oldernow

had a close encounter with a movie star who came many miles to meet me and speak about philosophic matters. he's the first person in that world that I've worked with who has 'made it' and would be well-known if I mentioned his name (which I'm not gonna do). It was interesting to note my excitement at this, since I've met and worked with many high-powered spiritual people over the years, and continue to do so, as well as having both political and corporate clients of some note. But each mileu has its own attractions and limitations, I guess. at any rate, we plunged right in to a profound conversation on topics like ghosts, visions of Mary, the nature of the Soul, the existence of God(s) and it turned out to be a real conversation with a really serious dude. No affect, no need to bandy about his accomplishments, ego, or intellect; we just got to it, and I imagine will continue to develop some of these themes. I think the most interesting moment of the conversation was the differentiation of faith and belief. Belief is about a content or contents - about ideas, images, doctrines; faith is a state of the subject free of content. Faith is faith in yourself where the self in which you have faith is innate, unreflective and alive; belief is a projection of that faith onto something/someone else, and that belief will not last forever, as it is ultimately displaced and therefore must collapse. When it does so, if the person has no self-awareness, then they'll just collapse in a heap, if there has been some work on oneself, then there is at least the possibility of realizing one's true 'faith' and the wholeness (as the Man said) which it guarantees.