The Test of Complete Faith

Dear Devotees,

      Nityananda Gauranga Hare Krishna! My humble pranams!

      Faith - A word which many are familiar with, grossly underestimated and yet is the fundamental bedrock of all devotion itself. Faith is something that is commonly taken as 'basic' requirement in devotion and yet right from the lowest stage to the highest levels of devotion faith is always present in some form or the other. What is full faith anyway? Is it just a matter of saying, "I believe in God"? or is it more? In my life I have come across people at different stages of spiritual development and this experience in dealing with all of them, including myself have given me some reasonable amount of insight into this matter.

     We see that some people lose faith when the tide of life turns against them. That is because it was not complete faith to start with. One can say, "I believe in God, my saviour." or one may say, "I worship Krishna, Gauranga, etc..." when times are well. It is easy to say that I believe when everything in material life is favourable. But that is not the full test of real faith. Only when things are NOT ok, then we can see who has the complete faith or not.

     There are many reasons why full faith in the Lord may not be present. It make take millions of lives of advancement to come to the stage of sraddha (faith) in devotion what to speak of the rest. One should try not be a theist on the outside, atheist on the inside. Sometimes some people may go to temples etc. when needed but at other times they may think themselves as God.  A person who may say one thing, but may internally feel and act in another way may find it quite difficult to develop complete faith in the Supreme Lord and overcomes the tests of faith which are given by the Lord.

      When people are given even a slight test, immediately we know who has full faith or not. A serious illness, a bad day, a change of economics, the loss of a close one, although hard to bear, are the real test to prove our unflinching faithfulness to the Lord. One can say that I believe when everything is well. If one can still stay with all of one's faith in the middle of adversity when maya is throwing fireballs, that is the sign of full and complete faith. That is not at all easy. It requires courage, determination and an iron will.
 
In the next article, I will take up the test of true faith for further elaboration.

Daaso'smi,
Srinath

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