The Mechanism of Faith

Introduction

Throughout history, faith has been the bedrock for all spiritual advancement. Indeed, it is said that faith is the most essential ingredient for success in spiritual matters. This article tries to put this statement into perspective. It is essentially for readers who have faith that faith (more particularly, faith in a higher and more powerful living being) works. Even for others, this article will have some good food for thought. It will discuss the origin and rationality of faith, its advantages and absolute necessity, and how it works. The article will then go one level deeper when it concludes with an analysis of the different kinds of faith and their respective gradations. This article should strengthen the faith of the faithful, and inspire the faithless to become faithful.

Faith refers to a strong belief in something that cannot be proven empirically. And advancement can be defined as the process of going to a state of existence which is better than the present one. Since spiritual matters are beyond the conception of the limited material senses, and hence cannot be perceived empirically with the use of the limited material senses, it is only with at least a little initial faith that one can endeavor for spiritual goals and make advancement in that direction.

Faith – Origin, Rationality, and Advantages

Faith in someone originates from past experiences or knowledge of wonderful acts performed by that person. If those acts were actually performed by that person, then how can one claim that faith in that person is irrational? However, blind faith is irrational. Blind faith is a perversion of reasonable faith. It is reasonable faith gone wrong. For example, suppose a medical doctor named John has accomplished some marvelous feats such as curing seemingly hopeless medical cases, then putting faith in him is reasonable faith. However, putting faith in every person named John is blind faith, and is clearly based on ignorance of the simple fact that all Johns are not the same.

Once one has logically and philosophically ascertained a particular personality as one’s object of worship, the real role of faith begins. Life is full of ups and downs. To follow a particular way of life according to the instructions of the object of worship, in all circumstances, requires unflinching faith in the instructions of that person. To attain any goal that requires a process to be followed, perseverance is most essential. And perseverance through all the reversals is not possible without such unflinching faith. Thus, not only is the initial faith required (along with sound philosophical understanding) to start off on a spiritual journey, faith is required even more for continuing on that journey so that with such perseverance the sought after spiritual goal is eventually attained. This is why faith is absolutely essential for spiritual progress.

Faith also plays an important role in keeping oneself calm even in the midst of upheavals. A faithful person, not only carries on with his/her chosen path, but he/she is also confident, by dint of his/her faith, that his/her chosen path will carry him/her through all these upheavals.

The Mechanism of Faith

Faithful people always find themselves amidst three kinds of people: 1) those who are totally faithless and have faith in no one, 2) those who have the same faith as themselves, and 3) those who have faith in someone else. Faithful people thus find themselves caught up between these two classes of people, the faithless and those with faith in someone else. We have already explained earlier in the article that having faith in someone who is quite evidently highly powerful cannot be termed as irrational, and therefore those who are faithless are actually irrationally dogmatic in rejecting faith as irrational. But what about the other class of people, those who have some other faith?

To answer this question, we need to understand the mechanism of faith. How faith works? When one worships a more powerful living being, that living being if pleased bestows benedictions on the worshipper. Thus, the results of a particular kind of faith depend on the power of the corresponding object of worship of bestowing benedictions. Thus, there can be as many kinds of faith as there are different objects of worship. All these faiths can be reasonable faiths because all these objects of worship might surely be powerful personalities. However, some of these personalities are more powerful than the others and therefore the kind of benedictions they can offer will differ. Thus, one can clearly grade the different kinds of faith according to the magnitude of benedictions that the various personalities can offer. Obviously, faith in the person who can offer the best benedictions can be considered as the best faith. To say that all kinds of faith are same is saying that all the different personalities have the same power, which is not the case.

This discussion naturally leads us on to the question: Who is the most powerful person in whom I should repose my faith and offer my worship? Srimad Bhagavad Gita deals with this subject matter in quite some depth. At the very beginning of the 7th chapter, Lord Sri Krishna instructs Arjuna as follows:

BG 7.7: O conqueror of wealth, there is no truth superior to Me. Everything rests upon Me, as pearls are strung on a thread.

And a little later, in the 7th chapter, Lord Krishna explains why. We will get the answer shortly. Also, if Sri Krishna is clearly the Supreme object of worship, why are so many other faiths prevalent all over the world?

BG BG 7.20 : Those whose intelligence has been stolen by material desires surrender unto demigods and follow the particular rules and regulations of worship according to their own natures.

Who are these demigods mentioned by Lord Krishna in this verse? Just like a national government, which has a prime minister along with a cabinet of ministers each heading a particular administrative department, similarly, the universal government has one Supreme God, and a lot of subordinate gods. These subordinate gods are in charge of the various administrative affairs within the universe. For example, someone is in charge of the rainfall, someone is in charge of the sunlight, and so on. These subordinate gods are technically called demigods. And the one Supreme God is Krishna Himself as He has proclaimed in the Bhagavad Gita verse 7.7 that we cited earlier in the article.

And what are material desires? To answer this, one must first understand what is ‘material’ and what is ‘spiritual’. The Supreme Lord is the proprietor of all that exists. Thus, to put it simply, a thing is considered material when that thing is seen as being independent of the Supreme Lord. Since everything is owned by the Lord, everything is thus related to Him. Therefore, those desires which have no motive of serving the Supreme Lord are called material desires. In most cases, the corollary of this definition is that material desires are those desires whose sole motive is one’s own sense gratification. On the other hand, spiritual desires are those whose sole aim is to please the Lord by acting according to His instructions.

Because of material desires, one’s intelligence is covered up and one cannot understand that worship of Sri Krishna is the highest. This is so because the desired material results are quickly obtained by the worship of the demigods. On the other hand, even the material desires of one who worships Krishna are purified into spiritual desires. Less intelligent people, whose intelligence is lost due to material desires, cannot understand this as the greatest mercy of Sri Krishna, and therefore do not worship Him.

However, even if one wants to worship someone else, it is Krishna Himself who facilitates it, as stated in the following verse.

BG 7.21: I am in everyone's heart as the Supersoul. As soon as one desires to worship some demigod, I make his faith steady so that he can devote himself to that particular deity.

Further, even the results of such worship are actually given by Sri Krishna though it looks as if they have come from the other object that is being worshipped!

BG 7.22: Endowed with such a faith, he endeavors to worship a particular demigod and obtains his desires. But in actuality these benefits are bestowed by Me alone.

However, even though the results are given by Sri Krishna, these results are of a different nature than the results obtained from Sri Krishna by His direct worship. How?

7.23 : Men of small intelligence worship the demigods, and their fruits are limited and temporary. Those who worship the demigods go to the planets of the demigods, but My devotees ultimately reach My supreme planet.

Even though all results are given by Sri Krishna, those obtained through the medium of others are temporary, and those obtained by direct worship of Sri Krishna are permanent.

A question may arise here that if the results of worshipping some one other than Sri Krishna are temporary, and that worship of someone else is also facilitated by Sri Krishna, then why does Krishna facilitate it at all? That is explained by Srila Prabhupada as follows: “The answer is that if the Supreme Lord as Supersoul does not give such facilities, then there is no meaning to independence. Therefore He gives everyone full independence — whatever one likes — but His ultimate instruction we find in the Bhagavad-Gita: one should give up all other engagements and fully surrender unto Him. (BG 18.66) That will make man happy.” (BG 7.21p)

At this point, we can briefly mention that if the worship of such authorized representatives of the Lord, the demigods, is not proper, then what to speak of worshipping some human beings as God? Unfortunately, especially in India, there are so many human beings who are either self-proclaimed Gods or who are Gods by popular opinion. In the light of the above discussion, it will suffice to say that if not even all persons mentioned in the authorized scriptures are the highest objects of worship, then how can those who have absolutely no mention in the scriptures be appropriate objects of worship? The scriptures are there to guide humanity, and it’s safest to follow the scriptural injunctions, especially in critical spiritual matters.

The Only Faith

Thus, even though we have earlier referred to faith in any powerful person as reasonable faith, in the light of this above knowledge from the Bhagavad Gita, in the strict sense, faith in anyone but Sri Krishna is blind faith because in actuality the others are not capable of giving any benedictions on their own. It is only due to lack of intelligence and due to ignorance about the supreme position of Sri Krishna and the subordinate position of all others, that people worship others instead of Sri Krishna. Just like not all Johns are as powerful as the one powerful John (in the example we cited earlier in this article), no one is even remotely as powerful as Sri Krishna. In fact, Sri Krishna is the only one powerful, and everyone else derives his/her power from Sri Krishna.

Conclusion

In summary, we have seen in this article that having faith in a more powerful personality is quite rational. Having faith has a lot of advantages including peace of mind and the ability to face daunting situations in life. However, its most important role is in keeping one going, even amidst reversals, on one’s chosen path. In the second half of the article, by citing from the Bhagavad Gita, we analyzed the different kinds of faith in terms of the results that they produce, as well in terms of the actual provider of those results. The clear conclusion that came out of that discussion was that Sri Krishna is the Supreme and the only object of worship in whom one should repose one’s faith.

From this article, the three kinds of people can derive their respective benefits as follows. Those who are already worshipping Lord Sri Krishna can strengthen their faith in Him by this empowering knowledge from the Bhagavad Gita, the universally acknowledged book of sublime knowledge. Those whose faith presently lies elsewhere may want to rethink and assess why they have put their faith in someone other than Sri Krishna. What final destination are they going to reach by continuing to practice their faith? Is the result of their worship going to be temporary or permanent? And those who presently claim that faith is irrational can surely start thinking why putting faith in an obviously powerful personality irrational? By this contemplation, they might soon change their mind and start worshipping the supreme object of worship, Lord Sri Krishna.

Hare Krishna!