Faith. I have been fascinated by this for as long as I can remember. It seems, everything about life is governed by this little five letter word. Every religion, every spiritual text, every Master, seems to be saying – if you have faith, everything happens. If you don’t, nothing happens. You can move mountains and defy gravity; you can live a life of infinite abundance and attract things with a mere desire with Faith – and without this entity, nothing is possible.
Faith.
I grew up in a home where God was confined to a little temple, and stories that my grandmother told. My parents never really spoke of it, and in all my years of education, this word was never used once by any teacher. And yet, it was supposed to be so important. A seeker from a very young age – one who preferred sitting upon her terrace, watching the skies and seas, I wondered who would teach me about this subject.
Ask, and you shall receive.
Faith.
I attracted a Guru into my life. And not just any Guru – one who was immaculately perfect for my wondering mind, and pining heart. He spoke using Science. He spoke using Spirituality. He quoted from the Geeta, and the Quran, from the Bible and the Guru Granth – and captivated my very being.
For the first time Faith stopped being a mere word but a deep subject for me. I would love to listen to my beloved Guru about how with faith in his heart, Hanuman crossed every river. Of the role faith played in transforming Mahatma Gandhi and Mother Teresa. And the innumerous examples from seekers around us. My little heart expanded in wonder.
All of twenty three – I wanted to taste faith in my own life. Know what it meant to have this little word create its magic in my life and of course, life had to give me a chance. The person who mattered the most in my life, my mother, was diagnosed with a life-threatening disease and doctors gave up hope. I will never forget that night when we were told, it was best we took her home and yet, something deep within me kept whispering – “No, no, this is not the destiny that awaits your mother… have faith… wait!”
I will never forget how one sentence from my Guru, “Your mother is a fighter, she will conquer this!” changed my intense fear to ardent faith. I realized faith is this feeling of holding onto something, against all odds. Even when everything in the world outside is against you, something deep within says, “It’s all going to be fine!” As a family, we held this sentence and did what we had to in the world outside.
To cut a long story short, it is now nine years, since my mother has defied Stage 4, Grade 4 Brain cancer and is a medical miracle – as after her surgery and radiation, for all these years she hasn’t gone for a single scan or popped a pill. Faith won. Fear vanquished. And my young heart blossomed with my first experience of death-defying, life-giving faith. It was a wonder! A miracle! And Faith, and faith alone had made it happen.
However, I realized, in day-to-day life it wasn’t that easy for me to sustain faith. Since mom’s case was an extreme, we just had that choiceless faith and it carried us – but with relationships, on the work front, and sometimes with my own health, my faith remained conditional. Little wonder, sometimes my life was a breeze – flowing as light, as fragrant as one passing over a jasmine garden and sometimes, I felt as unanchored as a boat caught in between a storm. I didn’t realize it then, but when I had faith – I was rooted. When I didn’t, I would be lost.
My guru does an eight-day spiritual retreat called HDB – and I find myself, with His grace, there each year. Each year revealed something to me about myself, about life, that I didn’t know before. I found myself becoming more pristine, more beautiful within, with each passing year and this showed in my life too. I began to lead a holistic life – healthy, wealthy, blissful, loving and spiritually aligned. People around me saw me as an inspiration, I even started getting noticed by media, for awards and whatnot! And yet, in all of this, truth be told – faith still remained a conditional phenomenon in my life.
Until now.
Faith.
In one of those sessions, my guru was in a flow I had never experienced before. Everything seemed to have stilled. Two hundred seekers ceased to exist for me. I ceased to exist. All that existed was a blazing Presence, taking me deeper and deeper into Faith. Deeper and deeper.
And suddenly, it happened.
It was no longer a word. Faith. It was an experience.
It was no longer outside of me. Faith. It was mine.
It was no longer something I yearned for. Faith. It was me.
I have no clue how it happened, or what happened, but I know it happened. I know it, like I know my name. Faith happened to me. It took years of seeking, of purifying myself at every level – of choosing right over easy, of being in the Presence of my Guru – and finally, it happened. Yes, Faith happened.
If I have to put words to it, Faith feels like God’s embrace… from within. It feels as if something within you knows, everything is beautiful, everything is perfect, everything is whole. That, all is well. Faith feels like the warmest blanket on the coldest night – a feeling of immense security, as if you are back in your mother’s womb.
Faith is an old, yet new phenomenon for me. Intimate, and yet strange. It’s been but two days since I have experienced it in this intensified form within me. I do not know what is going to happen to my life, or the ways in which Faith will unfold its miracles – but all I know is nothing about my within seems to be the same. Something seems to be blazing within.
Faith.
Thank you for happening to me. And I pray, everyone experiences it, at the earliest, in their lives.
For now, in a state of absolute wonder, I end, where I began.
Faith. I have been fascinated by this for as long as I can remember.
