Faith and Conviction.

विश्वास और निष्ठा

-----------©---------

Two days ago I wrote in Hindi, a post about this title. Still I think / feel I should write one in English also.

I came across the understanding that trying to find out a philosophy from the scriptures  that leads us in believing to a certain faith, is quite different from that of trying to find out the conviction about the Truth. 

An unflinching conviction which can remove finally and ultimately all our confusions and ignorance, doubts and prejudices about the essential Reality / Truth as well. 

Discussions, dialogues, talks, debates go on without an end whatever, whenever we try to reach at an intellectual conclusion. And we think this is the final and ultimate truth, while this is merely an intellectual result of an intellevtual process, which still keeps us tethered to a certain philosophy, and yet we feel we have arrived. 

Then we say: "This is my faith".

So, what is "conviction"? How the conviction is different from the "faith"!

Let us see the conviction is intrinsic to our very being and our spontaneous knowing that I / We (always) exist. By whatever logic, argument or experience, this fact about our existence could never be denied or refuted.

Faith is always acquired from the knowledge from outside, from a scripture, from some-one who has been given the status, authority, and is supposed to know better than what we think we know.

Most often such a man seizes this authority, this opportunity by / from from tradition, by serving his superiors, who too might have captured the same probably in this way only.

Could we perhaps deny all tradition and the authority that is forced upon us according to certain philosophy in the name of religion, God, scriptures, and can we turn inwards to our heart, to the gut-feeling within our own and see that this simple knowing "I am", and the quite simple knowing :

"I know that I am" 

may be the whole and the only truth!

Maybe, if we give it a try, we could discover the above conviction within our own heart, and see what happens next.

Even after this revelation, perhaps still we could get more and more self-centered and selfish, even more confused a bit, may soon forget all about this simple realization, and get stuck deep in the quagmire of ignorance, or this may bring out in us the awareness of our own very true reality.

Depends upon how we proceed further from there.

***

Faith, doubt and Religion.

Mutation of the Mind.

-----------------©------------------

The man who is but one of the many creatures, evolved into a being through millennia, one who has developed a language which enabled him in associating spoken words with outward objects and then remember the word and associate the word with yet another word so as to develop this further into spoken language. This way, then he could transform the object(s) into an idea.

The congregation of such a multiplicity of ideas further evolved and developed into a complex faculty of thinking where he could relate an idea with any or many other such ideas.

Before the arrival of this skill on the part of his mind / brain, man might be having a memory of the same kind as all other creatures might had. We can say, all those creatures followed  their experiences in the audio-visual forms only, without associating a spoken word or a meaning in terms of a word, which they could associate further with another.

In a way, this memory of an experience, without giving it a name was kind of photographic one. Then the creatures might have related such many memories with an object that could help them behave in such a way, so as to solve their that particular problem.

For example, the relation of the needs like thirst, hunger, the survival and such, and how it could be met successfully. This was prompted by the very experience which then became their habit, and they could live on in a machinical way, face the usual challenges of life, moment to moment.

All this was very simple for them, and they might have kept improving their skills on and on. 

But all this remained at the level where only a glimpse of the past that happened, and of the future that might come, could be there in their mind. 

While in the case of the man, because he could  think in words, and then visualize a picture as well, he could imagine the supposed past event and anticipate a possible future one, in detail.  Not only this, he could further envisage a 'time-interval' so as to think of history of an infinity of such events.

Likewise, he could project and even plan such a future as well. He began to think in terms of the certainty and how he could achieve any certain result of any of his actions.

He became a dreamer and perhaps a visionary as well. Instead he chose to create a middle path, which others could follow. He became the leader, guide, teacher and he had now a mission as well.

In a nutshell, this all was his ambition only.

Others either followed him, accompanied him,  or turned against him.

He invented 'God', defined this 'God' in such a way, so as to suit to his ambition, and as much perfect as he could imagine.

Because of fear and insecurity, greed and hope, others followed this religion.

There might be the doubt, but they couldn't dare, to define this doubt, nor see. Confusion, and fear simmered underneath, and though the guide himself was not sure, the faith arrived on one or the other pretext, and then arrived the tradition.

Then the doubt lurking in the mind of the man, persisted, transformed into various theories and  philosophies, questioning the very existence of such a God, there were many such masters and teachers again, who claimed to be the final and the ultimate.

This all resulted into all these religions and their sects, spread all over the whole world.

Wars were, and are fought even today, between all these different followers of these so many religions and we can't even hope or say, if and when, how all this could come to end.

***