Dr. Rajesh Bhola
India
Aug 01, 2014
Some people believe that living a spiritual life will obviate the need for them to grieve or face suffering. To seek relief they often take refuge in various religious practices. Saint Augustine’s story of suffering and the restoration of faith is most appropriate. He suffered much bereavement early in his life and felt immense grief. He then discovered Christianity and developed great faith in Him. Nonetheless, when he later lost his mother, he suffered the same pain of grief. He was confused, because he had believed that having faith meant that such pain would not come to him again. He felt he had failed. He learnt that faith does not abolish pain or grief; it gives one the courage to face adversity with dignity. When we do so, that experience strengthens our spirit and returns us to reality.
Many people see faith as the absence of reason. Some are even more cynical, claiming that faith is a sign of weakness, something to resort to when all else fails. In earlier times, this thinking goes, faith was a necessity because man did not have science to help explain the laws of nature; but in the face of reason, and all of man’s brilliant accomplishments, we have outgrown our need for faith. To them, faith is just a creation of our imagination, meant to deal with issues that we can’t comprehend. Is there a higher power? Who knows? But we do know that we cannot control everything. People inherently seem to believe in something greater than themselves. This feeling is inside all of us; we only need to know how to access it. We are all born with faith. It is neither acquired nor taught - it is our most natural state. But as we grow, we tend to accept less at face value. Our faith becomes obscured by reason and adversities make us challenge our faith. After years of experiencing such ‘hypocrisy’ and being ‘lied to’, we begin to ‘learn‘ to distrust our own inner beliefs. However, we cannot allow ‘reason’ to drown out our inner true voice. We must learn to cultivate our natural faith. True faith constitutes not only a belief in Him, but also a trust that He always does what is good and right. Yes, we may have doubts and feel saddened by the suffering in the world, but true faith does not waiver, even if things do not work out as we would have liked. We all have moments when it seems like everything is going wrong. It is unavoidable. A relationship turns sour; a job is lost; a business goes bust; we are robbed. We feel overwhelmed. It is precisely when things are at their worst that we need faith the most. When we are at the lowest, we are closest to Him, to our faith, to a higher power, to an inner self. Along with faith, we must also develop a sense of humility, in our quest for spiritual growth. Humility means that we need to be humble towards Him, but towards nothing else. We should be regardful of the divinity but strong and bold towards humanity. Paradoxically, humility is a great secret source of power.
An experience I had near Dharamshala was ‘enlightening’. I was accompanied by one of my friends from England. Due to a sudden technical problem in our cab we had hailed a bus. There were many young Buddhist monks on board. Some had tattooed their shaved heads with Buddhist sutras in Chinese characters. One of the young monks (in training, we were told) approached my English friend. Our third member, another friend who had joined us at Kangra and who had grown up in that part of Himachal Pradesh, fortunately spoke both Tibetan and English. The young monk wanted to know more about Christianity – so as to ‘compare’ with Buddhism. What he was asking for, to put it mildly, required serious thought, clear definitions of spiritual terms and certainly time for reflection and prayerful analysis. My translator friend was in no mood for a lengthy philosophical/theological discussion. But even in the most ideal circumstances, how would my English friend have answered that question? What could he have said that would help compare religious jargon and cultural assumptions? What words, at their simplest, would even make sense, let alone be memorable? Could it be compassion? The New Testament certainly says a lot about it, but so do many other religious traditions – especially Buddhism. Justice? Well, yes, but pretty much every religion values some definition of it. Forgiveness? How could he even begin to truly define it? Finally, almost feeling ‘exhausted’, he just said, “It’s Jesus. Read the New Testament”. Is faith ever really a matter of explaining or understanding? God knows us; but can any of us really know Him? We barely and rarely know enough about ourselves, let alone our eternal destinies. In our spiritual journey, are we strong and mature enough in our faith to welcome the thoughts and insights of those outside our religious framework? Are we willing to admit that our understanding of who God is and what He can do in our lives or the lives of others may not be the most ‘accurate’? Is our faith anywhere near the unbridled glee and undiluted devotion of a child? There are many examples in human evolution wherein people with no particular spiritual advancement have, simply through faith, achieved the impossible. Let us meet whomever and whatever we encounter on our journey with a fullness of spirit; let us keep faith and lead noble lives that make a difference.
