I recently went to a small town north of Kerala, where an ashram is located(Anandashram). My family has been going there for a long time and it a spiritual haven of sorts. In addition, it is lush with greenery throughout the year, located at the base of a hill and literally is paradise on earth if you ask me.
The reason I went there was to seek our spiritual master's blessing before I started my very first job and also for some quiet time away from the crowded, noisy city.
In Anandashram, there are various activities that go on throughout the day that people can engage themselves in. One of these is a reading satsang. Swamiji reads out aloud from texts written by great saints and spiritual masters, and after reading a small portion, there is an interactive session.
It is one such interactive session that got me thinking about the topic in question. GOD. SIMPLE FAITH.
During the interactive session, an attempt is made to understand what the writer tries to convey through the text. Now, this is easier said than done. To top it, people come up with all sorts of unimaginable questions!
Now, this reading is one of the things I look forward to most whenever I go to ashram. For me, it provides an insight into the minds of the greatest men in the world. But I never question.
This time, during the session, an elderly man, apparently quite well read, asked swamiji why ego was an unnecessary quality that all of us posess. Don't we need it in daily life? He even went on to say that in the dvaitha philosophy ( where god and the devotee are separate as opposed to the advaitha philosophy where the seeker and god are supposed to be one), posession of ego is advocated for daily life. Then he asked why 'god realization' could not be attained with ego.What does ego have to do with being humble? After this, many other people came up with such questions and it went on.
Needless to say, I was baffled by all of this. How and why someone comes up with these questions is beyond my realm of understanding. I know a variety of people with varying degrees of belief, and I have never understood why this whole confusion/ curiosity about god exists in people's mind.
What happened to simple faith? God is a concept/ guiding force that is constantly with us everywhere (omniscient and omnipresent). God makes us believe that we must be good human beings as far as possible. When we get into difficult situation god gives us the courage to face it and solve the problem. Thats it. God is a guiding force that takes care of everyone and everything in the universe. Go pray everyday, thank god for making your life good and pray that he'll always be with you. Thatsit. That's what I believe and will do so for as long as I breathe and live.
That's all we had in the beginning. Simple faith. It came pre-installed in us when we were born. Then when, how, and why did we lose it?
What happened to simple faith? Why do people find it so difficult to believe that faith is all you need to face anything in life. Faith that nothing will be bad, faith that everything is for the good, faith that as long as we have faith, we'll be ok.
Faith is the need of the hour. Simple, unshakeable, strong faith in god.
But, does it really exist in today's world?
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