Sadhguru, Isha Foundation
Faith is not something that you can cultivate. If it happens to you, it happens, if it does not happen to you it does not happen, that’s all.
Does it mean to say ‘I have to just sit and wait and someday it will fall upon me?’
Understanding fundamentals
No, it is just that if you understand the fundamentals of living here in this existence, you will see, for anything to happen, you must create the right kind of situation.
You want to grow cotton, you must understand what are the right conditions for growing cotton. If you go sit near a cotton plant and pray to God, cotton will not bloom!
If you just learn what are the right conditions for the cotton plant to grow, how the soil, the manure, the atmosphere and the water should be, and create them, cotton will grow.
This is the basis of everything that is happening in the Existence.
If you create the right kind of conditions, it will happen. If you do not create the right kind of conditions, it does not matter how much you struggle, it is not going to happen.
Appropriate conditions
So, if faith has to happen, for that also you must create the right kind of condition.
What is the condition necessary for faith?
Jesus said, ‘Come follow me.’
If you really look at it, that is his teaching; all the other things do not matter.
The fundamental of his teaching is: ‘Come, follow me.’ That’s all.
When he said this, the great scholars, the intellectuals, the educated and the powerful of that time did not follow him.
It is only the fishermen and the farmers who followed him because the thinking minds cannot follow anybody. It is not possible. Only the simple and innocent could follow him.
Others ignored him. Those who could not ignore him crucified him.
Education broadens vision
Faith is only for the innocent. The moment modern education enters you, you have a thinking mind, a questioning mind, a doubting mind. With this, you cannot follow the path of faith.
So, don’t start with something that you don’t have.
Start with something that you have right now. Whatever is dominant in you, if you are a thinking person, let’s use that; if you are a very physical person, let’s use that; if you have a very strong sense of energy or if you have lots of emotions in you, let’s use those.
But all the four need to be cultivated and used. If you come to a certain level of experience, then devotion becomes a natural part of you. If you try to be devout, you will become deceptive; this sort of devotion is just deception.
Inner feeling
Faith is something which is within you. It is your quality. It is something that you become, not something that you believe in. Faith is just a deep falling back into the Existence.
You as a person have fallen apart, you have just become like a simple little wave with the Existence. You understand and you experience that you are just a brief happening here.
This moment the wave is up, the next moment it will be down.
It is not an intellectual understanding, it is a living experience that you just see yourself as a small outcrop of this earth.
When you are like this as a living experience, then you are faith. Until then there is no point talking about faith.
The faithfulness that people talk about is simply loyalty.
That is for slaves and idiots. People who talk loyalty are always people whose vested interest is how to hold you. It is a device to hold you.
Liberating factor
Faith is not a device to hold you, faith is about liberating you. Faith is not about being for this group or that group. Faith is just to become a part of this Existence. That is not something that you do, that is something that you become.
Isha Foundation New Zealand conducts Isha Inner Engineering and Hatha yoga Programmes. It also offers free Isha Kriya and Isha Upa yoga practices for the General public regularly. For more information, please call 022-4637811. Website: www.ishayoga.nz
Ranked amongst the fifty most influential people in India, Sadhguru is a Yogi, Mystic, Visionary and Bestselling Author. The Indian Government conferred on him, ‘Padma Vibhushan’ the second highest Civilian Award for exceptional and distinguished service.
