purpose, in a persistent struggle for the right, but which would never sanction
wrong.
Think of what the faith of St. Paul enabled him to do for the world! Think
of what Christ’s little band of chosen disciples succeeded in accomplishing in
spite of the might of the Roman empire pitted against them! The power of the
greatest benefactors of the human race came largely from the inspiration of faith
in their mission, their belief that they were born to deliver a certain message
to the world, that they were to make an important contribution to civilization.
Think of what the faith of the inventor has done! It has kept him at his task,
kept him nerved and encouraged in the face of starvation, kept him at his work
when his family had gone back on him, when his neighbors had denounced him, and
called him insane. Think of what the faith of Columbus, of Luther, of the
Wesleys, has accomplished for mankind! It has ever been men with indomitable faith that have moved the world. They have been the
great pioneers of progress.
The Main Power
in Civilization
An instinctive faith in the Divine Force which
permeates the universe, which is friendly to the right and antagonistic to the
wrong, has ever been the unseen helper that supported, encouraged, and
stimulated men and women to accomplish the “impossible”, or that which to lower
natures seems beyond human capacity. It is this which sustains brave souls in adversity
and enables them to bear up, to believe and hope and struggle on when
everything seems to go against them. It is the same principle which supported
the martyr at the stake and enabled him to smile when the flames were licking
the flesh from his bones.
Faith has ever been the greatest power in
civilization. It has built our railroads, has revealed the secrets of nature to
science, has led the way to all our inventions and discoveries, and has brought
success out of the most inhospitable conditions and iron environments. In fact,
we owe everything that has been accomplished to faith, and yet when we come to
its practical application in our everyday affairs how few of us avail ourselves
of this tremendous force! The vast majority are looking for some power outside
to help, when we ourselves hold the key which has ever unlocked, and ever will
unlock, all barred doors to aspiring souls.
Everyone Has a
Mission
If people could only realize what a potent building,
creative force faith is, and would exercise it in their daily lives, we should
have very few paupers, very few failures, very few sickly, diseased or criminal
among us. If, by some magic, a strong, vigorous faith could be injected into
the men and women of the great failure army to-day, the larger part of them
would get out of this army and get into the army of the successful.
It is not alone in our life work, or in great or
special undertakings that faith is necessary. We need it every moment of our
lives, in everything, great and small, that concerns us. It is just as
necessary to your health as it is to your success. To build up the faith habit,
faith in human nature, the habit of believing in yourself, in your ability, of
believing that you are sane, sound, and level headed, that you have good
judgment and good horse sense, that you are victory organized and that you are
going to attain your ambition, is to blaze a path to success.
A man begins to deteriorate, to go toward failure, not
when he loses all of his material possessions, not when he fails in his
undertakings, but when he loses faith in himself, in his ability to make his
dreams come true.
When we remember that self-faith characterizes
successful people, and lack of it the mediocres and the failures, one would
think that everybody would cultivate this divine quality which by itself alone
has done so much for the individual and for the world.
The reason why faith works such marvels is that it is
the leader of all the other mental faculties. They will not proceed until faith
goes ahead. It is the basis of courage, of initiative, of enthusiasm. Much of
Napoleon’s power and early success came from his tremendous faith in his
mission, the conviction that he was a man of destiny, that he was born under a
lucky star, born to conquer. Shorn of his mighty belief in his star, stripped
of the faith that he was born to rule, he would have been no more of a power in
human affairs than the dullest private in the ranks of his army. When warned by
his generals not to expose himself to the enemy, he would reply that the bullet
or the cannon had not been cast which could kill Napoleon. This invincible
belief in his destiny added wonderfully to his natural powers. [2]
It was her conviction that she was chosen of God to
free France from its enemies that made Joan of Arc, the simple, ignorant
peasant girl of Domremy, the saviour of her country. Her mighty faith in her
divine mission gave her a dignity and a miraculous force of character, a
positive genius, that made all the commanders of the French army obey her as
private soldiers obey their superior officers. Faith in herself and in her
mission transformed the peasant maiden into the greatest military leader of her
time. [3]
There is no doubt that every human being comes to this
earth with a mission. We are not accidental puppets thrown off to be buffetted
by luck or chance or cruel fate. We are a part of the great universal plan. We
were made to fit into this plan, to play a definite part in it. We come here
with a message for humanity which no one else but ourselves can deliver, and
faith in our mission, the belief that we are important factors in the great
creative plan, that we are, in fact, co-creators with God, will add wonderfully
to the dignity and effectiveness of our lives, will enable us to perform the
“impossible”.
How Confidence
Confronts Challenges
If every child were brought up in the firm belief that
he was made for health, happiness, and success; if it were impressed on him
that he should never entertain a doubt of his power to attain them, as a man he
would be infinitely stronger in his powers of self-assertion and in his
self-confidence; and these qualities strengthen the ability, unify the
faculties, clarify the vision, and make the attainment of what the heart yearns
for a hundred per cent more probable than if he had not been thus reared.
A child’s faith is instinctive, and if not tampered
with, destroyed by wrong training, would continue through life. We see this
sort of instinctive faith illustrated by the lower animals. Take the birds, or
the domestic hen, for example. See how patiently she sits on the eggs week
after week until the chickens are hatched. She cannot see the chickens when she
begins to sit, but her belief that they will come if she does her part induces
her to give up her liberty for weeks, and to go sometimes for days without
food, that she may keep the eggs at the right temperature in order to produce
the chickens.
The trouble with most of us is that we do not have
sufficient faith in the creative power of the vigorous determination to do a
thing, in the persistent endeavor backed by self - faith to accomplish what we
desire. We give up too easily under discouragement. We haven't sufficient
stamina and grit to push on under disheartening conditions. We want to see clear
through from the beginning to the end of whatever we undertake. We refuse to
have faith. Yet much of the time throughout life we may have to work without
any goal in sight, or at least without any clear light to see it, but if the
mental attitude is right we know that, somehow, we shall attain our heart’s
desire. We have merely been shown a program which we are capable of carrying
out, a table of contents of our capabilities, the signs of the corresponding
realities, for faith is not an idle dream, an illusive picture of the
imagination. We have not been mocked by ideals and aspirations, soul-yearnings
and heart-longings for the things which have no possible realities. Faith is
not a cheat. There is ability to match the faith.
There is something about devotion to one’s inward
vision, the intense desire and concentrated effort to fulfill
what we believe to be our mission here, that has a
solidifying influence upon the character, gives poise and peace of mind and
also helps us to realize our vision.
The probabilities are that the iceberg which sent the
Titanic, with sixteen hundred souls, to the bottom of the ocean did not even
feel a tremor at the shock. More than seven-eighths of its huge bulk was below
the water, deep down in the eternal calm of the sea, beyond the reach of storm
or tempest. Like the giant iceberg, faith reaches down into the serene within
of us, into the eternal calm of the soul. It is not disturbed by the surface
commotions. A life poised in faith rides steadily, triumphantly, through the
tempests and the hurricanes of existence.
You will constantly be confronted with things which
tend to destroy faith in God and faith in yourself. There are many times in
life when about all we can do is to hold on to the hand of the Divine Guide until
we have run through the storm zone. We have to learn to turn away from the
heart-breaks of life and to face toward the light. We have to disregard the
criticisms and the discouragement of others, as well as the assaults of fear
and doubt, and press on to our goal.
Like the Needle
of a Compass
If you go in business for yourself, if you are
struggling to get an education, if you are making desperate efforts to realize
your ambition, whatever it is, you will find plenty of pessimists who will
predict your failure. They will tell you that you never can build up a business
without a lot of capital and outside help in these times of terrific
competition, that you cannot work your way through college, that you can never
be whatever you are dreaming of and longing to be. You will meet plenty of
obstacles and much opposition, and it will take a very stiff backbone, a lot of
sand and grit to keep pushing on towards your goal against great odds, but
faith is more than a match for all these. Nothing else will enable you to win
out.
Remember it is not other people’s faith in you but
your faith in yourself that counts most. It is a good thing to have other
people’s good opinion, to have their confidence in us, their faith in the
success of our efforts, but it is not imperative. Our own is. No man ever gets
anywhere or does anything great in this world without faith in himself, without
a superb belief that he is on the right track, that he is doing the thing he
was made to do, that he is going to stick to it through thick and thin to the
end. It takes faith to look beyond obstacles, to see the way over difficulties,
to brave opposition and to allow nothing to swerve us from our course.
You cannot keep any one from succeeding who has an
unshakable faith in his mission. You cannot crush the faith that wrestles with
difficulties, that never weakens under trials or afflictions, that pushes on
when everybody else turns back, that gets up with greater determination every
time it is knocked down.
In the sacred Confucian scriptures we are told that a
very devoted disciple of Confucius, on a pilgrimage to his master, was stopped
on his journey by a broad river. As he could not swim and could not procure a
boat, the zealous disciple resolved that he would walk on the water. Believing
that the necessity of seeing his master was most urgent, and being filled with
zeal in the performance of his mission, he boldly made the attempt - and
succeeded. The record of this miracle is supposed by followers of Confucius to
be just as authentic as the Bible account of the walking of Christ on the
water.
If, like this zealot, you have faith in your power to
overcome difficulties, nothing can keep you from your goal. If, like Joan of
Arc, you believe you are appointed by God to perform a certain work, it will
help you wonderfully to make good. It will dignify your life and your efforts,
and thus save you from a thousand temptations to waste your time in frivolous
pursuits. It will put a higher value upon your importance to the world. To feel
that you have a divine mission that no one else can perform, that you came here
with a sacred message for mankind, and that it is up to you to deliver it will
add a wonderful motive for effectiveness in your life work. The consciousness
that you are keeping faith with your Creator and with yourself, that you are
keeping faith with your fellowmen and earning their respect and love, that you
are keeping faith with a splendid life purpose, with your holiest vision, gives
a satisfaction which nothing else can afford.
Cling to your faith no matter what happens. It is your
best friend. Like the magnetic needle on the ship’s deck, which will find the
north star, no matter how dense the fog, how dark the night, or how threatening
the tempest, your faith, even though you cannot see, will find the way. It sees
the open road, beyond the mountain of difficulties which shuts out the vision
of the other faculties.
The Sense of
Common Prosperity
Some time ago, during one of our periodical business
crises, some newspapers made merry over a statement of President Wilson that
the condition of the United States, illustrated by the fact that eighty
thousand freight cars were at the time side-tracked along the lines of one of
our great railroads alone, could be changed by psychology. One of these papers
sarcastically suggested that if we should take a dose of the psychology remedy
and go to sleep somewhere in the misty, cloudy lands of theory, and dream that
those eighty thousand empty freight cars were moving, we should see them move.
Now, in spite of newspaper skepticism, I believe that
the psychology remedy if applied in every financial, business, or other crisis
would prove absolutely effective. If all the people of this country would
persistently hold a mental attitude of faith in our prosperity, which is the
birthright of the inhabitants of this land of plenty; if they would have faith
that our vast resources would enable us to carry on business, regardless of
conditions in Europe or elsewhere, and if they would act in accordance with
their faith, there would be no idle freight cars, no lack of work, no lack of
money at any time.
It is the mental attitude of the people of the United
States that causes financial panics and recurrent “hard times”. And there is
something dead wrong in a state of mind which produces periodical crises,
intervals of nationwide stagnation in a land with resources great enough to
make every one of its citizens rich, in a land where the State of Texas alone
could give every one of them a better living than the majority get to-day.
Before we can make business conditions stable we must
have faith in the stability of our limitless wealth, in the opulence of the
earth over which the Creator has given us control. We have got to hold the
prosperous vision, to see better times with the mental eye, not dimly in the
future, but now, to have more faith in our Maker, in our nation, in ourselves
individually.
Why, if we analyze the matter, we will see that our
unparalleled national prosperity has been built up largely by psychology. Its
foundations had their root in the faith of our forefathers, in their belief in
our country’s possibilities.
We all know that faith has preceded every achievement
in the world’s history. The activities of the whole country to-day are based
upon psychology, upon the mental attitude, the faith, the hope, the expectation
of its inhabitants.
“Without a vision the people perish”, and when our
vision, our faith, shrivels, when it is obscured or displaced by doubt, fear,
anxiety, lack of confidence, all our activities suffer accordingly.
With abundant crops, with a lowering death rate and
increasing longevity of our people, with constantly growing educational
facilities, America ought to register every day of every year a high water
point of prosperity. But when a large portion of the people lack faith in the
future, when, from time to time, uncertainty is in the air, when everybody is
doubting and fearing, waiting to see what is coming next, of course business
will stagnate. It will follow the prevailing mental attitude, hesitate, waver,
doubt, stand still like the idle freight cars.
We are just beginning to see that faith is as much a
real force as is electricity. It is faith that removes mountains - mountains of
difficulty, of opposition, of doubt, of distrust. It clears the track of all
obstructions. It makes stepping stones of stumbling blocks. Faith is the most
powerful, the most sublime of human attributes. Without it the bottom would
drop out of civilization. It is the fundamental principle of life. Faith is the
basis of health, of success, of happiness, of love itself. It believes in,
hopes, trusts, clings to the loved one in spite of all faults and sins. It is
faith that heals, that achieves, that hopes. The very feeling of harmony between
ourselves and our God, that which gives assurance, a sense of protection and of
safety which nothing else can give, is born of our faith in Him, in whom we
live and move and have our being.
We must realize and appreciate more and more our
divinity, the fact that we are made in the image of our Creator and that we
must partake consciously of His qualities. Then we will have more faith in our
powers. When we are conscious of having qualities like His we can rise above
apparent limitations, above hereditary weakness. It is all preeminently a
question of holding the right thought - the thought that builds, the thought
that creates, that produces, the thought that we have within us unlimited
possibilities, which can be realized. A sublime self-faith is absolutely
indispensable to all great achievement.
Let no one shake your faith in yourself. That is what
brings you into closest connection with God. It is your mainstay. There is no
magic like faith; it elevates, refines and multiplies the power of every other
faculty.
Whether we are starting out in life, or going downhill
on the other side, facing the transition we call death, faith is our bracer,
the trusty leader that will never fail to guide us to the home of our heart’s
desire.
If you are filled with a great faith you will not
fear, though you walk through the valley of the shadow. Though the way may be
dark faith will lead you into the light. The Power that has sustained you every
moment of your existence, and without which you could not exist a fraction of a
second, will certainly not leave you in your greatest need.
If you bade your child jump into your arms, he would
not hesitate even though it was so dark that he could not see you. He would
jump because of his faith in you. He would know that he would be perfectly safe
in doing whatever you told him. Why should we fear to jump into the arms of the
Infinite when we come to death’s door, which is only the entrance to another
life? Why should we fear to cross the valley that leads to the new life when we
know that our great Father-Mother-God is on the other side waiting with
outstretched arms to receive us?
“I will not doubt; well anchored in the faith,
Like some stanch ship, my soul braves every gale,
So strong its courage that it will not fail
To breast the mighty unknown sea of Death.
Oh, may I cry when body parts with spirit,
‘I do not doubt’, so listening worlds may hear it,
With my last breath.”
NOTES:
[1] Marden is quoting from Matthew, 9: 29. (CCA)
[2] However, there is no victory in the absence of
moderation and good sense. The careless use of self-confidence leads people to
arrogance, and arrogance provokes self-destructive actions. Napoleon wanted to
dominate the world, which is a foolish enough goal for any statesman to adopt -
NATO included. On top of that, Napoleon decided to militarily defeat Russia -
geographically the largest country in the planet. The episode concluded with
France’s complete defeat and an elegant military parade of the victorious
Russians (and their allies) in the streets of Paris. Political arrogance and
military adventures rarely help the evolution of humanity, and war against
Russia seems to be the best way for Western “superpowers” to commit military
suicide. (CCA)
[3] On the other hand, making a war is often not the
wisest action one can perform in life - although there are exceptions. Together
with faith, there must be discernment. See also the previous note on Napoleon.
(CCA)
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The above article
was published at the websites of the Independent Lodge of Theosophists on 25
May 2023. It reproduces chapter two of
the book “The Victorious Attitude”,
by O.S. Marden, Success Park Publishers, 2016, pp. 6-13.
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Read more:
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Helena Blavatsky
(photo) wrote these words: “Deserve,
then desire”.
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