Confidence

Confidence is my favorite word. It is the foundation of my state.

Confidence is the talisman I grasp with my mind, the energy to push out all thoughts of weakness and doubt. 

The still point. The constant. 

I need not defend. There is no question.


CONFIDENCE defeats the primary weakness in the spiritual culture of Mormonism: a constant indulgence in moral assessment and questioning which easily leads to a life of self-doubt.

---

An excerpt from St. Therese of the Child Jesus: Master of Her Temperament, by Marian T. Horvat, Ph.D

Confidence, the weapon to fight discouragement 

“It is confidence, and confidence alone, that must lead us to love." -St. Therese

Someone might wonder: Didn’t St. Therese ever become discouraged over her small failings and inability to do the great things she desired for the love of God? 

In fact, Therese had by her temperament a natural tendency toward discouragement. That she recognized this disposition is evident from the first of the three resolutions she made on her First Communion day: “I shall not be discouraged.”

In Carmel, she wrote a beautiful prayer for a novice about humility. In it she said that she would wake in the morning with a strong resolve to conquer her pride; in the evening she would be discouraged knowing she had failed. Then she realized that this discouragement itself was but itself a form of pride, and this would make her more discouraged. It is the vicious circle many of us have experienced. St. Therese explains how the dilemma was resolved:

“Since it has been given to me to understand the love of the Heart of Jesus, I own that it has chased all discouragement from mine. The remembrance of my faults humiliates me, and urges me never to depend on my own strength, which is nothing but weakness. Still more does this remembrance speak to me of mercy and of love. When, with all filial confidence we cast our faults into the devouring furnace of love, how should they not be totally consumed?”

It was only confidence that could conquer discouragement and melancholy. 

“What offends Jesus, what wounds Him to the Heart,” she insisted to her novices, “is lack of confidence.” 

An excerpt from St. Therese of the Child Jesus: Master of Her Temperament, by Marian T. Horvat, Ph.D

The change

There came a moment, I think it was less than a week ago, where I said, "no more."

"I'm done."

I watched myself decide with complete certainty that expecting anything in return for participating with this play in my mind was a complete waste.

There was a shift. The "inside" world became more important to me than "the play," the play that has occupied me every moment of this lifetime, until now.

An invisible door closed. It has stayed closed.

It's still closed when I awake in the morning. It's still closed whenever I inspect it.

Yes. Still closed.

This may or may not last. 

That's not up to me.

How different my state is. I concentrate on whatever I am doing.

I am no longer making up a story about life as I go. 'Now' is all that is real. 

Not because I think it is so, (laugh)! It's just how I live, how I am alive, now, here.

There is a change in my subtle body, in my energy. Absolute steadiness. When I choose to consciously experience this feeling of steadiness, I can increase it at will.

(I remember when she visited me a few times recently, invisible, touching me so slightly. "Steady," her touch said, communicating the feeling of steadiness to me. Grace.)

I have finally got full control of my mind. Nothing knocks me off of my center place. Drama comes and goes around me. There is no question of participating. It is jarring, irritating to think otherwise.

I am finally, fully confident that the steady progress of discipline is NOT my path, and that I am not deluded in thinking so.

I remember recently the moment I found there was no difference between inside and outside. God has become so close I was supremely embarrassed for a few days.

Moments come during my day when God touches me, reminds me in my being, again and again, rising through me as a tickle of loving bliss. My every dream, my heart's desire, coming true as eternal union with my Beloved. 

My realization takes the form of a magical fairy tale, in my heart. I always tear up, cry a little when this touch of romantic bliss comes. 

A gift. From my Guru. From God. The perfect gift. Forever. It is all because of Grace.

My ego is not involved. This may or may not be happening to all of my guru's other devotees. I don't need to know either way. I feel no need to evaluate what is happening to me by this or any parameters.

For the first time in my life, I am not struggling to shape an intellectual response to what is happening. I am not trying to bring the previous moment into the current moment as part of a recipe for achieving progress and attainment.

I'm not thinking of attainment.

I'm only writing all this down so I can refer to it later. I'll want to remember how it happened. My guru advises doing this, journaling.

I was born within 100 miles of Zion's National Park. My roots from this incarnation sink deep into this soil.

Together in joy

The bliss bubbles up from the springs of my being.

I was miserable when it stopped. I burned the sodden, the twisted, the torn and trampled. Days. Weeks. I lost all hope. Martin Luther. Mother Theresa. The crisis of faith, the days of spiritual dryness. I remembered them yesterday--sadhakas like myself--and today the hope has returned.

Now I know it when it comes, the bliss bubbling up, the fountain of eternal life, of God's love. A personal, inner grasping, liquid, we are falling together in joy. Eternally, like a fountain.

I finally understand, recognize. This spring is sacred and wild. It is the fundament of my being. I worship it as it frees me. I reach to it, and it is always there.

Lord Krishna peeks in and laughs. Ha ha, I was here all along, you silly goof!!

The path of bhakti is embodied by Mirabai
Painting by Raja Ravi Varma

Confidence is my constant

It's all love in motion.

Confidence replaces self-doubt and reprobation.

Confidence.... and I can open my eyes... and trust what I see.

And then I can feel.... the love.

LOVE comes in all the forms I love.

There is no division between myself and those forms.

I feel that ALL has the same heart. Everything is joined in the heart.

ALL reflects the golden sun rising from the horizon. My eyes are golden. My heart flies open.

Open.

I can only keep my heart open with CONFIDENCE.