A member of our website put up a very astute comment: “Perhaps you can't have faith if your heart isn't truly open.”

I didn’t grow up with any faith. For most of their lives, my parents didn’t believe in anything they couldn’t see or touch. My father was a master organic gardener, and in his later years he learned of Findhorn, where they grow huge vegetables as a result of the positive spiritual energy they bring daily to their gardens. This impressed him, as he could see with his own eyes the results of prayer and positive energy. This one thing opened him a bit to the possibility of faith in something greater than himself—at least when it came to his garden!

What does it mean to have faith? Can you truly experience a sense of faith if your heart is closed?

I’ve had the opportunity to work with many religious leaders, from ministers to gurus. It has deeply saddened me to experience many of these leaders lacking in a personal connection with their spiritual guidance. They talk it and preach it, but they don’t experience it. They say they have faith, but their controlling behavior indicates that they don’t. They would not have a need to play God if they had faith that they were being guided by an intelligence greater than their own wounded selves.

We read about so many of the leaders of religious groups getting caught in sex scandals. What this is about is that they don’t feel full inside, due to not having a personal spiritual connection, so they try to get full from outside. If their hearts were open, they would feel the fullness of God in their hearts. They would KNOW God and feel full inside—and would therefore have faith.  

Each one of the lost, empty religious leaders with whom I’ve worked operated from a closed, protective heart. Their wounded self was in charge of their life. They TALKED faith, but they didn’t FEEL faith.
 

We can experience spirit only with an open heart…

It is through our open heart that we experience the love, truth, comfort and wisdom of spirit. When we consistently have this profound experience, we have no need to avoid our feelings with drugs, alcohol, food or sex.

For me, this is a very tangible experience – just as tangible as my father seeing the huge vegetables. For me, the profound FEELINGS of the fullness in my heart, and the joy in my soul that are there when my heart is open, is not something I could make up or pretend. These feelings are as real for me as the huge vegetables of Findhorn were to my father.

Faith, then, is the result of learning to keep your heart open, which is what occurs when you consistently practice Inner Bonding.

Learn Inner Bonding through Dr. Margaret’s workbook, "The Inner Bonding Workbook: Six Steps to Healing Yourself and Connecting With Your Divine Guidance."