What is Faith                                                          - Sri Aurobindo       Home

Faith in the spiritual sense is not a mental belief which can waver and change. It can wear that form in the mind, but that belief is not the faith itself, it is only the external form. Just as the body, the external form, can change but the spirit remains the same, so it is here. Faith is a certitude in the soul which does not depend on reasoning, on this or that mental idea, on circumstances, on this or that passing condition of the mind or the vital or the body. It may be hidden, eclipsed, may even seem to be quenched, but it appears again after the storm or the eclipse; it is seen burning still in the soul when one has thought that it was extinguished for ever. The mind may be a shifting sea of doubts and yet that faith may be there within and, if so, it will keep even the doubt-racked mind in the way so that it goes on in spite of itself towards its destined goal. Faith is a spiritual certitude of the spiritual, the divine, the soul's ideal, something that clings to that even when it is not fulfilled in life, even when the immediate facts or the persistent circumstances seem to deny it.

The way to get faith                                               - Sri Aurobindo          Home

The way to get faith and all things else is to insist on having them and refuse to flag or despair or give up until one has them—it is the way by which everything has been got since this difficult earth began to have thinking and aspiring creatures upon it. It is to open always, always to the Light and turn one's back on the Darkness. It is to refuse the voices that say persistently, "You cannot, you shall not, you are incapable, you are the puppet of a dream,"—for these are the enemy voices, they cut one off from the result that was coming, by their strident clamour and then triumphantly point to the barrenness of the result as a proof of their thesis. The difficulty of the endeavour is a known thing, but the difficult is not the impossible—it is the difficult that has always been accomplished and the conquest of difficulties makes up all that is valuable in the earth's history. In the spiritual endeavour also it shall be so.
 

Guard your faith                                                - The Mother       Home

When faith has been granted, when one has this sudden inner Illumination, to maintain it constantly in the active consciousness individual effort is absolutely indispensable. One must hold to one’s faith, ask for one’s faith, seek it, cultivate it, protect it. The human mind has the morbid and deplorable habit of doubt, discussion and scepticism. It is there that human effort has to be exercised : one must refuse to admit them, refuse to listen to them, and more than that refuse to follow them. No game is more dangerous than to play mentally with doubt and scepticism. They are not merely enemies, they are frightful snares and once you fall into them you have a formidable difficulty in coming out of them. Some people think that it is a great mental elegance to play with ideas, discuss them, contradict one’s faith, that it gives you a very superior attitude and that you are thus above all superstition and ignorance; but it is in listening to the suggestions of doubt and scepticism that one falls into the grossest ignorance and turns away from the straight path. You enter into confusion and error, into the meanderings of contradictions and you are not always sure of being able to come out. You stray so far away from the inner truth that you lose sight of it and at times you also lose all contact with your soul.
Certainly, there must be a personal effort to preserve one’s faith, to let it grow in oneself. Later on, much later, you can one day look behind and see that whatever has happened, even what appeared to be the worst was a divine Grace to make us progress on the path, and then you perceive that the personal effort also was a Grace; but before you reach there you need to walk much, struggle much, at time even to suffer much. To sit down in an inert passivity and say : “If I must have faith, I shall have it, the Divine will give it to me”, is an attitude of laziness, of unconsciousness, almost of bad will. For the inner flame to burn, one must feed it, one must watch over the fire, cast into it the fuel of all errors that one seeks to throw off, all that delays the advance, all that obscures the path. If you do not feed the fire, it smoulders under the ashes of your unconsciousness and your inertia; and then it is not years but centuries, and fives will pass before you arrive at your goal. You must watch over your faith, as one watches over the cradle of an infinitely precious life, and you must protect it with great care from everything that might alter it. In the ignorance and obscurity at the beginning, faith is the most direct expression of the divine Power that comes to battle and conquer.

Great strength in faith                                             - Sri Aurobindo       Home

Do not allow any outward cir­cumstance to shake the faith in you; for nothing gives greater strength than this faith to go through and arrive at the goal. Knowledge and tapasya, whatever their force, have a less sustaining power — faith is the strongest staff for the journey.
Many who would be considered as mere nothings by the wise and strong have attained by Grace. Illiterate, without mental power or training, without strength of character and will, they have yet aspired and suddenly or rapidly grown into spiritual realisation, because they had faith or because they were sincere. I do not see why these facts which are facts of spiritual history and of quite ordinary spiritual experience should be discussed and denied and argued as if they were mere matters of speculation.  

Faith in the Grace                                                     - The Mother   Home

The Grace is always there ready to act but you must let it work and not resist its action. The one condition required is faith. When you feel attacked, call for help to Sri Aurobindo and myself. If your call is sincere (that is to say, if you sincerely want to be cured) your call will be answered and the Grace will cure you. Yes, faith in the Grace always brings about its intervention.
All circumstances of life are arranged to teach us that, beyond mind, faith in the Divine Grace gives us the strength to go through all trials, to overcome all weaknesses and find the contact with the Divine Consciousness which gives us not only peace and joy but also physical balance and good health.
The lack of faith of the human mind brings complications and pain where the quiet faith in the Divine Guidance all could be very simple and easy.
 

The Divine Guidance behind                              - Sri Aurobindo       Home