A True Measure of Faith

When an individual takes up the spiritual path, he normally starts by desiring peace, knowledge, power or some kind of solace or comfort. But what if he actually is faced with an unending series of obstacles, challenges, threats, and various forms of physical, vital or mental suffering? In such a case, does he maintain his complete faith in the Divine, or does he begin to doubt the Divine, the Truth, the Path, the Teaching or his own abilities to follow it?
Tibet’s great yogi, Milarepa suffered from doubts as he was given hard, back-breaking work that seemed meaningless while his Guru gave the teachings to a number of others without that demand. He reached a breaking point, but persevered, maintained his faith, even if by a thread, and eventually obtained the teachings and the realisation that comes from practicing them.
Complete faith implies complete acceptance. If we demand peace, or serenity, or some other form of solace from the Divine, we are bargaining and our faith is conditional, not absolute.
If we are here, not for personal experiences of peace or bliss, but to participate in the great transition to the next stage of conscious evolution, we have to expect that the path is one of confronting the obstacles, difficulties, knots, vital resistances, mental opposition and physical weaknesses along the way. This is not then a path of retreat, but a path filled with difficulties that must be faced and resolved for that next evolutionary principle to manifest. In such a case, the existence of these challenges is not only part of the path, but essentially the path itself. The faith lies then in accepting that this is the way, and that the Divine has given each individual who accepts this program within himself the exact challenges and issues he is both meant to confront and eventually, to resolve and overcome for the general development of consciousness.
A disciple asks: “Can’t trust be total and entire?”
The Mother responds: “Not necessarily. Well, there is a shade of difference — however, I don’t know, it is not the same thing.”
“One has given oneself totally to the divine work, one has faith in it, not only in its possibility, but faith that it is the thing which is true and which must be, and one gives oneself entirely to it, without asking what will happen. And so, therein or thereon may be grafted a certitude, a confidence that one is capable of accomplishing it, that is, of participating in it and doing it because one has given oneself to it — a confidence that what one is going to do, what one wants to do, one will be able to do; that this realisation one wants to attain, one will attain. The first does not put any questions, does not think of the results: it gives itself entirely — it gives itself and then that’s all. It is something that absorbs one completely. The other may be grafted upon it. Confidence says: ‘Yes, I shall participate, realise what I want to realise, I shall surely take part in this work.’ For the other, one has faith in the Divine, that it is the Divine who is all, and can do all, and does all… and who is the only real existence — and one gives oneself entirely to this faith, to the Divine, that’s all. One has faith in the existence of the Divine and gives oneself; and there can also be grafted upon this a trust that this relation one has with the Divine, this faith one has in the Divine, will work in such a way that all that happens to him — whatever it may be, all that happens to him — will not only be an expression of the divine will (that of course is understood) but also the best that could happen, that nothing better could have happened to him, since it is the Divine who is doing it for him. This attitude is not necessarily a part of faith, for faith does not question anything, it does not ask what the consequence of its self-giving will be — it gives itself, and — that’s all; while confidence can come and say, ‘That’s what the result will be.’ And this is an absolute fact, that is, the moment one gives oneself entirely to the Divine, without calculating, in a total faith, without bargaining of any kind — one gives onself, and then, come what may! ‘That does not conce
me, I just give myself’ — automatically it will always be for you, in all circumstances, at every moment, the best that will happen… not the way you conceive of it (naturally, thought knows nothing), but in reality. Well, there is a part of the being which can become aware of this and have this confidence. This is something added on to faith which gives it more strength, a strength — how shall I put it? — of total acceptance and the best utilisation of what happens.”
Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Looking from Within, Chapter 5, Attitudes on the Path, pp. 134-135