How can we prevent our faith from flickering amidst problems?

Anwser Podcast

Time: 5 minutes 41 seconds

Transcribed by: Nikhil Fernandes

Question:
How can we prevent our faith from flickering amidst problems?

Answer:
There is philosophical faith and general faith. General faith is found in pious people who think god is good and will take care of us. General faith is good but more flickering than philosophical faith. Pious people’s general faith on god may be challenged during difficult times. However, people whose faith is guided by philosophy are likely to stay firm on their faith even in difficult times due to their strong conviction in Krishna’s words. Let us understand how.

In scripture, Krishna says mam upetya punar janma duhkhalayam ashashvatam, napnuvanti mahatmanah samsiddhim paramam gatah – this world is dukhalaya – a place of misery. If our faith is guided by philosophy, then we will see misery in this world as a confirmation to what Krishna has said in the Gita. Such an observation increases our faith in Krishna’s words. Now, it becomes easier to accept Krishna’s other message in the scripture where he says that by taking his shelter we can rise above misery – mac-cittah sarva-durgani mat-prasadat tarisyasi. When misery arise, rather than asking why this misery has come, people with philosophical faith will take more shelter of Krishna to overcome the misery and will eventually rise above it.

When our faith is not philosophical, then we have only half faith in Krishna. Half faith means having faith in Krishna’s power but not having faith in Krishna’s intelligence. We present the problem to Krishna and ask him to solve it for us because we cannot do so ourselves. However, we ask Krishna to solve the problem the way we think it should be solved. It does not work like this. If we have full faith in Krishna that means we have faith not only in Krishna’s power but also in his intelligence. If we submit to Krishna with this attitude, we will not only have faith that Krishna will solve our problem, but also have faith in whatever way Krishna will solve our problem. We will see Krishna’s intelligence working in our life. Non-philosophical faith is faith only in Krishna’s power, but philosophical faith is faith in both Krishna’s power and his intelligence.

To summarize, seeing adversities as a confirmation of scriptural teaching, we can strengthen our faith in Krishna. Further, by seeing adversities as an opportunity to experience Krishna’s misery transcending potency, we can seek more shelter of Krishna. By knowing that Krishna is more intelligent than us, we will not stay attached to our own version of how things should work out. Instead we will be patient to see Krishna’s version of how things work out. Ultimately, we may realize that things turn out to be far better than what we had expected.