Masters of Health Magazine June 2018 | Page 68

Whatever image you carry within yourself, that very image will reveal in your life as the circumstances and opportunities necessary for the execution of the actions associated with that image. For example, if you believe, with all your heart, that you can achieve something, you will, regardless on time that it might take. The limit of your thought or your faith is the limit of your life.

The Importance of Faith in Spiritual Life

Why is faith so important in spiritual life? It is important because faith creates the necessary aspiration in us to do the spiritual practices, and enables us to continue even when we, at times, run out of inspiration.

Spiritual progress depends on faith. Faith is the basis of all progress. Even material progress, inventions and discoveries depend upon faith – faith in oneself. It may be easy to place faith in mathematics, in astrophysics, in known scientific laws, and work towards their achievement. But it is much more difficult to place one’s faith in spiritual realms with their unseen laws and effects. We start our spiritual path with some initial faith however that is not sufficient. What sustains the faith and what leads us on to the actual spiritual experience or the realization is continuous spiritual practice.

The Question of Sincerity

Why do we often say that we don’t have the time for doing things we like or even for people we love and consider to be important to us? Because we are lacking the right type of faith. It is faith that animates and enlivens. Faith is creative. Faith creates opportunities. It is faith that creates the time for the things we relish and which have great significance in our life. The simple answer for all our frequent hesitance and procrastination is that due to lack of faith, we simply won’t do that which we may consider important or desirable. An act itself is an expression of faith. If someone asks you, “Why don’t you practice yoga or meditation? What will be your answer? Most likely, “I don’t have time.” You might not have much time, but you will certainly create and find time for that which is very important to you.

Let us say that we read in the book on meditation that we should wake up as early as 4 am to meditate. But our attitude could be, “I can’t wake up that early, because I’m generally too sleepy at that time or would feel tired during the day”. But suppose someone wants to give us a gift of a million dollars, and the only available time that person has to meet us is 4 am in the morning. What would you do? It is not difficult to guess. You would be wide awake even at 2 am, waiting with great anticipation to receive the money. Why is it so? Because you have greater faith in money; you know what the money can do for you. Unfortunately we don’t have faith in the practice of meditation, the practice that will bring us peace and inner happiness.

In life we always sacrifice the lesser for that which we believe to be higher or greater. If you do not have time to do the things that are important to you, it is only because you have not set a proper value on them.

Faith is also the giver of all blessings. The more faith you have in something, the great opportunities you will attract to yourself.

Contradictions in Life Eliminated

You can only become that which you cherish deeply in your heart. If your actions are different from your faith, then that is the sign that you don’t have faith but more of a belief. For example you might think that you believe in the world peace but your actions do not reflect such faith. Let’s say that you frequently have the bouts of anger and fight with others and you see nothing wrong with it and no connection with your ‘faith’ in the world peace.