Beyond belief: faith moves mountains

7 January 2003, 11:05pm IST

A student of science once confided to me after some hesitation: ‘‘I’ve no faith in God.’’ ‘‘Never mind,’’ I said. ‘‘God won’t mind!’’ ‘‘He won’t, right?’’ was the young man’s unguarded response, not without an air of relief. The student no doubt represented the large number of agnostics whose ‘no belief’ is a vague proposition. But there are others who are firm in their belief that they do not believe. However, an honest examination would show that what they do not believe in was a particular idea of God. Many take the concept of God they inherited from their family or milieu for granted, without analysing or questioning it and then quarrel with it, accept it or reject it. The concept is often inane — God as a rigid taskmaster, an exaggerated version of one’s familiar boss, or an uncompromising moralist, a headmaster with a halo, or a sort of spiritual director general of police or even the chief justice of the ultimate Supreme Court. There is nothing blasphemous in their rejecting God, for what they reject is an absurd notion of God. In fact, blasphemy is an imaginary attitude. Nobody can offend God because the offender himself, like the believer, is an emanation of God searching for the truth and growing towards it in his own way. It is not that God simply created us, He became us. In the primeval stage He, in His uncontested wisdom or foolishness, plunged into a state that was His opposite, but is in the process of evolving out of that state, within each individual, towards the Light, Bliss, Freedom and Immortality that He is in His undiluted state. Indeed, even though He became this creation, He was not lost or exhausted in it. He also remained above it, transcending it, ready to help each one who consciously strives to recover his or her lost divinity. Thus, the One who oversees this process is God while we too are gods oblivious of ourselves. There is no state of mind as ‘nonbelief’. If I do not believe in God, I believe is the non-existence of God, as some philosophers point out. Or we believe in humanity, in a cause, or we believe in ourselves. Nobody can exist without faith. I cannot take another step, literally, unless I had faith that the earth would not give away; I would not write this unless I had faith that you would read this; you would not read this unless you had faith that it could be worth reading. If you are disillusioned, you are disillusioned only in one act of faith, not in faith itself. Folklore informs us of a puny bird who does not trust the firmness of the sky — when it goes to sleep, it unfurls its tiny legs upward so that in case the sky falls down on it, it could throw it away. It does not have faith in the sky, but has faith in its legs. Faith itself is a divine quality, ‘a support from above’ as the Mother says, inherent in us. Spirituality only requires that we direct it to the Power that is behind the entire phenomenon. There are different levels of faith. The tamasik faith, resting on inertia, suggests that all will be done whether one acts or not. The rajasik faith, inspired by one’s own confidence in oneself, proves dynamic in whatever one does. The sattvik faith is activated by some laudable ideal. The highest is the faith that’s spiritual. Once a little girl was heard praying at night, ‘O God, please repair my broken toy’. Her elder brother laughed. ‘You foolish girl, do you believe that God would respond to such a silly prayer?’ he asked. ‘Of course He would,’ she replied. In the morning the brother woke her up and pointing to the broken toy, asked: ‘‘So, did God respond to your prayer?’’ he asked, teasing the girl. ‘‘Of course He did,’’ she insisted. ‘‘He has indicated that I am now past the age of playing with toys!’’ This kind of faith is what gives one strength, helping us in our travels through life.