In the previous article, we learned about faith leading to extraordinary spiritual results, using the examples of Bhagavan Nityananda and Swami Muktananda from the Hindu tradition. Let’s now hear some other wonderful stories from the Christian, Buddhist, and Jewish traditions.
Faith in the Christian Tradition
In Christianity, faith takes a very special place. Faith is everything. It is the main part of following the religion. During the third to fifth centuries in the Christian tradition, there were the Desert Fathers who practiced asceticism in the deserts of Egypt and the Middle East.
The first story tells about a family that came to one of the Desert Fathers. He was a very humble saint. They introduced their daughter to him, claiming that the daughter was possessed. They explained that the daughter was doing horrible things to herself and others. They asked the Desert Father to get the demon out of her.
The Desert Father agreed. He asked for a cup of tea from the family, and once it was received he sat quietly, relaxed into the chair, and said, “I have faith in my Lord Jesus Christ that by the time I’m done with this tea, the demon will be gone”. The Desert Father smelled the tea and sipped it quietly, contemplating life and not rushing to do anything.
Meanwhile, the daughter was shouting and kicking everything around her, “You’re killing me, you’re horrible”, she screamed. She pulled her hair and jumped back and forth on the wall. The Desert Father didn’t worry and continued to drink the tea, waiting for it to cool down a bit, taking his time. Once he finished the tea, the demon was gone and the daughter was healed. This is the power of faith.
Saint Anthony
Another story from one of the founding Desert Fathers – Saint Anthony. Saint Anthony lived very remotely, going deeper in the desert than other monks so that nobody could see him. Only very few people would travel that far. There were some non-Christian Greek scholars, the brightest minds of Greece, who learned about Saint Anthony and decided to meet him. After a long time of travel and searching they found him, and they came to argue with him, to prove to him that reason is greater than faith.
The Greek scholars came to Saint Anthony, who couldn’t read or write, but he remembered the Gospel and had tremendous faith. They spoke to him trying to provide all kinds of proof that reason comes before faith; explaining, arguing, and attempting to convince him that God is One and is indivisible to Three.
By that time there were other people around waiting for Saint Anthony to give a blessing to them, and among the crowd there was a woman who needed a desperate healing. Saint Anthony noticed her, and asked the Greek scholars, “Can reason heal that person?”. They answered him, “No”.
Then he said, “Look, I believe in Jesus Christ, and by the name of Jesus Christ, I heal that woman”. The woman was healed. Then Saint Anthony asked the scholars, “What is superior: reason or faith”, and they answered; “Faith”. It was the end of the discussion.
Faith in the Buddhist tradition
From the Buddhist tradition, we will share an example of the great Master, Tilopa, and his disciple, Naropa, living in the 10th to 11th centuries.
Once, Tilopa was walking on the roof, and he said, “If I had a disciple, he would jump off the roof”. Naropa who was his disciple, jumped off the roof. He broke his bones. Tilopa came to Naropa and asked, “What happened to you?”. Naropa answered, “Oh, my bones are broken. And because I identify with the body, I’m in terrible pain”.
Tilopa said, “Good. Let me heal you”, and he healed his disciple. The Master continued to test Naropa in similar ways. Naropa jumped into the fire, and Tilopa was interviewing him while his legs were in the fire. “What’s happening?”, he asked. And so forth.
Naropa’s faith in his guru was so great and complete, that through this tremendous faith and the ordeals that Tilopa brought to him, Naropa in a few short years went from being an ordinary scholar to becoming a tremendous Buddha.
Faith in the Bible
The final story is from the Bible, specifically, the time when the Jews were in Babylon. There were four young men: Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. All of them were very talented, mystically gifted, and served the king of Babylon living in the court of Nebuchadnezzar.
In the king’s court, there was a rule for everyone to bow down to a statue of the king. But these young men would not bow down to the statue as it is written in the Bible not to do this. A minister of the king noticed this and made an ultimatum to the young men. Either they follow the rule and bow down to the statue of the king, or they will be thrown in the furnace of fire.
They couldn’t accept the bowing as they followed the rule of the Bible with all their hearts and had faith in God. As a result, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah were thrown in the furnace (Daniel was not in the court at that time). As the king looked in the furnace, nothing happened to them. Then the king looked closer, and he saw a fourth figure with them in the fire, an angel.
The king came nearby and tried to touch the fire. The fire was hot and burning. Eventually, the king called the young men out. There was not even a smell or smoke coming from them, they exited the fire untouched, so great was their faith. After seeing this, the king allowed them not to bow down and promised that nobody would ever disturb them from their religious practices.
These are stories of people with great faith in Divine entities, and the examples of miracles that appear together with tremendous faith.
This article was transcribed and edited by Tony from the following video: