Faith

FAITH

by Michael Dolan/B.V. Mahayogi

“You gotta have faith.” George Michael.

“You need a busload of faith to get by” Lou Reed.

Attempts have been made by various faith-based organizations to merge science and theism or to prove theistic concepts using science. Unfortunately, proving theism through science is a contradiction in terms. Science is ideologically neutral; research cannot prove metaphysical concepts. The best that can be done is to question the positivist paradigm and point out that not everything is subject to analysis. Objective methods will not penetrate subjective reality. The infinite Subject will not be subject to study by the finite. He is By Himself and For Himself.

Different currents in theism have come and gone. Saint Thomas Aquinas believed that it was possible to establish “proofs” for the existence of God. These “proofs” have not withstood the test of time as it has been seen that the infinite cannot be known through finite argument. Argument alone is insufficient to establish divinity since its basis is doubt. Doubt is the foundation of the scientific method. We accept theoretical argument only when it is tempered by clinical experiment. God and the soul are not subject to clinical experiment. And so, even while Thomas Aquinas and his “proofs” are still popular in some circles, faith must come to terms with the inadequacy of reason. Science and reason can neither prove nor disprove the existence of the soul and God. But while clinical “proof” in the rational sense may appear to be absent, scientific reason alone is not, nor should it be, the only avenue for discovering reality. In fact, there are other means of “seeing” truth, developed consciousness being the foremost.

I have been critical of reason as the only means of understanding the reality in which we live. The problem is that reason always expresses doubt about transcendence and consciousness. Philosophers and scientists reduce consciousness either to a complete dualism of mind versus matter within a greater heirarchy of physical reality, or they enfold the idea of consciousness into a complete monism where the only reality is materialistic. In neither case can reason take on the subject of consciousness as a separate reality.

To separate itself from consciousness for the purpose of studying it objectively, reason or higher thinking requires a metacognitive leap into a unique state of ecstasy. Reason is incapable of this. Ecstasy and reason are incompatible. Ecstasy is beyond metacognition. Where metacognition allows us to step back a bit and examine how we think, ecstasy demands that we completely stand outside ourselves, shedding our pretensions to mere understanding. Ecstasy leaves behind Kant’s prohibitions against metaphysics and the dogmas of science. But this is impossible in the world of reason.

And so, reason expresses a world view which is either too pessimistic to admit the reality of spiritual experience or too optimistic about a future progress to take in the reality of life and death.

There must be a balance between reason and ecstasy; this harmony may be called religion. Religion means “proper adjustment,”or the ability to strike a balance between right living in the world of birth and death and optimism about our absolute concern and complete self-interest.

Atheists and materialists believe that spiritual optimism is misplaced, the optimism found in a properly adjusted religious framework is based upon faith, which is a higher way of seeing reality than mere reason. Without such spiritual optimism, life would be only despair. As Kierkegaard put it, “If there were no eternal consciousness in man, if at the bottom of everything there were only a wild ferment, a power that twisting in dark passions produced everything great or inconsequential; if an unfathomable, insatiable emptiness lay hid beneath everything, what then would life be but despair?”

But the universe is not empty. Consciousness tells us it is not. Consciousness in faith transforms us with the knowledge that the universe is not meaningless. This faith is directed towards the infinite center where meaning is complete and transcends time and space. Faith guides us to the infinite whose circumference cannot be found and whose center is everywhere. Alone in the darkness with despair and doubt, faith supplies us with the affirmation: “Yes! It is! You are not alone. He exists.”

Saint Teresa in ecstasy

Much of the opprobrium directed towards faith takes place as a reaction to the excesses of institutionalized religion and its taboos, especially in Christianity and Catholicism. What we know as modern culture has acquired its most significant characteristics in its conscious and unconscious reaction to medieval culture. Its scientific discoveries made it impatient with the mythical errors of medieval religion. But it failed to realize that mythical descriptions of reality, though always inexact in describing detailed and historical fact, have the virtue of giving men a sense of depth in life.

Pure science is always secular and horizontal in its references, and cannot express the vertical tendencies in culture which refer to the ultimate source of meaning in life. Modern culture substituted for the dualism and pessimism of medieval culture a simple naturalistic monism and optimism. It claims that the physical world is all that exists, and if there is any duality between mind and body further research will resolve that duality into the “oneness” of physical nature.

Positivism sees history in dynamic terms; the Hegelian dynamic of thesis, antithesis and synthesis when applied to the human struggle seems to show constant change and “progress.” The futurists of the 20th century believed that man was on the verge of a breakthrough which would guide him to the next stage in evolution. Unfortunately the 21st century has revealed the hollowness of these promises. We no longer believe in the unlimited optimism of the atomic age. Dystopian novels outsell optimistic science fiction. And yet the religion of modern culture continues to supply us with its rationale. Modern culture has its mythology: “science and progress will make you free.” But at core, the culture of physicalism is hollow.

The religion of modern culture then, has no meaning. As theologian Reinhold Niebuhr put it:

The religion of modern culture is in other words, a superficial religion which has discovered a meaningful world without having discovered the perils to meaning in death, sin and catastrophe. History has an immediate, an obvious, meaning because it spells progress. Progress is guaranteed by increasing intelligence because human sin is attributed to ignorance which will be removed by a proper pedagogy. (Reinhold Niebuhr, from his sermon “Optimism, Pessimism and Religious Faith”)

I have described Faith as a “way of knowing.” What exactly do I mean by this? We have many tools available to us for understanding our world. Reason is one of them. Sense perception is another. Materialists insist that rational logic is the only tool by which we may understand our world. But this is artificial.

No one would seriously insist, for example, that x-rays are the only way for interpreting the world. I might decide that as a scientist, I will only accept the evidence of x-rays since they allow me to see things as they really are. In such a case I would refuse to eat an apple that had not been x-rayed.

An X-rayed apple may reveal a worm. But a diet of radiated apples is unhealthy. By insisting on only one way of seeing our vision is extremely limited. Science excludes consciousness, saying that subjective phenomenon cannot be measured and therefore should not be included in our picture of reality. But our world is living organic whole, not a dead combination of elements. By excluding consciousness, we become unconscious.

Faith is a different way of seeing, a different way of knowing. Through faith we may understand consciousness. Faith allows us to see our finite consciousness and to commune with the ultimate consciousness.

The very idea of faith is much maligned. It might be helpful, before going further, to consider what faith is not. Popular thinkers have distorted the meaning of faith, alienating religion from science. In fact, much philosophical and even theological thought misses the essential meaning of faith. Faith is a way of seeing that brings us in alignment with our true self-interest. Our true self interest has nothing to do with our conditional lives. Success, family, work, society, nation are all aspects of conditioned temporary life. Faith has nothing to do with these aspects of our temporary life. Selfish interest works in the service of ego. Faith is not a function of ego. Rather it serves to dissolve false ego and bring us in harmony with the real self, or atma.

Faith demands total surrender and promises complete fulfillment through communion with divinity in divine love. It involves sacrifice of self and realization of our ultimate self-interest. Aesthetic, social, sexual, political and national interests are not eternal. Our self-interest is what is in the interest of the eternal soul or atma. Faith is the ability to see that interest and to act in that self-interest. Because it is based on transcendental experience and communion with divinity it is a firm conviction.

Faith is not the same as belief. Atheists and materialists try to define faith as a belief not based on evidence. Such belief without evidence may be based on authority, such as the authority of scriptures. But such belief is not the same as faith. Faith is more than mere trust in a heirarchy or in a holy book. True faith is founded on one’s personal communioin with divinity. “Faith” is not theoretical knowledge and is not founded on arguments or scientific evidence, but in one’s personal innate experience of divine reality. Faith is not a kind of belief based on scant evidence and scriptural authority. It is the fact of finite consciousness confronting the infinite.

Faith teaches us that our existence is not meaningless. The search for meaning is an innate characteristic of human consciousness. The search itself is an expression of faith, reaching out for confirmation. Faith is distinct from belief. The foundation of faith is in inspiration given from above. Faith may come from a number of sources, but is especially powerful when developed in contact with saints. Faith is an unshakable conviction. Where belief is certainty coaxed into action through evidence, beliefs shift.

Faith is ecstatic. The word “ecstasy” from Greek ekstasis means ‘standing outside oneself.’ The ability to disconnect from the world of sense, mind, and perception; the capacity to see beyond oneself is a facet of ecstasy. Faith may involve a cognitive affirmation of deeply understood communion, but may not need a rational explanation. Faith is apart from belief. One may will one’s self to “believe” but faith cannot be faked.

Acceptance and surrender are aspects of faith when faith is expressed through action--but faith cannot be conjured through mere obedience to doctrine, dogma, and belief.

Faith is not emotion. Faith may be able to express itself through cognition and offer a rational argument to justify the ways of God to man as Milton put it, but faith also has reasons that reason may not know. It is an expression of the inner self. When we set aside reason as a path to knowning the self we encounter faith as a kind of “third eye,” the visionary element that allows us to see within and beyond.

True faith descends. It is revealed from up to down. There is no technique by which one may come by faith. As we seek the infinite, so does the infinite seek us. But the finite cannot know the infinite. Faith can be found only through revelation. Only when the infinite reveals itself to the finite can we know what is divinity. And that revelation brings faith.

Faith is the essence of human life. Thomas Merton reminds us: “Men without deep faith live as it were with no center and no heart, and consequently one can only expect violence, injustice, confusion and chaos. But we can continue to hope in the mercy of the Lord, that He may give light and peace to men and help them make the necessary efforts to recover peace and wisdom. Faith only is the answer, and we must grow always in the purity of faith, otherwise all will be ever greater confusion.”

Faith has the power to transform. One’s greatness may be measured by the greatness of one’s faith and the power of one’s ideal. Love is a great ideal. To love one’s self is valuable. To love one’s country is a higher ideal. To love others as one’s self is a greater ideal. But to love God with all one’s heart and soul is the highest ideal, for it includes the others. One becomes in proportion to one’s faith. Those of limited faith believe in the possible; great souls risk everything to achieve the impossible. From a practical angle of vision the Quixote of Cervantes is a fool. And yet Dostoyevsky considered him the greatest character in literature, since he gave everything for an impossible dream. Those who expect the impossible have the greatest faith. One is great according to the magnitude of his most impossible dream. We shall be remembered as great in proportion to the magnitude of what we strove for. One becomes great by conquering the world; one becomes greater by conquering himself; but one who surrenders himself in complete dedication is the greatest. One who conquers the world is great; one who conquers God through submission and surrender, through humility and powerlessness is the greatest.

Normally, we think of Jesus Christ and his sacrifice as the greatest act of submission in history. And yet, in Judaeo-Christian mythology, there was another who was not only great in wisdom and strength but in hope and faith. This was Abraham.

Abraham sacrificing Isaac

Before Christ, before the desert prophets of the ancient Bible was Abraham. The Old Testament records him as the father of the Hebrews and founder of Judaism. Islam knows him as the ancestor of the Arabs. Abraham was a man of great faith who left the land of his fathers to become a stranger in a strange land. He left behind his worldly understanding and carried with him only his faith. He was God’s chosen. And yet he suffered for his faith. He was blessed by God that all the nations of the earth would blessed in his seed, but while he was old, he and Sarah his chaste wife had no child. His faith was tested.

Abraham had faith that the Lord would bless him with a son. His wife Sarah, while no longer young, still had hope to become a mother. But Abraham was old and grey. Finally their prayers were answered and Sarah was able to have a child, a boy: Isaac. His faith was fulfilled. His child would be his heir. And yet God would test his faith again.

God tempted Abraham and said unto him, “take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him therse for a burnt offereing upon one of the mountains, which I will tell thee of.” (Genesis 22) How could God take from Abraham his only begotten son?

It may be remembered that Abraham did see God. There was no divine revelation in the form of a burning bush. But he heard him through divine sound. The old man was shocked. He had waited seventy years for the innocent child Isaac. And yet he had been chosen and was being tested. Was the promise that his seed would populate Israel an empty one?

Abraham’s faith was tested by God Himself, who demanded he sacrifice his son, Isaac. Abraham had an intense experience of divinity, called faith. While his personal self interest was challenged, his true self-interest lay in faith.

Awareness of divinity brings us in connection with our true self-interest which may be found through sacrifice and surrender in faith. Experience of the divine is called adhokshaka a personal relationship with divinity in transcendence, beyond sensory perception, beyond reason, beyond a mere taste of the unmanifest, undifferentiated spiritual reality. This ecstatic experience of God, a communion between the finite and the infinite grounded in surrender, is called bhakti. Was Abraham’s self-surrender bhakti?

We are told to avoid coveting the fruits of our labor, but to offer them to God. After a lifetime, Abraham finally had a son, the fruit of his life and his prayers. Was this fruit now to be plucked from him?

But Abraham had faith and did not doubt. If God’s order was absurd, Abraham believed the absurd. He did not beg for himself or ask God to change his order.

And so it came to pass that early in the morning, Abraham rose, and taking his servants with him, saddled the mules and left his tent. He took his innocent son, Isaac and rode out to the mountain of Moriah. He said nothing to his wife Sarah who watched them from the window. He gave no explanation to his son as they rode through the valley. In three days, they rode in silence as they approached the mountain.

Leaving the servants with the mules behind, Abraham climbed the mountain with Isaac. He found a suitable place for an altar on the mountaintop. Isaac could see what was happening, but did not understand. He fell at the feet of his father and begged for his life. He promised to be good. Abraham lifted the boy up and spoke sweet words to comfort him. The boy did not understand. Abraham chopped wood and arranged a sacrificial fire. He set the kindling ablaze. He bound Isaac.

When Isaac looked into his eyes he was terrified. Abraham’s gaze was fixed. His knife was sharp. He raised the knife above the child’s head. The boy trembled with fear.

Now while Abraham was old and had waited his entire life to get a son, Isaac was even more special. He was to be the father of many of the tribes of Israel as well as the Arabs who would trace their heritage to his lineage. But if it was God’s will that he be taken, Abraham was ready for the sacrifice. His heart was paralyzed with horror, but his hand was steady. His faith was strong. He did not doubt. He reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. But the angel of the Lord called out to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!”

“Here I am,” he replied.

“Do not lay a hand on the boy,” he said. “Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.”

Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He understood the Lord’s purpose. Freeing his son, Isaac, he took the ram and sacrificed the animal as a burnt offering on the altar, giving thanks to God for sparing his only child. And Abraham called that place The Lord Will Provide. And to this day it is said, “On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided.”

The angel of the Lord called to Abraham from heaven a second time  and said, “I swear by myself, declares the Lord, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son,  I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies,and through your progeny all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me.” At that time, Abraham returned down the mountain to where his servants waited. They saddled up the mules, and set off together for Beersheba.And Abraham stayed in Beersheba.

Of course, the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice Isaac is prophetic in that it mirrors the idea that God gives his only begotten son in sacrifice. A deeper reading of the story of Abraham brings us closer to an understanding of the Christ story.

The Resurrection: Die to Live.

We may view the sacrifice of Abraham according to the principles of surrender advocated by Śrīla Rūpa Goswāmi. One of the highest principles is to expect the Lord’s protection, and further to be willing to put oneself at risk, knowing that the Lord will protect us. Die to Live.

Rupa Goswami

Abraham’s faith is that “The Lord Will Provide.” or as Rūpa Goswāmi puts it

anukūlyasya saṅkalpaḥ prātikūlyasya varjanam

rakṣiṣyatīti viśvāso goptṛtve varaṇaṁ tathā

ātma-nikṣepa-kārpaṇye ṣaḍ-vidhā śaraṇāgatiḥ

अनुकूल्यस्य सङ्कल्पः प्रातिकूल्यस्य वर्जनम् रक्षिष्यतीति विश्वासो गोप्तृत्वे वरणं तथा आत्मनिक्षेप कार्पण्ये षड्-विधा शरणागतिः “‘The six divisions of surrender are the acceptance of those things favorable to devotional service, the rejection of unfavorable things, the conviction that the Lord will provide and protect, putting oneself at risk while accepting the Lord as one’s guardian or master, full self-surrender, and humility.

Abraham risked his family, his reputation, his legacy and his beloved child for his faith. In the end, Abraham’s story is one of sacrifice based on faith. At last, he is spared the ordeal of sacrifice. His sincerity is enough.

A similar sacrifice to that of Abraham is found in the story of Parashuram. The legend is recorded in the ancient Mahabharata some thousand years before the biblical histories of Abraham.

Long ago in India, the valley of the now extinct Saraswati river was populated with humble brahmins who practiced charity, austerity, mercy, and purity as their religious principles. Devoted to a monotheistic faith, they worshipped Vishnu as the supreme Lord, holiest of holies.

Among them was Jamadagni, a great sage who maintained an ashram for the cultivation of Vedic wisdom. Jamadani lived with his wife Renuka and his sons among whom Parashuram was the youngest. They were poor and humble. Parashuram was especially devoted to his father. One day, his mother Renuka went to gather water at the sacred river. While there, she saw a handsome young prince who had courted her before she had married Jamadagni. As the prince smiled at her in passing, she indulged in adulterous thoughts. Jamadagni could read her mind. When she returned, he was enraged. He ordered young Parashuram to behead her with an axe.

Parashuram found himself in much the same position as did Abraham. He was ordered by divine authority, in this case his father, to sacrifice the one he loved, his own mother. His faith in his father was such that he complied. Raising his axe, he beheaded his mother. His father was impressed with his obedience and offered him a boon. He immediately asked that Jamadagni use his mystic powers to restore his mother’s life.

Jamadagni revived Renuka with his mystic powers, restoring her life. She had no memory of anything after she had gone to collect the water.

What are we to make of this gruesome tale? Often we find that Christians are revolted by the mythology of the Hindus, even while discovering esoteric meanings in their own mythology. The story of Abraham is certainly as gruesome as the story of Parashuram. And yet it reveals deep metaphors about faith and sacrifice. The same metaphors apply in the story of Parashuram. They are extended to include the miracle of resurrection. Renuka’s sin is only mental; her death and resurrection is a metaphor for the rejection of mental sin and the discovery of new life through faith. This is the meaning of resurrection or “die to live.”

The ideas found in the stories of Abraham and Parashuram are not meant to promote fanaticism, but to enable us further reflection on faith and sacrifice. The true purport of sacrifice in faith is neither martyrdom nor fanaticism, but enlightened action, realized through surrender.