From IIM Ahmedabad To Happiness

Author(s): Vijay K Jain
Publisher: Vikalp Printers

Page 74

FROM IIM-AHMEDABAD TO HAPPINESS
food, not even if it is done in our name! Same is the case with knowledge. Testimony is not only usually incapable of affording a solid foundation for faith, but also goes to make the confusion more confounded. Let's take a practical instance, related to our own lives, to illustrate the point. We have been told by our parents and teachers, since childhood, that speaking a lie was a sin, and we believe it to be so. When we grow up, we don't fail to teach the same tenet to our children. Yet, how many of us can say that we don't speak a lie? There must be something wrong with our belief. The fact of the matter is that the belief is not founded on the strength of our intellect and, therefore, fails when put to test. The following parable is an excellent example of how our soul becomes a victim of our actions based on skin-deep beliefs:
As a traveller was riding along a solitary road to fulfill an appointment, a stranger met up with him and said, "Friend, have you ever prayed?"
"No."
"How much will you take never to pray hereafter?" "One dollar."
The stranger paid it over, and then continued on his journey. The traveller put the money in his pocket, and passed on, himself thinking about what had just happened.
The more the traveller thought, the worse he felt.
"Well, now," ," he said to himself, "I have just sold my soul for one dollar! That must have been the devil I met up with! Nobody else would tempt me so. With all my soul I must repent, or be damned forever!"
Many tend to acquire faith without having the least idea of the difference that exists between the word-of-mouth and the emotion of belief. He, who only hears of a thing and forces himself to put faith in it, is liable to have it destroyed when assailed by doubt, the arch enemy which cannot be killed except with the sword of discrimination. Man must, therefore, build his house on the rock
62