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Ashraya
As
a child when you snuggled into your mother's lap, even the fever
seemed a blessing -- an enjoyable experience where love and care was
lavished on you. As you grew older, you tended to go to one single
physician and, in fact, after the visit and even before you began
your medication, you started feeling better. Much older when the
dentures chattered with cold, the touch of your children, their love
and care sent the blood gushing through your body, quickening the
metabolic rate.
Do
all these have something in common between them? Perhaps they do.
They just tell you that there is no doctor better than Dr.Faith. What
faith can do, nothing else can.
Remember
the lines of Tennyson where he said more is wrought by prayer than
the world dreams of. We all live because we have faith: either in an
ideal, a deity or even ourselves. In daily life, we manifest our
faith in many ways. We trust our driver to navigate wisely through
the traffic. We trust the cook in the posh hotel to use clean and
safe cooking ingredients. We even trust the sun and the moon to rise
every morning and take our lives and aspirations ahead. Indeed like
William Blake wrote:
If
the sun and moon should doubt
They'd
immediately go out.
But
then they do not go out because they have faith. And they in turn
inspire us to have faith. Faith is multidimensional. It gives hope
and so is even equated to a divine touch. The Sanskrit word sraddha
means all of these things at the same time. According to Apte's
dictionary it means Trust, faith, belief, confidence, divine
revelation, religious faith, sedateness, composure of mind, intimacy,
familiarity, respect and reverence.
A
young lady, beautiful and full of energy and life was charmed by
Upagupta, the disciple of the Buddha. With great difficulty Upagupta
extricated himself but not before promising that he will come again
another time to fulfill the wishes of the amorous lady. Time went
past and our heroine went through a lot of pleasures and pains that
her body could bring to her. There came a time when wishing to hide
even from herself she sat in desolation feeling quite ugly and
despicable. Then she felt a touch -- the touch of Upagupta. He smiled
at her. "When I was beautiful I called you, you did not come.
Now when I am so despicable, why do you come?" Upagupta replied
that he saw her inner self -- that he saw more than the vain body.
Upagupta reposed faith in her and revived her faith in herself and
soon she joined the fold and spent the rest of her life as a
disciple.
Faith
then seems so much larger than the simple idea of religion. Religious
beliefs may be a part of faith, but a person with intense faith may
still not be religious. No wonder then that the word Vishwas means
both hope and faith, just as nambikkai is Tamil too means both hope
and faith.
Says
Acharya Mahapragya that an old man was lying in bed complaining of
many aches and pains. One day he heard that his spiritual guru was
coming to his village. No sooner did he catch sight of his entourage,
he sat up straight and for three days walked up and down in the
service of his guru.
A
small story, more practical, maybe less philosophical or even ethical
adds a touch of humour to the need for intense faith.
It
is said that one Dr.Cabarus was summoned by a fashionable lady soon
after she had lunched. She believed she had swallowed a live frog and
that it was giving her hell inside. Dr.Cabarus bought a frog and
after administering enema, slipped the frog into the basin. But the
lady believed the frog had left its young ones behind. Dr.Cabarus
assured her that it was impossible for the frog was a male one.
Dr.Cabarus's roaring practice that followed, is one part of the
story. The other is the relief in pain wrought by faith -- albeit a
wee bit manipulated by the doctor!
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