From IIM Ahmedabad To Happiness

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

Page 75

EVERYTHING REVOLVES AROUND FAITH
of reason which alone can withstand the severest storms and squalls of scepticism. Besides, unreasoning zeal often degenerates into fanaticism and superstition, which are the forerunners of the worst types of evil.
Belief cannot be changed except by reason, that is, knowledge. It is clear, then, that knowledge alone is the weapon which can attack our wrong impressions and destroy false beliefs. It is the state of one's belief which has to be affected, so that one may be able to purge the mind of the wrong impression of inferiority, and, at the same time, build up an unchanging, undying faith in the heart.
For long we have been hypnotized into the belief that we are wretched ignorant beings, evil by nature and birth, and doomed to suffer all sorts of rebuffs and disappointments at the hands of destiny and the forces of nature. There is only one way of removing this false and erroneous impression from our minds, and that is to convince ourselves of our strengths which, unfortunately, lie dormant till we ignite that spark of faith and knowledge from within, which alone is able to remove all doubts. Quoting authority, reading scriptures and listening to religious discourses, as well as reading this book, will be of no avail at all. Perfect conviction follows only a total annihilation of doubt, which necessitates an exhaustive investigation to one's own satisfaction. That no outside command or suggestion will be of much use has been brought out clearly in what Swami Rama Tirtha says:
“If the sun should say to the mangoes of Bombay, as I revealed my warmth and light to the birch and cedar of the Himalayas, I will not do so to you, you must grow and flourish on my revelations of goodness and power to those beautiful mountainous giants, the Bombay mangoes would be no more. Neither could the lilies of the field live on the sun that shone upon the garden-apples, nor could
63