Faith and Grace in the Afterlife and Earth Life
“Now I see that all of the earth’s natural events – its seasons, the varieties of manifestation and expression – all represent an inner, inexhaustible Nature that is mental as opposed to physical, if we must use such terms. The given planet, with its astounding framework of creativity in which earth’s creatures reside, and which supplies them with all their needs and requirements – all of that represents but on facet of this larger Nature’s capabilities.
This Nature, initially mental, propels thoughts into actuality, regulates their development and growth, and provides to each being a given mental, psychic, and spiritual world which is, again, naturally expressed and seeks its own development. Here also, the psychic requirements and needs are met, and a state of grace is safely provided in which action can be taken without care; and by this I mean without the anticipation of impediments.”
“Here, however, faith is so obvious and ever-present, it’s principles so clear, that I am given a close-up view in which faith’s importance and characteristics are definitely shown to be the agents in which any kind of growth can creatively happen.
I am not referring to the brassy, almost harsh, false optimism that is on earth sometimes flaunted in faith’s name, nor even of faith in this or that church or theory or school, but of a faith that exists whether or not it knows its object; whether or not it is attached.
To the extent that faith applies to anything, then it is trust in one’s natural order of being; the feeling that the conditions for existence are largely conducive to it; that needs will be met within the circumstances of that natural order; and that one is couched and supported in one’s existence by some larger Nature from which the natural order springs.”
- William James (The Afterdeath Journal of An American Philosopher)
The Greater Source that Supplies Your Living
“That natural world and his own subjective experience within it shout with multitudinous voices that its existence and his cannot be accidental but share in a concern, a good intent, that is everywhere apparent. And that faith promotes in our traveler exactly the conditions needed for his support. Food does not miraculously appear out of the air for him – a table spread with a banquet – but he knows as surely how to provide for himself as the squirrel does, and he realizes this truth and no longer need worry. He simply follows the dictates of his nature, trusting that the same power that set him upon the road – mind and body in one living package – is no less kindly disposed toward him than it is to the world’s other living creatures.
In that moment of trust, he and his experience are transformed. Looking around, he can see glimpses of that trust trying to rouse itself in the religions and sciences alike, but he understands that for all of their merits institutions can speak only generally to any given individual, and that each man’s life involves him in a direct confrontation with the universe in which he must ultimately trust both his own nature and the unknown source which it springs. That greater source makes itself known through the living person in his living and his dying and speaks directly through his own nature. Only that truth can illuminate and make sense of the facts of the known world. It is ultimately impossible to trust God and distrust the self, or vice versa.
Such a faith is not blind, however, for experience will prove it to be more factual than any mathematical formula. It will demonstrated through the beneficial changes it brings in a person’s life, for faith not only promotes health, vitality and understanding, but a kind of accomplishment that produces a general overall transformation, bringing to flower abilities and characteristics of the most heroic nature that previously had lain latent and unused.”
- William James (The Afterdeath Journal of An American Philosopher)
“You have access to your greater self at all times. You can tell by how good you feel how much of YOU, you are letting in! As the saying goes, ‘when you feel good, you feel God.’ It is only your conscious decisions to block off that awareness that causes you to think that you are cut off from your broader self.”
- Conversations with My Higher Self (A book channeling the same entity known as “Abraham Hicks”)
“This subliminal self is the benign, well-intentioned, creative inner self that searches for the species’ finest fulfillments, not through survival of the fittest but through the cooperative development of individual abilities which ever add to man’s versatility. It reacts not to the blind events of chance and environment but in response to inner patterns of development projected onto the probable field of objectivity – patterns that act as stimulators of the most ideal nature.
The human species and all species react “in time” to the all-pervading patterns of probabilities that coax them toward their best, most advantages developments – development not set, however, but rich in choices. This presents a world in which all species are interrelated, not one thriving at the expense of the others but each contributing to the world picture at any given time in a cooperative venture to which man has become relatively blind.”
- William James (The Afterdeath Journal of An American Philosopher)
Faith Surrounds You So Natural in Nonphysical
“In my present environment – again, like the summer day – faith everywhere surrounds me, so that its support is one of the most outstanding elements of my existence. There is a complete lack of threatening conditions of any kind, I would have imagined such a state to be lacking also in challenge and creativity. Instead, I am filled with a sense of wonder, curiosity, and impetus that is never tiring. So natural do I now find this faith that it is hard to believe it was not a conscious part of my mental constitution during life.”
“Science and religion in my time each vied for men’s faith. But faith that is attached to any one element, be it church, government, or science, is always in jeopardy, for at one time or another the object of faith will no longer justify it, and faith itself will become lost. Or certain kinds of men can attach their faith, like their love, to a series of “objects” one after the other, thus making faith continually operative; each time losing it and then finding it anew.
In life, I was much interested in such issues, particularly where faith was connected with belief systems, for it seemed to flourish equally well in the most auspicious and most inauspicious mental environments, and to grow as well around the silliest and the most profound of doctrines.”
- William James (The Afterdeath Journal of An American Philosopher)
