The Importance of Faith
Divine Life
Society Publication: The Path to
Freedom: Mastering the Art of Total Perception by Swami Krishnananda
When seeking the guidance of a
Guru or a Master, a very important instruction to the spiritual aspirant is
that we should have adequate faith in our own self. There should be no doubt in
regard to the very objective we are seeking.
Our problems and difficulties
of daily life seem to be enough argument against the existence of God. The
usual question everywhere in the world is, “If pain can be, how can God be?” as
these two are contradictory in nature.
The viveka and vairagya shakti of a student, which
perhaps appear to rise in the initial stages on account of the fructification
of the meritorious deeds performed in previous life, get stifled at some point
in time. Anyone can be in a state of doubt at some time. Pains come in an
intensified form, almost to the point of death; such sufferings are not
impossible in this world. When they come upon a person, it is then that the
mind begins to doubt the existence of meaning in life.
The student should not approach
a Guru or Master with this attitude: God may be, or God may not be; I may be
successful or I may not be successful; the achievement may be of value or not
be of value at all. With these debatable attitudes, the student should not
approach the master. Faith, shraddha, is
regarded as a very important quality or qualification of a seeking student. The
student has to convince himself of the meaning of his aspiration. Our
aspiration should not be a meaningless pursuit.
All faith can be shaken by the
winds of suffering when suffering comes in a form which cannot be tolerated by
the frailties of the body. It is faith which can stand us in good stead, which
can follow us even to our doom. If the turmoils of life can shake our faith,
then it would mean that the faith has not been born of conviction.
The faith which comes to us
early in life, due to having been born under certain circumstances – for
example, in a religious family, a good society, etc. From our childhood, it is
quite possible that we, children of such parents, are taught to believe in the
existence of a Supreme Sovereign of all creation, and due to this instruction
that has been given to us since childhood, we develop a kind of faith in the
existence of a kind of Supernatural Being. This faith has not come to us due to
conviction, understanding, analysis, observation or study.
If logic is the way of
thinking, if logic is the law of thought, then every object of thought has to
be subjected to the modes of logic. The existence of God no more becomes an
article of faith but is summoned to the court of reason and analysed
threadbare, and proofs are called for; and if no proofs come forth, the
existence of God is dismissed from the universe of thinking.
In this effort to analyse the
nature of God, the mind forgets that this peculiar nature called God, which is
not capable of an analysis along the lines of logic because while we may accept
God as a kind of object, and may even call Him the Supreme Object, He is not an
object of the mind.
It is on account of this difficulty
involved in the thought of God that proofs have failed to establish His
existence. We are prone to put a ‘why’
before anything that is presented before us. Why should it be like this? Why
should God create the world? Why did God create a meaningless, painful,
chaotic, material world? And why should there be this distinction of high and
low, gross and subtle, in a world of equality created by God? These are some of
the ‘whys’ that occur to our minds, questions which cannot be easily answered
because who is to answer them? Before whom are we posing these queries? We
cannot put these questions to other human beings because they too think like
us.
The world does not contain
only pain and suffering, ugliness and defects, poverty and sickness, death,
transformation and change. The world has two sides, the positive and the
negative. When we look at the negative side of things, we begin to weep, and
when we see the positive side, we begin to laugh.
We may take the standpoint of
the common man that everything is subject to destruction. This is a world of
transformation – change. One question is: Can there be a God in a world which
is in perpetual change? This is one of the doubts that may occur in the minds
of people: If everything is impermanent, can there be permanence anywhere? The
question itself is pregnant with the answer: Because everything is impermanent,
something has to be permanent.
All expressions of thought
carry with them two sides – the positive and the negative. While the world with
all its deficiencies and shortcomings may be said to be the negative side of
experience, God is its positive side.
If God cannot be, the world
also cannot be. If we accept the existence of the world, we have to accept the
existence of God because we cannot accept one side and cancel the other side.
Our aspirations are enough proof for the existence of a permanent value in
life. The two sides of our longings are - as many things as possible and for as long a
time as possible. Quantitatively and qualitatively, we seek perfection. But
these subtle hints behind our longings get smothered by the ravaging,
clamouring voice of the senses.
This is the reason why the sadhana-chatustaya, particularly in
its aspect as satsampat, wants us to cultivate
the qualities of kshama, dhama and
uparati. The mind should be calm in
order that we may be conscious of the existence of a meaning in life first and
foremost, and in this subdued attitude realise that there is a permanent value
which we seek in the world. It is said that we should develop a faith which
will not be shaken by the logic of the world. It is with this faith that we
have to approach a preceptor.
Conviction is the first thing
– a faith born of conviction. A faith born of conviction is unshakeable. Faith
is supposed to be fourfold.
1. Faith
in the existence of God, who is the supreme objective of our seeking.
2. Faith
in Guru. Just as we should not test the existence of God with our logic, we
should not test the competency of the Guru. Once we have taken him as our
Master, he is our Master forever.
3. Faith
in the words of the scripture. The need for faith in the scripture arises on
account of our logical reason being incompetent to ascertain the nature of
Reality. It is not logic, intellect, argumentation or reason that can be an aid
in the ascertainment of Truth; only revelation, insight, and intuition can
comprehend the nature of Reality. God is the seen, as well as the seer.
4. Faith
in one’s own purified conscience is a form of faith. A dirty mind cannot reveal
the voice of conscience, so it is useless to say, “I act according to my
conscience.” The conscience speaks in everyone. When the voice of the
conscience passes through the prism of our desires, it gets deflected into
various rays of cravings for things of the world. We cannot know what our
conscience speaks.
We have to be purified by the
practice of viveka, vairagya, kshama, dhama, uparati,
titiksha which are certain stages of training
of the mind for the reception of the knowledge of the Spirit from the Guru. Shraddha, faith, is the primary motive force behind
concentration of mind, the ideal which the student of yoga seeks in the end.
Continue to read:
The Path to
Freedom: Mastering the Art of Total Perception by Swami Krishnananda
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