As bhakti-yoga requires faith, do we need to give up our questioning nature?

Answer Podcast

See, if Bhakti Yoga requires faith and acceptance, but then we also have a questioning nature.
So, do we have to give up that questioning nature to practice Bhakti? No, not at all. The capacity to question, the capacity to doubt, that is a sign of intelligence actually. In the Bhagavatam, which is the Bhagavata Purana, which is a prominent Bhakti text, there are five characteristics of intelligence that is described.
It says doubt, it begins with doubt, then it is apprehension, then there is ascertainment, then there is memory. So, like that there are different characteristics of intelligence that are described. It is a gullible person, will just believe whatever they are told, but it is only an intelligent person who can doubt.
At the same time, doubt is a characteristic of intelligence, but doubt is not the only characteristic of intelligence. When we are sick, at that time if anybody and everybody, especially if you live in a community of people, if somebody is sick, almost so many people become like self-appointed medical advisors. Try this medicine, try this therapy, eat this thing, do that thing.
So, now we, we can’t just believe everyone and follow everyone. So, that doubt is required. At the same time, if we keep doubting even a bona fide doctor, then we will stay sick.
So, we have to evaluate. And then we have to, especially when we go to a doctor, we take a gulp of faith when we take a medicine. So, now that faith is not blind faith, it is reasonable faith.
The difference between reasonable faith and blind faith is twofold. Reasonable faith is sensible and verifiable. Sensible means, say if my stomach is upset and I go to a doctor, and the doctor says, you have to amputate your leg.
I say, what? That doesn’t make any sense. He says, oh, you got acidity in your stomach, take these pills. Okay, that makes sense.
So, similarly, when we study the Bhagavad Gita, when we study the bhakti texts, if we try to understand the worldview, it will make sense for us. So, I said that the questioning attitude is also channeled in bhakti. Because by default, the world around us is materialistic.
And most people will be materialistic. It is only the people who have the capacity to question, they will ask, is there something more to life? Is there something more to life than just working hard, getting a degree, getting a job, having a family, growing old, getting deceased and dying? Is there something more to life? The capacity to ask this question is vital for spiritual growth. So, now, when we ask this question, that is a sign of intelligence.
But then there are spiritual traditions which answer these questions. So, the Bhagavad Gita and the bhakti texts offer us a worldview. And if we analyze that worldview, that will make sense.
So, it’s sensible. And not only is it sensible, it’s like when we go to a doctor and the doctor gives us medicine. He says, you take this for three days, your stomach will be better.
Then if you take it for three days, it’s verifiable. If it works or not. So, similarly, when we practice bhakti yoga, now, experiencing ourselves as souls and seeing the divine, these may take a long time.
But the bhakti texts describe a trajectory. There are landmarks in that inner journey. And one of the landmarks is that the negative emotions within us will go down.
The anger will go down. The worry will go down. The negativity will go down.
The cravings and the addictions will go down. And this, why is this happening? Because we are experiencing something higher. When we get better food, then we feel there is no need for eating some rotten food.
So, when we are craving for certain things in this world, but we experience something higher and those cravings go down. So, that pratyaksha vagamam dharmyam. Bhagavad Gita says you can experience directly the result.
The experience in terms of detachment from unhealthy material emotions or objects. That will be like a confirmatory test for us. Yeah, this works.
And as we keep moving forward, we will get higher spiritual experiences also. So, actually the questioning faculty is vital for spiritual growth. But if we keep questioning everything and never commit to something, that’s like questioning every doctor and never taking any medicine.
So, we can question, we should question, but at the same time, the questioning spirit and the faithful spirit, they are not contradictory. We question and based on the answer that we get for the question, then we put faith. And if we put faith and do certain things, then we get some experience.
Some questions are answered deeper at that level at that time also. So, thank you very much. Yeah.