Faith plays a crucial role in our lives. It is so powerful that it can make the impossible possible. It has the power to move mountains. Everything in the world revolves around faith. The entire human race evolved from cavemen to the modern-thinking men of today, solely through the power of faith! Though faith is an important aspect of our lives, its full meaning and implications are rarely appreciated. It is generally taken as a negative quality, implying lack of intellectual maturity.
Gurudev Swami Chinmayananda defined faith as: “Faith is to believe what you do not see, the reward of which is you see what you believed.” In the beginning, it may appear like blind belief, but it culminates in the verification of what was believed. Blind belief is something that can neither be verified through experience nor logic. It leads to superstitions. Faith, however, is verifiable.
In the initial stages, faith acts as a motivation for action. The first time we perform an action, we do so with faith alone. The so-called rationalists believe that faith is opposed to reason. The truth, however, is far from it. Our reasoning itself is based on faith in the power of the intellect. We have to have faith in the power of the senses to show us the right picture of the world based on which we formulate our logical thinking. The whole scientific process is a journey of our faith in the apparatus used for various experiments.
Faith plays an important role in our personal life, relationships, business and politics. All relationships are based on trust — another form of faith. We interact with the outside world having faith in human nature and noble values. For example, when we board a plane, we are putting our trust in the pilot’s hands. Faith also plays a vital role in the field of religion. Here, there is faith in the existence of the one reality, which is not directly visible to us.
It is the one underlying principle behind the variety of names and forms. It is that truth which binds the seeming differences together in one cord. This reality is the very self in all. Though the self is not visible to the naked eye, the existence of the self is declared in the scriptures and is the direct experience of many masters. Belief in their words as true is the initial step in striving and realising our own self.
Here, faith is the virtue of the intellect that is subtle enough to appreciate and comprehend the truth. The journey begins with faith and culminates in the realisation of the truth. Have faith in faith. It is the real wealth of man.
