Kousalya supraja Rama poorva sandhya pravarthathe.

A faint sound of temple bells and chanting of subrabhatam wakes up the lazy 10-year-old boy. He sits on the bed with a closed eye listening to the chanting and opens his eyes with a belief that everything is going to be fine

A Nervous father waiting for his newborn with a belief that everything is going to be fine. A family performing the final rites of a loved one with a belief that everything is going to be fine. A teenager approaching the girl he has a crush on or a refugee family trying to escape the oppression and death.

Name any situation in life all of us a have a voice inside our brain which keep telling us that everything is going to be fine. This voice in our head make sure that we get up and go to work, keeps our morale up even during the toughest points of our lives.

What’s that voice in our head??
The FAITH, power that rotates the universe

It’s been a year since I started writing this blog, many times I thought never to publish it because faith is a very sensitive topic and we as humans are on a symbiotic relationship with our belief system.

Symbiotic relationship – why did I call it a symbiotic relationship?? In this blog, I will try to explain my use of word Symbiotic.

Like all my stories even this story culminated during my journey through this small piece of rock we call Earth. In this era of information overdose, we tend to lose the sight of the simplest of truths. Through this blog, I want to shine some light into a truth which we all have started to forget.

The faith that everything is going to be OK or someone is watching over us is inculcated deeply in us and it becomes part of our lives even before we are born.
Whom did our parents say thanks to when we were born to the doctor or to the god? Whom did we say thanks to when we cleared our exams to the teacher or to the god?  Even during our failures, we question god instead of our own efforts. 

Every happiness we get, every failure we endure, there is the power of faith in an unseen power we rely on. Most of my life I confused religion to faith. I felt having faith in a higher power gave stability to my life. And then one day just one incidence made me question my whole belief system. My dad met with a horrible accident and passed away. For months I kept asking how can a guy who went to the temple, lived by rules can meet with such a horrible end.

 
Is having faith even worth it?

But when you travel it opens your mind to things you never noticed before. I found my faith again, but this time my understanding of faith was redefined. 

Let me ask you a very simple question –

Faith gave birth to religion or Religion gave birth to faith?
I asked this question to a lot of people and most of them replied saying Religion gave birth to faith.
I followed up with another question
Who taught you about religion? And answers was very straight forward – Parents. They introduced us to the first lesson in believing in a higher power.
I followed up with another question-
But why did we believe what our parents told us? The answer was even simpler because they are parents and we have faith that they will never teach us anything wrong.

So let me circle back to the same question again? Faith gave birth to religion or Religion gave birth to faith.

I know the question is not that easy but to be honest, the answer is right in front of us. Religion is born when a group of people start having faith in something.
Old woman praying for her husband’s soul in Jerusalem or thousands reading namaaz at Jamma Masjid or someone closing her eyes during Ganga Aarti. All different religions, different beliefs but all have one common thing the faith on a supreme entity

So if you take out the faith from the equation, religion ceases to exist. We are in a symbiotic relationship with our faith. It gives us a purpose and we will fight tooth and nail to protect it. Even if it is wrong sometimes. 

Now you must be thinking that I am writing this blog to question your religion but I am not. Just stay with me for a little longer. Let me shine some light into another form of faith we have and we just don’t realize we do.

Let me ask you couple more questions –
How many of you have met the chef when you eat at a restaurant?
How many of you have actually seen the face of the pilot who is flying your plane?
How do you know the doctor is injecting you with the right medicines?

The answer is most of the tasks which we do or participate in our daily lives involve many unknown entities.
The policeman who controls the traffic on the route through which your kid’s school bus is going. The nurse who is following doctors instructions inside an operation theater. The guy who sold you the flower which you used to propose your love. An unknown face who makes sure the pastry you ordered is just perfect

We live most of our days without worrying about these tasks because we have faith that a person who is doing it will do a good job. Just imagine what will happen if you lose faith in all the other humans around you. Will you be able to move even an inch in your life?
What gives us the confidence to travel 1000 of miles to an unknown destination, it’s a simple faith that humans in that city will treat you well?
What gives you the confidence to eat at a restaurant in an unknown city? It is a simple faith that the chef is going to do his best to provide you with a portion of amazing food.
Even the refugee who is trying to escape from a war-torn nation has faith when they reach a safe place, people will help them.

If we are dependent on humans then why do we need a God to believe in? The answer is simple it gives us a feeling of safety. We all know we are just a speck of carbon in the vast canvas of this universe. Our brain finds it impossible to comprehend the expanse of this universe. So it makes it easy to believe an almighty is running the whole show and you know what, I believe it too. Every small piece in this whole universe just fits perfectly in its place. Someone has to be orchestrating this whole show to this perfection.

Having faith in a religion is a matter of choice and convenience. We go to a temple when we have time, we pray a little harder when we need something. We twist and turn our belief as per our need.  But do we really have a choice of not having faith in our fellow humans?

We see the world as we want to see it not the way it is. This results in our intolerance and disrespect towards others. Having faith in a fellow human being is not a matter of choice but its a way of life.

In the current world Scenario, it is easy to lose hope and feel the world is just going crazy. But remember one small thing, there are 7 billion of us on this planet and each one of our lives is intertwined with each other. Let the “GOD” run the larger show but to get your morning cup of tea you still need a puny homo sapiens to go pick the leaves from the farms.

I will end this blog with one last piece of thought –
We have a lot of temples, a lot of Churches and a lot of mosques. What we lack is a little love, a little appreciation a little faith in our fellow human beings. 

Duniya kisne banayi ye na pucho, kyonki jawab koi nahi jaanta.
Puchna hi hai to pucho tumhara vajut kya hai, Is pathar ke gole tumhara kaam kya hai
Kab tak thamo ge iss nafrat ka haath kuch tham na hi hai to insaniyat tham lo
Sarahd aur bhagwan to humne banaye hain. Bananae wale ne to sirf insan banaya tha