Wisdom from Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

Faith cannot be cultivated, it is simply there!

You have parked your car in the parking lot and you have faith that it will be there when you come back.

You may have come from Alabama, Atlanta, or from some other place, but you have faith that when you go back, your house will be intact. You have faith that your job is secure or your business is secure. That is faith. Faith is something that is inherent.

There are three types of faith:

Faith in oneself
Faith in the goodness of people around you and in the law of society
Faith in something that is unseen, which is not tangible, and which is beyond reason and logic

Everyone has experienced a glimpse of something that is beyond logic, beyond reasoning, and beyond what the intellect can tangibly comprehend. No matter how much one denies it, they have at some point experienced something that is beyond these limits. Having confidence in this is faith in the unseen.

These three kinds of faith or trust have to be there, and are generally there in everybody. If you are a normal person, it has to be there. If you have some psychological paranoia or illness, then you don’t have faith in yourself.

A couple came to me once. They lived just 10 minutes away from the venue, but they said that it took them 5 hours to come and meet me. I said, “How come?” The lady then said that the moment her husband got out of the house and walked a few steps, he felt that the door was not locked. So, he went back and checked the door. He pulled the door front and back several times to ensure it was locked. Again, he walked some steps and the same doubt came over him and he went back to check if the door was locked. This gentleman was paranoid; he didn’t trust himself. This is a sort of psychological illness.

In society, you will find many people who do not have faith in themselves, and they walk around without being diagnosed. Lack of self-faith leads to lack of faith in others – you will always feel that everybody is after you, or everybody is angry at you, or everyone is out to get you. Can you survive like that? Impossible.

You have parked your car outside, you cannot keep thinking – will my car be there when I go back or not? Unless you are in Lebanon or Afghanistan, where such incidences may happen and these fears are justified!

We are here only for 60 - 70 years, and we think we are in control of the whole world. I tell you, this is such an illusion. This Earth has been in existence since millenniums. This Earth has sustained itself for nineteen billion years, and we think we are managing this whole world.

There can’t be a bigger illusion than this. There is a force that is taking care of this planet and that will continue to take care of this planet Earth, and this is going to last for a long time. And there is not just one planet but there are many such planets, and many lives.

We think that we provide food and we are providing everything. But if we go underwater and do some scuba diving and see – there is a whole world there and they are being provided for. Every creature is being provided something to eat.

I am reminded of a philosophical quote by a 12th century saint – Ajgar kare na chakri, panchi kare na kam, das maulak keh gaye, sabke data ram.

He says, a python doesn’t serve any master, nor does a bird go looking for work, but food is being provided for everything by the Lord. So why do you worry!

A python is very lazy and moves very slowly; it just keeps lying around all the time. However, birds are very busy creatures, flying around all the time. Yet both are equally provided for; the Divine is providing for everybody.

This has been said to instil confidence in people – whether you move slowly or fast, you will be taken care for. Whether you are very busy or moving at a snail’s speed, there is compassion in the cosmic consciousness, and the Divinity provides for everybody.

Now, when you realize this and wake up from within, faith is a byproduct of that. Faith is anyways there, but it manifests with awareness.

What are you struggling for?

Is it Money? You are struggling for money, then don’t sit and day dream, do hard work. If one business does not work, choose another business and do it.

Don’t sit and day dream and only think about miracles to happen.

Miracles do happen, but if you crave for miracles then they will take a back seat. Nature wants you to be dynamic. There are people who have asked me, ‘Guruji, please give me some numbers for my lottery ticket. I just want to win a lottery so that I don’t have to do anything. Just do sadhana all the time and some seva(service).’ No way! First of all, decide what it is that you want from life. You know money is something that you will always find people short of. Always!

You can see for example, the richest country, the only super power on this planet is USA and it is under heavy debt; trillions of dollars of debt. You take big companies; many of them are in debt. The richer a person gets, the more expenses he has. At the same time, there are poor people who are contributing towards charity, poor people who take time to do service, which is amazing. They feel so much abundance.

Did you know that during our silver jubilee celebration, a beautiful incident happened. I came down from the steps on the last day and a small boy came running to me with tears in his eyes and gave me an envelope. I took the envelope and it had Rs. 5000 in it. I looked at that boy and I asked, ‘What do you do?’ He said he is a labourer. The money in the envelope that he had given me had two months of his earnings, and he said, ‘Please take this.I can’t tell you how much my life has transformed. Please accept this.’ I took just Rs.100 from that envelope and returned back Rs. 4900. I told him, you know this Rs.100 is so precious for me, this is enough. I will take this. Two months of his salary; someone who is a labourer who does manual work, he comes and offers this. Such a big heart! You don't have to be very rich to feel the abundance.

In fact many rich people don’t feel abundance at all, they feel lack. They are not generous. But poor people are very generous. Don’t imagine a situation where you will become super rich one day and then you will start doing some seva(service), no, nothing like that. You can feel abundance at any point of time.