Faith-N-Self to Faith-in-Self

Dear Readers, I am about to reveal some ‘subconsciously known’ details which help us throughout our lives. This work is derived after collecting information and experiences from life and putting them together to understand our lives and beliefs thereby making it easy and more beautiful to live.

While growing up I observed a lot of patterns emerging from people, from different race and religions. When put together these patterns had lot in common. Common of all was ‘Faith’. In all the civilizations around the globe, no matter how diverse their cultures may be or the life standards may be, all of them had the same thing or as we refer to it as belief known as ‘FAITH’. Different cultures had different names for their Faith, Some call it Jesus, or Allah or God or Krishna and such. No matter what we name it, it was all the same. Now all of us wonder why it is faith and not hope. The difference between them may be Faith shows the sense of assurance in a way such that our wishes and expectations are always going to be fulfilled. Where as the word Hope is we may or may not obtain the result. Such thought again raises the question how can we be so sure about our wishes to be fulfilled. The answer to that lies in one’s self. To answer this question I will make use of a simple example:

Often I’ve heard “An Apple a Day Keeps Doctor Away.” Well who doesn’t want to stay healthy? So I go to market from time to time buy apples and consume one every day. Here I have went to buy those apples myself and picked good ones or have sent someone else to buy them for me where this someone else is the one whom I trust will bring quality fruits for me. After consuming it everyday I have faith that I will stay fit, at least on that particular day.

Well, if you have read it carefully it clearly expresses my efforts. So I am sure that I have at least chosen the best ones and consumed which in turn develops the sense of surety in me. However, as we all know, there are other aspects which can disturb our health, which are uncontrollable. Hence we choose to pray or in my way wish to have undisturbed health as I have done as all I could.

Here the scenario given is the same for all of us and all kinds of wishes or things we want to achieve. To elaborate, we wish to achieve or get something where we put our efforts, which are in our control, and then we leave it, uncontrollable things, to ‘God’ for the rest to fall in place. The uncontrollable situation or things expected to fall in place is FAITH.

Until now, we understood what is Faith and how does it work. Now lets combine it with the efforts we put. Whenever we want to achieve something, let it be as simple as driving to our workplace, we start our vehicle balance it and go all the way from home to workplace while driving through the traffic on the way. What are we doing here? Did we know how to drive from the day we were born? Well, no we learned it over the period of time, observed others doing it and experienced it by driving on our own after taking lessons from one or the other source. Most of the things we do in our daily life are based on the same concept Learning, Observing and Experiencing. This in turn builds confidence in ourselves or we can say we develop Faith in ourselves with the affirmation that ‘Yes, I Can Do It.’ Still there are unknown situations and scenarios out there in the world which are not in our control. So we keep Faith to have low traffic, no fatalities, and reaching office before or on time. Sometimes we are favored and sometimes not. Still we have faith because we know we have the ability to do at least what is in our control. Hence the next day we take out our vehicle and start our routine over and again. This phenomenon explains the correlation between Faith and Self i.e. Effort put by one’s self

Going to the next level, there are people who are low on effort and high on Faith and otherwise. Lets see how these scenarios turn out. People who put low efforts for their work and have faith that the rest will be done by itself, is it even possible??? You know how to work, but unless you put your efforts what are the odds of getting expected results. It is as low as none. This explains the very thing that without required amount of effort no ‘God’ can help you. Even some of our Holy books explain such scenarios. Like in Bhagwat Gita, Lord Krishna takes the side of right, in addition it supports the most deserved one, Arjun. Read any such books around the globe, all of them will have the efforts put in by self first and then were they helped or blessed or such by ‘God’.

On the other hand, People with high on efforts and low on Faith often slip into depression and in the long run loose their intellect. It is fairly explained by a well known statement ‘All Work and No Play, Makes Jack A Dull Boy.’ As amusing as it seems, so is it true. As if you are putting a lot of effort without taking a break or without at least admiring your work done so far or the beauty around you, when all your eyes are on the result and you don’t get it in the first time you may feel down as you keep no faith though there are uncontrollable things out there and give no time for your experiments to flourish. As the science suggest, if you don’t get result after a hundred attempts be glad, as you now know what are the wrong ways of doing it. So rejoice every effort you have put as it has taken you a step ahead even though you fail and have faith as out of the hundred tries at least once will there be a scenario where uncontrollable situations will favor you.

Thus Faith is the important aspect of life just like Effort put by Self. Both of these together can create a beautiful world with a lot to cherish, however if there is a small imbalance it can have diverse effects on one’s life.