If we don’t have full faith are we hedging our bets?
Transcript
This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Can faith be 50-50%? It’s not so much of percentage, but it’s a matter of practical deliberation. When I say 50-50% faith means, is it like I’m hedging my bets? If God exists, if God doesn’t exist, then maybe there is no God. It’s not like that.
When you talk about faith being less or more, faith is a choice, but faith is also an inclination. That means that, it’s like muscles. I can develop my muscles by exercise.
But some people have more muscles, some people have less muscles. So I would say when you are talking about faith, and I’m talking about faith, we are referring to two different things. We are talking about faith, say for example, I’m facing some problem.
And that time I don’t know how to deal with that problem, but I just have faith in Krishna and I’ll move on. Yes, that is faith. And if I, at the back of my mind, what if Krishna doesn’t help me, what if Krishna doesn’t help me? If that is there, then that faith, the purpose of that faith will be sabotaged.
So in that sense, we have to always have faith. When we put faith, let’s put faith wholeheartedly. That’s true.
But when I’m talking about faith, I’m more talking about intellectual understanding as well as a spiritual realization. So there is faith as a, I would say, not sentiment in a negative sense. If God exists, God will take care of everything.
That is good as a faith. But the more our philosophical understanding of God’s control increases, the more we ourselves practice bhakti and get spiritual realizations. That faith goes much beyond a level of, beyond just a choice that we have or a sentiment that we feel.
It becomes a deep conviction. It becomes something which is, which is just a part of our spiritual interplay. So that will come by gradual purification.
So yes, if we are putting faith, we should put faith wholeheartedly. But as we move forward, our faith will become deeper in terms of understanding, in terms of realization. It won’t just be a matter of emotions being reposed.
Emotions being reposed is important. But directing those emotions will be a profound philosophical understanding and it will be experienced spiritual realization.