Just as there are things of common knowledge,
well known to all without any doubt, and, there is common sense, most freely possessed
by all; there also is faith having nothing extraordinary about it.
One
does not have to be in possession of the knowledge of the truth of things after
acquiring the ability of clearly differentiating between what is to be achieved
(Sadhya), tools that can help one to achieve what must be
achieved (Sadhan), the process and efforts to be made to achieve
what must be achieved (Sadhna) and the being (the
Sadhak) that has the need and the basic ability to achieve what must be
achieved. No, the faith is not something as cumbersome as what the preceding
lines convey. Faith is an unwavering ‘natural’ belief and trust in the
existence and prevalence of the truth.
Faith
is associated with simplicity, humility, selflessness, patience, courage,
tolerance, absence of greed and pride, contentment, natural trust and
compassion, and freedom from discriminating intelligence. The absence or lack
of the above qualities kindles many desires in a human being and he becomes
insistent about not losing any hopes of fulfilling his desires. Such insistence
often transforms into superstition. When desires are reduced, faith appears to
strengthen the man. The faith is associated with courage and the superstition
with fear.
Why
we say, faith is a ‘natural’ belief in the truth? It is because; the qualities
we referred to in the preceding paragraph are the ‘natural’ qualities of a
human being. It is only when the man tries to view himself as something
different from the nature, he finds himself lacking in many respects making him
a slave of his desires that arise in him to ‘fulfill’ him. The conviction that
the man can ‘fulfill’ him with physical efforts is also a superstition.
‘Man
can easily avoid making mistakes’ is truer than ‘to err is human’. There is
nothing extraordinary about faith; but, superstition definitely is not an
ordinary phenomenon. For being superstitious, one has to be fearful first, and
dwell in his inadequacies he fears about.
PROMOD KUMAR SHARMA
[The writer of this blog is also the author of “Mahatma A
Scientist of the Intuitively Obvious” and “In Search of Our Wonderful Words”.]
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