Faith is inherent in human behaviour. Anyway, I can have a look at it. Operationally, I may say, that faith is assumption of something, which is not yet a fact, and yet the assumption provokes and supports the action. When someone accuses another of acting on faith, on blind faith, ignorant faith, this someone assumes a sense of superiority, in the sense that his own personal actions are based on absolute, known and demonstrable certainties. Is this true; are there some people who are blessed or cursed by faith; and others are consistently driven by facts, so-called.
I need light in the room. I go to the electric switch on the wall assuming that light will come on. Of many possible results of which the light not coming on, my getting a shock and so on, are some, I act on the assumption that the light will come on - one of the many assumptions. Not all statistical jugglery will escape the conclusion that my active getting up and putting on the switch was based on the yet to be proven assumption that the light will come on. If I had absolute knowledge one way or another I will or will not move.
In every single act of the present human being this ‘faith’ in something not know, not here literally dominates the impulse in a final action, of almost all kinds. It can be noted straight away that this faith can be amplified as a faith in a particular result, often a favourable or pleasant one.
Let me take a few more examples to illustrate the phenomenon of faith.
A soldier goes to battle ordered by his commander, who is ordered by his government on the faith of justice, truth, victory and many other words which cannot be defined. Victory is an assumption, faith in which assumption is an important element in the victory itself. However much one may mouth phrases like dash overcomer victory or death we will fight, nobody will believe that a General building digital if he knows beforehand that an earthquake in the region is going to wipe out his whole Army or even have knowledge that is crack regiments will cross over to the enemy. What determines action in the present human context is faith in the assumption, in the certainty in one result as against the numerous other possible results.
A man places Rs 1000 in a bank on the assumption, the faith, that in five years time it will give him Rs 1200 and that this might come handy for his son at college. He does this in the commonly shared faith that the bank does not go bankrupt, that inflation does not swallow up even the Rs 1000 that his son might spend the amount in a bar; he himself might not live to see any result at all. He acts on faith.
It is said that Raja Yudhisthira of the Pandavas was said to have been asked: What is the strangest thing you know of: and he remarked: The fact that knowing death to be inevitable and unpredictable everyone acts if he is immortal. Now, looking at this closely one sees this to be a fundamental activity underlying all other acts of faith. The point is that everyone acts on the faith that he will be alive the next minute, or hour or day, or year. It is not enough to say, ‘I am not afraid of death’ or of even admitting to oneself that his actions might certainly end in death. The crux of the matter is would I do exactly, precisely the particular act or movement if I know for certain that death exactly lies at the end of that. Would it not affect the course of that act or even its impulsion?
By the very nature of our sensory limitations we can only, at the theoretical or statistical maximum, become aware of that perceptual field and its possibilities that affect us. Beyond lies a vast zone of what is contingent to us. And only a very rash man can say that his actions do not have their basis on an illusory faith in some assumptions of his own.
All human behaviour is a progression of acts of faith in some potential goal or other given the cloak of some socially acceptable terms - religious faith, statistical faith, rational faith, and so on. Of course, it is a more spectacular kind of faith for an American to sit in a spaceship thinking it will go to the moon, but find it blowing him up in pieces, than the faith the villager getting into his bullock cart and finding himself in the nearest ditch instead of the nearest village.
Yet another popular baiting is to talk of everybody else's superstitions, omens and so on. The point of my inquiry is not to evaluate the relative merits of kinds of faith. My point is faith: Faith in something which is not yet a fact, as a determinant of present action is a fact of human behaviour. It is a property or faculty and not the particular affliction of some misguided and barbarian bumpkins.
Therefore for the student of self-realisation, the question is not whether faith is good or bad - there is little to be gained by hair-splitting between solid faith and blind faith - but to inquire into and experiment with the possibility of using this property of faith towards a better level of behaviour.
I need light in the room. I go to the electric switch on the wall assuming that light will come on. Of many possible results of which the light not coming on, my getting a shock and so on, are some, I act on the assumption that the light will come on - one of the many assumptions. Not all statistical jugglery will escape the conclusion that my active getting up and putting on the switch was based on the yet to be proven assumption that the light will come on. If I had absolute knowledge one way or another I will or will not move.
In every single act of the present human being this ‘faith’ in something not know, not here literally dominates the impulse in a final action, of almost all kinds. It can be noted straight away that this faith can be amplified as a faith in a particular result, often a favourable or pleasant one.
Let me take a few more examples to illustrate the phenomenon of faith.
A soldier goes to battle ordered by his commander, who is ordered by his government on the faith of justice, truth, victory and many other words which cannot be defined. Victory is an assumption, faith in which assumption is an important element in the victory itself. However much one may mouth phrases like dash overcomer victory or death we will fight, nobody will believe that a General building digital if he knows beforehand that an earthquake in the region is going to wipe out his whole Army or even have knowledge that is crack regiments will cross over to the enemy. What determines action in the present human context is faith in the assumption, in the certainty in one result as against the numerous other possible results.
A man places Rs 1000 in a bank on the assumption, the faith, that in five years time it will give him Rs 1200 and that this might come handy for his son at college. He does this in the commonly shared faith that the bank does not go bankrupt, that inflation does not swallow up even the Rs 1000 that his son might spend the amount in a bar; he himself might not live to see any result at all. He acts on faith.
It is said that Raja Yudhisthira of the Pandavas was said to have been asked: What is the strangest thing you know of: and he remarked: The fact that knowing death to be inevitable and unpredictable everyone acts if he is immortal. Now, looking at this closely one sees this to be a fundamental activity underlying all other acts of faith. The point is that everyone acts on the faith that he will be alive the next minute, or hour or day, or year. It is not enough to say, ‘I am not afraid of death’ or of even admitting to oneself that his actions might certainly end in death. The crux of the matter is would I do exactly, precisely the particular act or movement if I know for certain that death exactly lies at the end of that. Would it not affect the course of that act or even its impulsion?
By the very nature of our sensory limitations we can only, at the theoretical or statistical maximum, become aware of that perceptual field and its possibilities that affect us. Beyond lies a vast zone of what is contingent to us. And only a very rash man can say that his actions do not have their basis on an illusory faith in some assumptions of his own.
All human behaviour is a progression of acts of faith in some potential goal or other given the cloak of some socially acceptable terms - religious faith, statistical faith, rational faith, and so on. Of course, it is a more spectacular kind of faith for an American to sit in a spaceship thinking it will go to the moon, but find it blowing him up in pieces, than the faith the villager getting into his bullock cart and finding himself in the nearest ditch instead of the nearest village.
Yet another popular baiting is to talk of everybody else's superstitions, omens and so on. The point of my inquiry is not to evaluate the relative merits of kinds of faith. My point is faith: Faith in something which is not yet a fact, as a determinant of present action is a fact of human behaviour. It is a property or faculty and not the particular affliction of some misguided and barbarian bumpkins.
Therefore for the student of self-realisation, the question is not whether faith is good or bad - there is little to be gained by hair-splitting between solid faith and blind faith - but to inquire into and experiment with the possibility of using this property of faith towards a better level of behaviour.
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