Where do we begin our journey? It is faith that the journey starts, the faith that there is indeed a purpose of existence, the faith that not only can we find it but live it in our life, the faith that there is a Wisdom that works in creation and we can discover it. The means to discover it are given to us. The power of thought is not the only power within us. There is also the power of faith. But this too we hardly cultivate. If anything we distrust it. All our education dissuades and discourages this power within us. To supress faith and substitute it with the analytical mind is the gospel of modern education. But these two powers, – Faith and Reason are not opposed to each other. In fact they complement. Faith helps us see things that are not yet and which we would want to be. It is the light that goes towards the future. We may even say that faith is our will-to-be and we tend to become whatever faith is. In other words faith is the switch that begins to set into motion all other processes within us. It is the secret initiator of our actions. Though we think that it is the will that moves us, our will itself often acts in a way that our faith dictates. Even our physical processes can be activated one way or the other depending upon our faith. It is this that is known as the placebo, and as its reverse side, the nocebo effect. Our body responds, literally so depending upon our faith.
Reason, on the other hand is useful for the present moment. It helps us understand the order of forces acting upon us, their effect and influence, the different conditions for their effectiveness, and all the processes that are working at any given point of time. Of course Reason can project itself into the future or move backwards in time to understand history. However it can never be fully sure of its findings and conclusions. Unlike Faith Reason is handicapped since it depends heavily on the input from the senses which are themselves heavily limited. Thus Reason, even at its best, cannot know with certainty about anything. Faith bypasses this. It does not depend upon sensory inputs. Even if all sensory data saying something, Faith may see something else. That is why Reason and Faith often come into conflict with each other. The fact however is that even our Reason cannot really see or predict anything with an absolute certainty. There will always remain a gap in its knowledge which has to be filled up by faith unless it awakens to intuition. Until then man must use both. Reason is helpful to organise our life and the various forces that impinge upon us at any given moment. Faith, on the other hand, is like a compass that throws a torchlight upon the uncharted ocean of life. It is in their synthesis that the secret of true understanding may be found.
How can we have Faith when what we series are a series of events that hardly make sense to our reasoning mind? Yet faith is too much ingrained into the very stuff of our being. We live each day with this faith that there will be a tomorrow. We study and research in a certain direction because we have faith that we may discover something if we move in this direction. Faith substitutes the sense of certainty that all seek. But some people, whom we may call as pessimists always believe that something terrible is going to happen. They always imagine the worst. Others, on the other hand go through life with the confidence of a child who trusts the future instinctively as long as he is not corrupted by the adult world-view. Of course the adults say that they have formed this world view based on experience. But what we must understand is that experience is itself a tricky thing. We see and experience what we are accustomed and trained to see. As someone has rightly said, ‘what the caterpillar sees as the end of the world, the Master calls it a butterfly.’ This world is like a mirror that we constantly colour by our emotions, imaginations, perceptions, fears and all the rest. We even distort the mirror by our preferences, desires and all one-sided affirmations of ‘truth’ and partial images of reality offered to us by a rational analysis of life. If we only learn to quieten our mind, if only we learn to pacify the restless clamour of desires and preferences that not only distort our vision but also distort our action, then perhaps we shall truly experience the world as it is. But we constantly introduce a distorting element in our actions and perceptions leading to the surface storms and chaos. But if we learn to quieten our energies and discover the mirror of wisdom and a wide equanimity then we shall see the beauty that underlies creation.
There is a wisdom that underlies the seemingly random events of life. The Intelligence that has gone into creation is much vaster than our surface mind and reason can fathom. How is an ant to understand the scale at which the tornado moves? Man must first grow inwardly vast to be able to understand something of the gigantic scale at which the forces of Nature move. It is only then that we shall have the key to truly master Nature. For she prefers that we grow to her vast dimensions and it is for this that she challenges us with the hale and the storm. But instead of trying to match her enormous strength we get frightened and shrink from life. If only we knew that behind this storm and the gale too there is the smiling face of the Mother who is inviting us to a great and tremendous adventure. A wisdom works in the deep heart of nature which we cannot understand by analysing the processes alone. The process do not yield the intent. But we stop our search with the processes and declare that there is no intent but only a random series of events hanging upon hooks and pegs of Time. It is only when we look at things over large spaces of Ti9me that the sequence can be somewhat understood. We can see how through the complex maze of events man has grown out of the wild beastly state towards the sky-scrappers vying with the clouds and the flights that cross the earthly fields and reach to the skies. Yes a wisdom works but to fathom this wisdom we need to first walk with the staff of faith Until we arrive at that point where a new light begins to show us what reason misses.
