In this series of articles, we will explore the meaning of pure and unconditional faith in the Divine realities and ideas. In the current article, we will focus on the definition of faith, and how it differs from belief. We will also learn some beautiful examples of people who had tremendous faith that led them to spiritual growth.
What is Belief?
Belief is a bridge that connects the world of ideas, to our body, emotions, and energy structure. When we believe in an idea, that idea becomes an emotional, energetic, and physical reality for us. When we don’t believe in an idea, it doesn’t have an impact on us.
For example, we can receive a phone message from our beloved, and we may perceive in the message that our beloved is disrespectful or insulting us. It might be just how we read it, while the beloved didn’t mean to hurt us. But we already believe in what we’ve seen and the way that we’ve read it.
Once we believe in the idea, it will have a tremendous impact. It can cause pain, anger, fast heartbeats, hormones, adrenaline, indigestion — all sorts of emotions, and contractions. It will affect how we behave towards others because we believe in something. Belief is giving a reality to any idea, even when it’s not true. We can believe that violence is good and live by that idea and that idea will become a behavioral, emotional, energetic, and physical reality for us.
What is Faith?
Faith is different from belief because faith only refers to the purest, most elevated Divine realities. When we have faith in a Divine idea, everything in life has meaning. It is a real idea that is implicit in the nature of reality. When we believe in one Divine entity or another; in Buddha, or God, or Christ, or Krishna, those Divine realities become tangible for us.
As an example, electricity is everywhere, but without the connecting cable, we cannot access it. Those with faith; the connecting cable, have access to electricity. Wi-Fi is everywhere, but faith is the connector. Divine ideas and Divine realities are everywhere, as four thousand years of human history show.
Some people can connect to these Divine realities, make miracles, have great emotional strength, resurrect the dead, and endure all sorts of persecutions without being violent or afraid. They can access these Divine realities through faith.
Others who have a wall there instead of a connecting cable or a Wi-Fi router cannot connect to the electricity, to the Wi-Fi, to these Divine energies. They can’t believe that Divine realities exist and therefore they can’t access them. Therefore they don’t believe.
Bhagavan Nityananda
We will look at two stories of one of the most revered Hindu Gurus who lived during the last century, Bhagavan Nityananda.
Nityananda used to live in an ashram in Ganeshpuri that he, with some workers, built with their bare hands. In India, for decades people believed that all miracles, such as healing from disease, a successful marriage, coming out of poverty, and other most important things for Indians in those times, could happen if the person only had faith in Nityananda.
All sorts of people would come to him, good and bad. There would be buses with people coming. People would rush to his place, touch his feet, make their requests, and move on.
Once, among these people was a gambler, who was in debt. That person was praying and asking the guru, “Baba, please give me a number. I pay off my debts and I stop gambling. Baba, please, please”. Nityananda was a straightforward person who didn`t like bad people, and once he saw this impure gambler, he got very angry and asked the man to get out. “It’s not a place here for people like you. This is a spiritual place, not for people like you, get out”, he said.
But the gambler was still praying and asking for a number. At that moment Nityananda took a coconut with his big hand, and he threw the coconut and hit the guy on the hip. The coconut hit him on the hip and rolled back to Baba. So Baba took the coconut and threw it again even harder. That was painful enough for this person and he walked away. He was in pain, but then he thought, “Hmm, Baba threw on me the coconut twice”. So he put all his money on number two, won, paid off his debt, and became a devotee. The man had faith, he was impure, but he had faith in the guru.
Swami Muktananda
The second story relates to Swami Muktananda. Among thousands of people who came to Bhagavan Nityananda, there was one who had total faith in the guru. He was Muktananda. Other people would ask for different things – wealth, spiritual power, weddings, and health. But Muktananda asked for nothing. He just adored and had full faith that he was sitting next to a Divine being, an utterly Divine being. He would sit and look at Nityananda from morning to evening with total love and adoration.
Muktananda was already a spiritual seeker for some decades before he met Nityananda. He would do great practices and austerities and he was quite an accomplished yogi. So he had the vision to identify who Baba was.
Eventually, Nityananda bestowed his grace on Muktananda, making a whole ritual out of it, and Muktananda attained the highest spiritual liberation. He became a great Master himself. But the main core of his practice was that one aspect, that one gram of faith that took him from a great yogi and a great practitioner to an accomplished being, a Siddha.
Muktananda said, “The sun can stop burning, the rivers may stop flowing, but once you receive the grace of the Guru, nothing and no one will ever take that away”.
We will explore other examples of people with great faith in Divine entities from different religious traditions in the following article.
This article was transcribed and edited by Tony from the following video: