Have faith so that you may believe

These are turbulent times for most people. The struggle for survival has become more intense. Believing in God in these difficult times is not easy. You need to find reasons as your doubts about God’s existence persist. But not believing in God is even more difficult. You have to find better reasons. Not surprisingly,then, there is an overwhelmingly large number of people in this  world who choose to believe in God in the absence of a better alternative. Of course, we cannot be 100 percent firm in belief or disbelief. Many a times we may get reasons to believe,and equally often we can find reasons to deny God’s existence. The thing to understand here is the nature of our doubt. Why they arise and why they persist need to be minutely thought over. The relation between God and an individual is a personal one, a one-to-one relationship. Doubts creep in when our desires that are raised in the form of prayers do not get fulfilled. This leads to weakening of our faith in God out of sheer frustration. However, we  must realise that our very concept of faith is wrong. Faith should not depend on quid- pro-quo. It is much beyond that. And much different. The problem is the image of God that we have created in our minds. We tend to see him as a provider of everything and only the provider. Thus, we don’t expect God to take away things. Since we often go overboard in our relationship with God, our desires continuously keep on rising, sometimes even bordering on the impossible. Not that God is not capable of giving those things. That is what miracles are all about. But miracles are an attribute of faith. Faith in our benefactor, the benevolent and magnanimous God. We must trust in God’s justice and realise the fact that God will give everything we deserve, but not everything we desire. There is need for a careful self assessment to find out if whatever we desire is reasonable or not. The personal God is a relationship that would vary from individual to individual, and we would falter in evaluation if we compare with others.Individual Karma is something that we must  account for.God is not an entity that is only for us.It is our obsession with self that makes us believe so. The relationship with personal God must be strengthened with faith in order to get God’s blessings and experience his bountiful generosity.

One has to develop total faith. As it is given in the first of the Ten Commandments-‘love the Lord, thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind’. It is important to understand the significance of faith in relationship with a personal God. This is the reason why it is said that’ don’t believe so that you may have faith, have faith so that you may believe’. If we start finding reasons for believing we may end up being perennial doubters. The relationship with God is not a  give and take. It is complete surrender. God is certainly the provider but he knows when to provide and what to provide. Something like the Japanese Management idea of Kanban, the just- in- time principle. You will get it when you need it.We all came empty handed in this world and will return so in the other world. As Job said-‘naked did I come hither, naked shall I return thither. God gave and God hath taken away. Blessed be the name of Lord.

This Diwali Remember Ram

Diwali is the festival of lights that has been celebrated in India for ages. It has religious significance, too.Worshipping Lakshmi, the Goddess of Wealth is also done on the same day as it is believed that it will help in getting prosperity and wealth.The legend goes that the festival  marks Lord Ram’s return to Ayodhya,his kingdom, after slaying Ravan,the mighty demon king of Lanka. While people rejoice this occasion with sweets,lights and crackers, the all important point often gets lost.It is imperative to remember that more than Ram’s victory, the values he stood for need to be recapitulated and imbibed. As India celebrates the festival ,the essence of Diwali, that is, the victory of good over the evil,has to be kept in mind. Ram was not just an incarnation of God born in this world to end the evil prevailing during his time. He lives as the greatest among the human beings who stood for certain values and principles.Rather,he  epitomised them. This is the reason why he is called the Maryada Purushottam, the noblest of the souls. Diwali should remind us of those values and give us the will and the ability to uphold them. Ram needs to be the source of strength and sustenance to help us follow the  path of righteousness or Dharm. The sum and substance of Ram’s character lies in this one story, narrated and recounted time and again. It says that when Ram returned to Ayodhya after vanquishing Ravan, the most powerful king on the globe  those days people were not able to believe it.Dismayed at this feat of Ram, the citizens of Ayodhya asked him how could he kill someone as invincible as Ravan. The reply which he gave is worth pondering. With great humility he said, ‘I did not kill Ravan’. It is the ‘I’ that killed Ravan. I, the ego, doused in arrogance. It was this that proved Ravan’s undoing. One big difference between Ram and Ravan was humility. Ram was humble while Ravan was haughty.It was Ravan’s pride that led to his fall. In the present times what we are finding is that humility is almost  extinct as arrogance and pride drive human behaviour. Ram’s values were based on ethics. For him right and wrong were in black and white without any shades of grey. His leadership was driven by morality rather than prudence that we are seeing  all around today. His fight with Ravan was to uphold righteousness,the Dharm. We find leaders taking countries to wars  to placate their ego. Prudence is about knowing which side of the bread is buttered, but ethical wisdom is about knowing when to say no to the buttered side. Even when Ram was in exile following his father’s command, his brother Bharat and the people of Ayodhya pleaded to him to reconsider his decision. But that did not deter him from his principled resolve. Rams commitment to carry out his father’s promise even after the latter’s demise is a classic lesson in values. His pursuit of Dharm was above everything. He knew the essence of Dharm and had the will to uphold it. He was an ideal representation of the man who combined values, virtues and vision. Ram’s victory over Ravan must be rejoiced but his principled conduct offers more valuable lessons.

The Wisdom of Sunderkand

Even though Ramcharit Manas of Goswami  Tulsidasi is full of insights and practices that offer effective lessons for living the right way, yet one may find several useful tips in just the Sundarkand. Maybe, this is the reason why it is the one chapter of Ramayan which is most widely read  and recited.It  encapsulates life skills rather succinctly. Sunderkand is mostly about the exploits of Hanuman and describes his actions and adventures in Lanka during his journey to the kingdom of Ravan to find out the whereabouts of Sita. The chapter elaborately explains his  key strengths and the qualities that made him succeed in this all important mission for Lord Ram, his master. It is about his unflinching commitment towards his duty and devotion to Lord Ram. However, Sundar Kand also contains several important lessons that can be learnt to help one face the challenges of life in the course of living. First about his basic traits that helped him carry out his duty diligently and effectively. These can be discussed under one broad construct Vivek for which there is no exact equivalent in English. However,it comprises  the following two attributes that modern management theoreticians think are needed for managers to carry out their duties successfully. The first is the IQ or the Intelligence Quotient which is basically the presence of mind that gives the ability to take quick decisions in difficult and ambiguous situations. This is very clearly demonstrated in his encounter with Sursa while trying to cross the sea to reach Lanka.He negotiates very wisely with her and wins her admiration and gets her blessings, too. But the IQ that Hanuman demonstrates is not about the attributes of the mind only. It’s not just the aptitude but also the attitude.  Rather, a combination of both the head and the heart.The humility, the patience, the sensitivities, the ability to step into the other person’s shoes. His dialogue with Vibhishan at the latter’s home very clearly shows these qualities.This is what is called EQ or Emotional Quotient, the ability to understand people which is so very important in life. But the Sundar Kand also has many lessons on leadership and strategy.One of the couplets mentions a very crucial lesson on why leaders go wrong. When aides, doctors and teachers don’t give the right feedback either out of fear or to please the king, the end of the empire is imminent. When Ravan was informed that Ram and his army had crossed the sea and was camping on the shore outside Lanka he asked his ministers for advice. Rather than giving the right feedback they pampered him saying that he was invincible. Similarly,there is another instance when Ram was humbly  requesting the Sea God to allow his army  a hassle free passage to cross and reach Lanka. But when the request goes unheeded for three days Ram tells his brother Laxman to get the bow and arrow as some people don’t understand the language of humility because they are pig headed. Such people only understand the language of force. Ram elaborates this further in the next two couplets by saying that fools do not understand the language of love, nor the crooked deserve love.The miserly cannot be made broad minded and the greedy do not understand the virtues of charity.Sundarkand offers many such pearls of wisdom.

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