Being born of doubt is a great debility. Your doubt makes you fearful, vulnerable and uncertain. When we doubt, we open the door to fear, and our worst fears get activated. Once that happens, the self is paralyzed, like a deer in headlights.
Most of our doubts are related to capacities which are part of our potential. We think in terms of “ I cannot”, “Maybe…”, or “I won’t do it now…” We doubt our worth, our natural right of presence, wealth and inner peace. All these conscious or unconscious statements contribute to a profound sabotage of the divine qualities within you. The ambiance of doubt scatters and destroys your creativity, your possibilities and your faith.
Part of our inner makeup is toward thriving, and toward an immeasurable expansion. Your expansion can be put into action in the outside world by constructing a great building, discovering new ways of living or simply by expanding a community beyond their previous limitations. When our innate desire to be big and do big things is applied to the inner world, we unleash a passion that seeks a bigger self, a bigger perception of ourselves. Tuning in with that innate human quality gives faith, while our doubts come from the part of the mind that sabotages our greatness.
Just as doubts disseminate you and your energy, faith brings totality, courage and the consolidation of your energy. When you have inner strength, it is because inside, you have an inner conviction. Your daily self-commitment, whatever that may be, (meditation, yoga, service or self enquiry) fortifies your faith and strengthens your opportunity to connect with a natural space of thriving.
Faith brings courage, justice, boldness and a meditative equanimity to your potentials. When you feel feeble and weak, you have doubt. When you feel determined, direct and committed, you are emphasizing the divine attribute of faith in your life.
Faith is not a series of codes to follow, but an inner conviction that you are a divine identity with gifts to unfold, with potentials to discover and with contributions to make. By exercising faith, we gain equanimity and awareness of the self.
Doubt is a resistance to surrender. It breaks your greatness and is a tool that you use to deactivate your faith.
Inner Positions in Front of Doubt.
Depending on our constitution and our preferred method of avoidance, we tend to favour certain types of doubts in front of our challenges, risks and points of faith.
Let’s examine some:
- Doubt through excessive questioning: We ask ourselves (or others) endless questions to know if we are doing the right thing or not. This creates a dual state that paralyzes inner knowing.
- Doubt through excessive opinions: You encounter contradictory logic statements. Again we move back and forward with pros and contras. [Suggest: Within, you move back and forth between different opinions, weighing different pros and cons and encounter contradictory logic.]
- Doubt by wanting to be perfect: This type of expression seeks to be recognized and to avoid punishment. We want to excel through ambition, judgments and great inner expectation.
- Doubt by expecting something better than what you have. In this state of discontent and dissatisfaction, we look outside for “better deals”. This frame of mind makes you a dealer, where your relationships, what you give and what you obtain is always given a value on a scale.
- Doubt through excessive research. Your scientific mind seeks to accumulate information (valid or not) to make the “right decision”. You can spend 3 month in research and lose the initial perspective or opportunity which sometimes is only offered once.
These modalities of doubt prevent the innate knowing of the self to flow, debilitating your inner knowing. They are based in a desire to be somewhere else, or to be something other than what you are. Recognizing your present moment as perfect and correct is a powerful realization which prevents doubts and false desires.
Where Doubts Come From
The flow of energy in the chakra system will give you different doubts, for example, doubting your sexuality, your power, your voice, your projection or your spiritual identity. How secure you feel in delivering the totality of you allows the chakra system to be balanced between your world of form and your world of non-form (chakras are the gates to different qualities of reality).
The Power of Desire and Judgments
Desires and judgments are two cutting forces which bring you to dualistic thinking. In the moment you vibrate in duality, a chain of consequences will be activated. It may take you a while to realize that your suffering is caused by a desire or a judgment, and that all you need to do is to loosen up the force that you have given them.
Desires and judgments bound you to the route of doubt, to the route of wanting to be perfect and to the highway of suffering.
Doubting your attributes guides you to desire to acquire something exterior. Doubting that you already belong to spirit brings sadness to the seeker, and makes you feel disconnected from the source. Believing that you are bad or wrong because you are not enlightened makes you see your spiritual path as an effort or something you need to achieve. Behind every doubt is a desire or a judgment. Reflect on that and confront the truth in equanimity. Behind every doubt is a way to evade your present challenge; doubt is self-sabotage, a deviation of your power.
The Good Doubt and the Bad Doubt.
We need to realize that we create doubt in areas where we have been hurt in the past. If we had a bad experience with a relationship, in our next one we may try to prevent the same mistakes from being repeated through extra questioning or opinions. At the same time, our experiences give us a point of reference to learn and acquire wisdom.
Our gut feeling that something is not right or correct for us is a valid quality of the self. When that feeling appears, it is without a doubt irrevocable and true. However, to get to this intuitive feeling and inner direction, we need to drop our mental evaluations and inner positions. To face the gut discomfort that something is off requires equanimity and immediate action. We need to realize that obeying what we know is an important part of faith, or in trusting the direction that the inner protector has given us to follow.
For example, I was having a conversation with a 35-year-old woman, who was sharing that the partner she was with was not a good choice for her. I asked her how long she knew that he was not the right choice, and she shared that she really knew from the beginning, but that she allowed herself to be seduced by the opinions of her mind. That little moment of disobedience made her spend 3 years in a relationship of unnecessary stress. However, the experience made her understand the power of her choices, and the importance of obedience and faith in what she knew.
Realize that your greatness is protected and guided by your inner knowing, and that by obeying your knowing, you fortify your faith and avoid the impulse to use your greatness to dominate, exploit and override your nature.