Insight
“Finally it is Faith that cures”*
Abstract
Faith is something innate to us, but it is what we relinquish through our conditioning. Faith is a certitude which, over time, is ceded and must be retrieved. What was once a natural connection must be made conscious through yoga. For the work of transformation, faith must eventually be implanted into each one of our cells.
“They who have faith will go through (1).”
Faith is a seed planted deep within us. It is something very natural to the soul. It goes as deep as this entity and it is not only humans who possess it. It is something very simple; indeed it is an absolute because true faith amounts to certitude. Faith is what holds us all together.
One might imagine that one graduates up to faith by the rungs of mental belief and eventually conviction. But it doesn’t quite work like that. We can climb to the top of this ladder of mental resolution through quietude but there will be a vastness which separates us still from faith.
Sooner or later we have to make a leap. How can we recapture our faith?
In a sense we have to begin again. We have to retrieve the spontaneous faith and trust we possessed when we were a young child. What is missing? The truth is that we have lost that natural connection with the psychic presence. The child can’t claim to be fully conscious but the connection is very clear and natural. It is something implanted in everyone at birth and it is our upbringing which creates the chasm. It is simplicity which nurtures this faith. Although certain people hold onto this attribute of faith, for most, their faith gets lost and embedded within layer upon layer of mental complications. The Mother comments on this:
“I don’t say that a highly cultured man can’t have faith, but it is more difficult, for there is always this mental element which contradicts, discusses, tries to understand, which is difficult to convince, which wants proofs. His faith is less pure (1).”
So the problem comes from our conditioning. From birth we are impacted by countless impressions and influences from our surrounding environment. When we are young we are like sponges that absorb everything that interacts from outside. Our faith gets eroded by this attritional pressure. Eventually the sponge gets so weighed down we forget who we truly are. We identify with the influences not ourselves. It is our ego-nature which soaks up these vibrations and so we move into a zone of duality and separate from our soul. We lose ourselves in the morass of the world outside; we lose identity with the Self and so lose our faith. The natural affinity with the soul disappears. Quite apart from anything else, we lose control of our health and well-being.
For protection, we wrap ourselves inside mental sheath after mental sheath. We believe that we need it for armour but with this armour, we lose our greatest strength. Indeed we become very brittle. This mental bias casts a huge grey and sombre shadow over all our being.
But the good news is that faith can be retrieved. How can it disappear when it is something the Divine has instilled in each one of us? It just gets concealed, that’s all. It just gets buried beneath the rubble that the ego and mind have left behind. This debris is caused by a constant tussle of them dealing with impacts from outside. This is when we need to summon all our courage and make our leap. Sometimes a single action will define it. This is why it so often arrives through surrender. Self-giving inspires faith and faith propels our surrender. It confers an indelible link with the psychic presence.
Conscious mastery
We can’t turn back the clock but what used to be a totally natural relation with our health can be replaced, through yoga, by an authentic and conscious mastery. The irony is that we recapture our youth when we do this. Life no longer remains stagnant. We may even become simpler. We are aligning to the dynamic evolutionary thrust. It infuses the infinite joy of being alive. At last we have a purpose! At last we have the stamina to see the course through to the very end!
Installing this mastery is a prolonged process and if we are sincere we will find our faith grow and grow. It requires a steady, aspiring sādhanā and detailed inner work. This turning to the yoga amounts to a rebirth and we have to start laying down new building-blocks again. We are born again and the work becomes a simple joy. We are shifting hemispheres and surrendering all government to the psychic being. For that we have to “pass on to a higher degree in the evolutionary spiral, pass from the mental to the spiritual; then, naturally, faith takes on a quality of a very high order (2).” This shift from the mental consciousness fortifies our faith and places it on a more secure footing.
Put simply, when we align to the psychic we know; we no longer need to believe. There is an abiding simplicity in that. Belief is always so open to questioning and doubt. We cannot truly progress on shifting sands. Circumstances will always offer us so many counter-proofs and our previous belief gets easily discarded. We need something more solid and we will find the necessary immobility in faith.
The mundane life has become unbelievably stressful and complex; there are so many forces that run against it. This seed needs to be protected and nurtured from adverse influences. It is not easy to hold onto this state in today’s world but it is essential. At no time has it been more necessary. Everywhere we are surrounded by ignorance and scepticism. Humanity is being bombarded by illness and viruses of all kinds. Faith provides the supreme immunity; it is the surest foundation to good health. This fortress only will ensure that humanity prospers on this planet. With faith we can endure and move forward.
Faith is not superficial. It is not a surface phenomenon; it is something very deep inside which makes us whole. It is integral to the being and wants to rise to the surface and spread throughout the entire being. The faith retrieved from the psychic needs to saturate the entire nature and be impregnated into the cells. “A mental resolution is not enough, no. There are subtle reactions in your body which do not obey the mental resolution, it is not enough. Something else is needed (3).”
If we want to build a perfect immunity, we must do this. If we are preparing for transformation, there are no other options. It is the next step in our evolution. Our consciousness needs to alternate between the vast and the miniature. The two states join hands and merg : this is key to our sādhanā of the body. We attune and refine our body-consciousness through our Truth inside. It is intricate and detailed work. We need always to remain open to the descending Force. Each descent is a step forward in our yoga of the cells. This process needs to be made conscious by aligning faith with our will. Again, the Will is not superficial but comes from a sincere surrender to the Supreme. This self-identity is essential for dynamism inherent in the divine Will. With the Will, a joyous faith can be instilled into each and every cell. When this happens, this faith in the body amounts to a complete certitude.
References
1. The Mother. The Collected Works of the Mother, Volume 14. 2nd ed. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust; 2003, p. 79.
2. The Mother. Collected Works, Volume 9; 2003, p. 126.
3. Ibid., pp. 124-25.
*The Mother. The Collected Works of the Mother, Volume 15. 2nd ed. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust; 2004, p. 159..
James Anderson is a member of SAIIIHR and coordinating editor of NAMAH.
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