Friends,
Here is a small compendium on 'Faith' as found in The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna:
1."As is a man's meditation, so is his feeling of love;
As is a man's feeling of love, so is his gain;
And faith is the root of all.
If in the Nectar Lake of Mother Kali's feet
My mind remains immersed,
Of little use are worship, oblations, or sacrifice".
2.Redeeming power of faith
"One should have such burning faith in God that one can say: 'What? I have repeated the
name of God, and can sin still cling to me? How can I be a sinner any more? How can I be
in bondage any more?'
"If a man repeats the name of God, his body, mind, and everything become pure. Why
should one talk only about sin and hell, and such things? Say but once, 'O Lord, I have
undoubtedly done wicked things, but I won't repeat them.' And have faith in His name."
3."The jnanis follow the path of discrimination. Sometimes it happens that, discriminating
between the Real and the unreal, a man loses his faith in the existence of God. But a
devotee who sincerely yearns for God does not give up his meditation even though he is
invaded by atheistic ideas. A man whose father and. grandfather have been farmers
continues his farming even though he doesn't get any crop in a year of drought."
4.The Master continued: "Faith! Faith! Faith! Once a guru said to his pupil, 'Rama alone has
become everything.' When a dog began to eat the pupil's bread, he said to it: 'O Rama, wait
a little. I shall butter Your bread.' Such was his faith in the words of his guru.
5.MASTER (to Ishan): "Please tell us the story of the boy who posted the letter."
ISHAN (with a smile): "A boy once heard that God is our Creator. So he wrote a letter to
God, setting forth his prayers, and posted it. The address he put on the envelope was
'Heaven'."
MASTER (with a smile): "Did you hear that story? One succeeds in spiritual life when one
develops a faith like that boy's."
6.MASTER: "It is Satchidananda that comes to us in the form of the guru. If a man is
initiated by a human guru, he will not achieve anything if he regards his guru as a mere
man. The guru should be regarded as the direct manifestation of God. Only then can the
disciple have faith in the mantra given by the guru. Once a man has faith he, achieves all.
The sudra Ekalavya learnt archery in the forest before a clay image of Drona; He
worshipped the image as the living Drona; that by itself enabled him to attain mastery in
archery."
7.MASTER: "God can be realized by true faith alone. And the realization is hastened if you
believe everything about God. The cow that picks and chooses its food gives milk only in
dribblets, but if she eats all kinds of plants, then her milk flows in torrents".
8."It is written in the books of the Vaishnavas: 'God can be attained through faith alone;
reasoning pushes Him far away.' Faith alone!
9.He went on: "Mother, one needs faith. Away with this wretched reasoning! Let it be
blighted! One needs faith-faith in the words of the guru, childlike faith. The mother says to
her child, 'A ghost lives there'; and the child is firmly convinced that the ghost is there.
Again, the mother says to the child, 'A holy man is there', and the child is sure of it. Further,
the mother says, pointing to a man, 'He is your elder brother', and the child believes that the
man is one hundred and twenty-five per cent his brother. One needs faith. But why should I
blame them, Mother? What can they do? It is necessary to go through reasoning once.
Didn't You see how much I told him about it the other day? But it all proved useless."
10."How can a devotee attain such love? First, the company of holy men. That awakens
śraddhā, faith in God. Then comes nishtha, single-minded devotion to the Ideal. In that
stage the devotee does not like to hear anything but talk about God. He performs only those
acts that please God. After nishtha comes bhakti, devotion to God; then comes bhava. Next
mahabhava, then prema, and last of all the attainment of God Himself.
Namaskar.
