Connection between Faith and Love

Rule 16:Real faith is the one inside. The rest simply washes off. There is only one type of dirt that cannot be cleansed with pure water, and that is the stain of hatred and bigotry contaminating the soul. You can purify your body through abstinence and fasting, but only love will purify your heart.

What is real faith? Before my father died I thought real faith is believing in something that you trust with all your faculties. Believing that,  come what may, something that you have hoped for, will come true. Alas! Was I naive! I believed that my father will survive. I had so much faith in my own belief that I didn't even realise the gravity of his illness till the time doctor told me to call everyone as his condition is grave. And before I realised he was gone. It was a shock. I accepted his death calmly but it took some introspection and conviction to do so. 

Life is slowly coming back to normal and it is only now that I am questioning faith. There was another family in the waiting room where three girls were praying fervently by lighting the lamps constantly and also keeping their fingers crossed all the time (although it was clearly a Hindu family). They were praying for their mother who eventually died almost at the same time as my father. I didn't do any praying as I wanted my father to take a decision to come back or go away. Was my faith any lesser than that of those girls who were praying. The introspection was more on my own faith in God, in positive thinking and in the universal energies. 

When I read this rule of Shamz, I realised that faith is an individual thing. Unquestionable faith is not blind believing. Beliefs are made as per cultures, religions, and our own conditioning. They can change and evolve as we start changing our perspective towards the world. However, faith is something beyond beliefs,beyond rational and irrational, beyond examination and understanding and mostly beyond changing or breaking. Faith is that solid foundation of trust which doesn't crumble when the earth quakes of unexpected circumstances and jolts the foundation.

Having faith is being open to possibilities other than you had planned. Having faith is accepting that whatever happens is the best possible plan for you, given the circumstances. Having faith is being open to challenges that life offers when you least expect them. Having faith is making the best of what life has to offer and continue to hope that things will be better with each passing day. faith is what keeps you going when everything else is against you, when nothing makes sense and when you are on the verge of loosing everything that you hold dear. 

I have always envied people who have blind faith in their religion or on their 'gurus' and anything which a rational mind is not able to make sense.  I feel that even though these people take a crutch to sail through their problems but in the end it's their own deep faith, which makes them sail through everything and not the crutches that they use. Having faith is pure blessing because then you are ready to live life with love and acceptance which brings happiness to your daily lives. 

Maybe that's what Shamz means when he says that "Real faith is within. The rest simply washes off." Real faith is a very private thing. It manifests in different manners in different people and religions but people who have faith are those who protect their faith with utmost love and trust. This faith does not compel others to follow them. Neither does it tell you to differentiate between two souls who may have different beliefs. Shamz doesn't stop here and goes a step ahead when he says that hatred and bigotry contaminate souls. Real faith is when you do not impose your beliefs upon someone else and love everyone despite the difference of opinions, beliefs, cultures, religions and faith itself. Having a different faith from yours doesn't mean that the other is any less or more than you. It just means that he/she has a different way of understanding. 

Faith will give you this assurance that the universe is conspiring to make your life better no matter what and that everything and everyone in this universe is part of this conspiracy and fits the part perfectly. This will make you accept and love people and situations as they are. As Shamz says, abstinence and fasting can purify body but only love purifies the soul. Love is that ingredient which makes you accept everyone with their own beliefs, perspectives, religions, rituals and idiosyncrasies and faith. Loving and accepting people is the actual sign of having faith in goodness of the universe. 

I believe that half of the world's problems will be over if people started understanding that faith is a very private thing. It has to be felt within your heart and soul and not with your mind and body. Faith makes you delve within and once you do that all you can bring out is pure joy and happiness. 

It has been difficult for me to have absolute faith in anything.  My rational mind always gave thousand arguments into not completely trusting anything. However, as I am getting older and after my father's death, I have realised that faith is not only believing or trusting blindly. It is an art of finding happiness through your soul. It is being open to every new change and every new thought. It is loving everything that comes your way and it is realising that life has to go on even though you would like it to turn out differently. It is evolving your soul in this journey called life.