Faith keeps us

I, like some others, have felt faith, some moments, some time. The type that is blind. Actually that is the only type. Was it because we didn’t look around? Was it because pain came too strong some time? Was it because we were running away from something we didn’t wish to see? Whatever, we felt faith. We felt it all around. And after crossing the last line of reason, we saw it grow, with each passing pain, with each passing joy. It grew and as long it did, it was harmony. But suddenly the spell broke. A question came and the faith flew out, waking us to a tormenting slumber. Since then, I have been finding myself waking to all that they talk of `believing’. Like I keep waking to a scene in the film Abhimaan. Wherein a religious ritual gets questioned. “How can you believe in all this?” The answer is a quiet “When you believe, you don’t question”.

As I get to see more and more hearts squashed beneath pain, see people trying to `save’ relationships, see people killing themselves and even others, writhing in hurt, scared, rejected, dejected, clinging to all that and all those ready to pull away, fearing …anything from darkness to death, all that brings distress, hopelessness, doubt… something tells me there is a void. And I feel more and more, the need to believe. Believe that it isn’t within our control. And probably this could be the beginning of the end of pain. Not because it would go. But because we would learn to `accept’. For, probably it is the need to `control’ in some form or the other that bares us to hurt.

Yes there’s nothing new in the idea. It has been said every now and then. Many times. The `new’ is in its reassertion to me, like so many others. The reassertion that gets stronger with someone else realising it too, or the masters, but most of all, our experiences that take us closer to the need. To accept. So we become fatalists, they say. The word has been derided at. But then I haven’t exactly seen all that logic, all that reason ever put my heart to rest. Looks like it is not in the learning that lies the problem. The problem probably begins when that learning doesn’t converge into `one’. Talking to a friend the other day, I happened to mention a `need to be someone’ or actually to be known to people I thought would understand me, that I was like `them’. My friend laid out clear for me this need to be `one’ with them. And suddenly it became simple. I could look back at moments when it was the feeling of being one with things, people, the `being’ around, that left me feeling calmed. It had probably veryless to do with the feeling being there. It probably had all to do with the willingness to believe — that it’s all there and we all are one…

We have seen faith do what science hasn’t been able to. I have seen terminally ill patients suddenly grow out of fear. Some with the faith that all’s going to be fine, others with the belief that they are actually going to recover. But most at peace have been those who have `accepted’ that’s beyond their control. I have seen death come to such people almost as a celebration, just a shift. For they finally accept.

Acceptance is beginning to look like a big word. For then, it’s not the hope for a tomorrow, but the acceptance of `today’ that matters. And life boils down to today, now. And to what the heart believes.

When I believe fully, I probably won’t even think about it, or write or talk. I’ll only believe. But till then, it’s getting towards it. Losing the stubbornness to reason to the willingness to believe.

I find myself waking to what Osho said …“Move from the head to the heart. The head argues but never reaches a conclusion. The heart argues never and knows the conclusion”.

I find myself wanting to believe this. Could this be the beginning!

The writer is working as a sub-editor with The Indian Express.