Doubt your doubts and believe your beliefs

When we get doubts, the forces of illusion delude us further into thinking that our doubts are evidences of our intellectual superiority over believers: “I am not gullible like them.”

Actually however, such thinking makes us a much more gullible believer than “those gullible believers.” How? Because we end up believing our doubts – and believing them not just in a naïve way but also in a self-congratulatory way.

And believing our doubts makes us reject things as wrong, but it never reveals what is right – just as a patient who doubts every doctor rejects all prescriptions as wrong, but never knows the right treatment, and so stays sick.

If we want to learn what is right, we need to put faith somewhere. And the Bhagavad-gita is eminently faith-worthy. Firstly, it offers a coherent philosophy that answers life’s fundamental questions cogently. Secondly, it (04.39) also assures that if we choose to put faith in it and mold our life according to its teachings, we will gain knowledge that is not just intellectual but also realized. That is, as we practice yoga, and as it purifies and elevates our consciousness, we will experience higher, spiritual reality. The easiest and the most efficacious of all yogas is bhakti-yoga.

To successfully practice bhakti-yoga, we need to take the conscious and conscientious decision to believe our beliefs and doubt our doubts. Practically speaking, this means that we engage wholeheartedly in the things that nourish our faith and don’t dabble unnecessarily with the things that induce doubts. By such discerning practice, we will start relishing bhakti even during our seeker stage. Being buoyed by this taste, we will practice bhakti more enthusiastically till we become purified and ultimately realize the highest spiritual truth, Krishna – a realization that, the Gita (07.01) states, takes us beyond all doubts.


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