How can we distinguish between ‘true faith’ and ‘blind faith’? How can we avoid becoming followers with blind faith?
Answer: We cannot exist without faith, and it is required at every step of our life. Eating at a restaurant needs faith that the waiter did not poison your food. Getting your beard shaved requires trust that the barber will not slit your throat with his sharp knife. Without a leap of faith, we cannot function.
Scientists look down on spiritualists for being people of faith. But they do not realise that they, too, work on the premise of faith. They choose to believe the information their senses convey to them. The perception of the senses could be misleading. But the leap of faith must be made, for, without it, the experimental process of science cannot even begin.
In conclusion, we all live by faith. Where we choose to place it determines the direction of our life. For example, some believe wealth is of paramount importance, so they spend their entire life accumulating it. Others are convinced fame is the measure of success, and they pursue it passionately. Yet others develop deep faith in the attractiveness of God-realisation, and they renounce material pleasures in search of the Supreme.
Faith, thus, determines the values we live by, the choices we make, and the direction our life takes. How does our faith develop? In various ways.
Some beliefs come from the family and environment. For example, people’s beliefs about politics are often determined more by upbringing than by analysis. As they say in the US, ‘Children of Democrats become Democrats, while children of Republicans become Republicans’. Likewise, people usually do not make a conscious choice about the religion they follow. They are born into a particular tradition and accept it because their parents and grandparents did.
Other beliefs are based on experience. A student makes a couple of attempts at the game of tennis and fails. Impulsively, she assumes she can never be good at sports. She may have done well in other sports, but she develops a conviction about her inabilities.
Some beliefs come from hearsay. This was seen in Germany during the Nazi regime. Hitler and his cohorts duped Germans into believing gross untruths, leading their nation to World War II. Hitler’s minister, Joseph Goebbels, expressed his tactics: ‘If you tell a lie a thousand times, it will become the truth.’
The worst kind of faith is blind faith—which is believing in something unquestioningly or without discrimination, or choosing to trust against evidence and reasoning.
I often come across this type of faith while preaching. There are people who believe the Mahabharat can lead to quarrels in their family, so they are afraid to keep it at home while the truth is the reverse. The Mahabharat is a treasure chest of wisdom and morals that provides the good sense to reduce conflicts. But since the background of the epic is a war setting, these people blindly believe it will create conflict in their home as well.
Many others perform irrational rituals of sacrificing animals to goddesses simply because their ancestors did so. They do not question why. The same applies to superstitions. Black cats are considered bad luck, while keeping a horseshoe apparently wards off evil.
Blind faith can be extremely dangerous. It results in incorrect attitudes, bad choices, and adverse actions. In modern times, social media makes it easier to form false beliefs through fake news, which many people, unfortunately, take for real. Our goal is to form good beliefs in order to take our life in the proper direction. So, how can we develop faith that is auspicious and true?
The basis of good beliefs is correct knowledge. Saint Tulsidas states in the Ramayan: jānen binu na hoi paratïtï, binu paratïtï hoi nahin prïtï ‘Without true knowledge, there cannot be true faith; without true faith, there cannot be true love.’ Thus, knowledge has a pivotal role to play in the journey of life. The Bhagavad Gita states: na hi jñānena sadriśha ˙mpavitramiha vidyate (verse 4.38)
‘There is nothing as purifying as divine knowledge.’ So, make good knowledge the basis of your beliefs. This naturally leads us to the next question.
(Excerpted with permission from Questions You Always Wanted to Ask by Swami Mukundananda, published by Rupa)