TankaTuesday Weekly #PhotoPrompt #Poetry Challenge No. 310, 3/7/23

choices pixelated
Soul’s colors in budding bloom
Imprints – Slow, deep, golden

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Understanding the Faultless Path of Faith

“To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.” — Thomas Aquinas

Faith is a vast concept and its definition can pertain to complete belief or confidence in life or god or religion or prayers. It is a wide, inclusive embrace which brings love and trust through our intuition, we tune in, we listen. No matter what belief system we develop, deep inside we all live by some degree of assurance that what we hope for will actually happen. A true, utter belief in our heart and our soul that we deserve the very best in our life. This does not mean we are being selfish or aimlessly wishing for things.  We gravitate subconsciously to seek solutions and attract abundance.

No matter how old, how smart we become in course of our lives, if we literally believed nothing we won’t be able to function. Because unlike animals, humans are genetically predisposed to have many worries, insecurities, fears and aspirations about life. Within us is a burning desire to have answers to things we cannot see, cannot reason or cannot know. This uncertainty always calls us to actively believe in something higher than us. Our faith provides assurance of his existence. Then we start exploring our faith through religious indoctrination, own reflection, observation and experience. Thus helping to open our mind to filter out irrelevant details and focus on areas of life we actually care about.

Faith is like a motivation which comes through our family, friends, beloved, parents ,in form of GOD  or at least in safety of our future.

Faith is not a miracle, problems or health issues won’t disappear, you won’t become a millionaire. But it will make you handle life in life’s terms with more clarity, focus and optimism for a better future.

Faith is also hope. Choices we make in life is reflection of our hopes and not fears. Faith becomes the most complex emotion when we face issues in life or lose a loved one. it comes crashing down ripping apart our soul  and refusing  to heal.  Everyone has a different perspective to deal with problems. Some try hard, harder to bounce back even more strongly. Some keep crying at every memory or interaction – an old man crossing a street – remind you of your father / grandfather.  Some act stoic, go to work and keep busy. Some head down the path of self destruction using drugs, alcohol and reckless behavior to forget the pain. We begin to actively grieve the loss. It becomes incredibly hard to realize that there are lessons to be learnt from our grief and is also a part of our healing. We can’t control the bad things that happen in our life but we have the power of choice to be ‘Hopeful’.

‘Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness’ – Desmond Tutu.

In modern society, it is very important to have faith in ourselves. We have to believe that we are on right path and reiterate the fact that our life is ours only – either we make it or break it. But this doesn’t mean we have to show confidence all the time.  Being humble and strident in our approach reframes our thinking no matter how large our EGO!

‘No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path’ – Buddha.

Faith is a trait innate in us. Faith is neither right nor wrong. Our mental faculties have limited capability to discern truth entirely hence our Faith mostly clings around desires, egoism and attachment. Due to this mixture of facts and beliefs there is lot of confusion and commotion in this world.

Bhagvadgita on Faith (Sraddha) – “Yacchraddhah sa eva sah”

(Meaning) : A person is according to his or her faith. It is important to validate beliefs by own experiences. If not possible then validating them through knowledge and wisdom received from   Guru or in Holy scriptures (the Vedas). One needs to differentiate ‘right’ beliefs from the ‘wrong’ ones by cultivating ‘Buddhi’ inner conscience or intelligence, leading them towards salvation and liberation.