“Faith is what you feel is right”. I always used to think of faith in this manner and nowadays hear more people tell that.
Since childhood my mother used to tell me so many things in terms of imposing faith like ‘pray only after taking bath’, ‘go to temple on your birthday’, ‘light the lamp twice a day’ etc etc. Each time she used to tell me something like this I used to ask my trademark question ‘Why?’ for which her standard reply was that she never used to ask Why to her elders and hence she just assumed that it’s the right way to do things without knowing whether it has got a logic behind it or not. Over the years lot of things which my mother said I found out some had scientific bearings to it and started following and some had a story behind it so did.
Yesterday my uncle mentioned an interesting story about a Shiva temple in one village where the priest who used to do the daily pooja has been doing it since years. Once he fell ill for a long period and hence hired another person to do the pooja. The new person on his first day at the temple came in early in the morning and started searching for the wick for the lamp and found it kept in a box at a height above the shivling. He was wondering how to reach it as he was not that tall and checked with the lady who comes to tie garland at the temple as to how the old priest used to do it. She mentioned that the priest used to stand on the shivling and take the wick from there. The young man’s perplexity increased as he could not imagine doing something like that. He thought that it would be a big sin to do something like that. Finally he thought if the old priest used to do it for yours he should also not refrain and as he was still skeptical placed a leaf on the shivling and placed his feet on it. As soon as he mounted on it his feet it burnt. This is just to say that if you in your heart feel something is right and do it then that is ‘Faith’ if not it might just not be the right thing.
Faith I think is something that comes from within, of course loaded with personal experience. To deal with something you can place a finger on is much easier than because someone forces you to.
Since childhood my mother used to tell me so many things in terms of imposing faith like ‘pray only after taking bath’, ‘go to temple on your birthday’, ‘light the lamp twice a day’ etc etc. Each time she used to tell me something like this I used to ask my trademark question ‘Why?’ for which her standard reply was that she never used to ask Why to her elders and hence she just assumed that it’s the right way to do things without knowing whether it has got a logic behind it or not. Over the years lot of things which my mother said I found out some had scientific bearings to it and started following and some had a story behind it so did.
Yesterday my uncle mentioned an interesting story about a Shiva temple in one village where the priest who used to do the daily pooja has been doing it since years. Once he fell ill for a long period and hence hired another person to do the pooja. The new person on his first day at the temple came in early in the morning and started searching for the wick for the lamp and found it kept in a box at a height above the shivling. He was wondering how to reach it as he was not that tall and checked with the lady who comes to tie garland at the temple as to how the old priest used to do it. She mentioned that the priest used to stand on the shivling and take the wick from there. The young man’s perplexity increased as he could not imagine doing something like that. He thought that it would be a big sin to do something like that. Finally he thought if the old priest used to do it for yours he should also not refrain and as he was still skeptical placed a leaf on the shivling and placed his feet on it. As soon as he mounted on it his feet it burnt. This is just to say that if you in your heart feel something is right and do it then that is ‘Faith’ if not it might just not be the right thing.
Faith I think is something that comes from within, of course loaded with personal experience. To deal with something you can place a finger on is much easier than because someone forces you to.
