“Faith, in true sense is a lively link connecting the mortal with the immortal”

(Basic Writings of Sri Ramchandra, Reality at Dawn, Page 250)

Sri. C.V.M.Ravi Prasad

Respected Brothers and Sisters,

Pranams.

I feel honored to present the paper on the subject of the seminar “Faith, in true sense is a lively link connecting the mortal with the immortal”, in your august presence.

I used to feel I had faith during my earlier practice (traditional) also. I’d like to mention how I feel that faith is different to the faith I currently have and how the faith now has been increasing with the sadhana.

Faith earlier, for me, used to be based on relative truths or logical conclusions leading to God/ Divinity to be a concept. Where as, faith in the consciousness of the Master and Master’s Grace is now found to be based on the absolute truths i.e. based on my own experiences. Faith then was mostly a mechanical training of mind and Faith now is a spontaneous and natural state from within. Faith in the God, then, was mostly faith in his ability to solve my materialistic wishes leading to fear in God and the Prayer earlier used to be for selfish gains / for the fulfilment of wishes, where as faith in the Master here is faith in His capabilities to lift us out of being slaves of our wishes with a strong faith in His Justness. Faith earlier is trusting some one else’s experience and Faith here is also reinforced with my own experience.

Unlike the faith I had in the earlier system where it was a static/passive one, here in our system I find it to be an active and ever growing/strengthening one. Earlier, temporary defeats in life used to lead me to despondency and bring the question of existence of God. Faith then was so easily shaken and questions on the purpose of life and existence of God used to periodically pop-up whereas now I have faith in the Master, His justness and faith in myself. There is a conceptual clarity in the Goal and the purpose of life and also strong faith in our method that it can enable me reach that Goal.

My faith has started and has been increasing based on the transformation I have been seeing in my own life. Periodic honest self evaluations help me to note down the transformation achieved and help me to understand the Greatness of the Master and the System. When some of my stinking habits could naturally be regulated with the help of the Pranahuti coupled with the sadhana, I have full faith that for the rest of them it is just a matter of time. I think, the faith in my self, i.e. in my ability to get out of my shortcomings (how much big in number they still are) is getting generated based on the faith I have in the Master who could transform me to this extent. This helps me to have enough guts to diligently list down my shortcomings and work through them as the immense help of the Great Master is an assured experience in our system.

In our system, my experience has been that the practice of the system helps us also develop an experiential based faith in the basic principles of spirituality in general and to that pertaining to our system in particular. Repetitive experiences during Pranahuti leading to transformation coupled with the literature provided by the Institute help me to understand things better. For e.g.:

1) There is an experience of “lightness” of varying intensities during Pranahuti sessions and later during my own meditations.

As there is no lightness felt at the physical plane but the feeling of lightness is definite, the feelings are understood to be experienced at a different plane than that of the physical which helps me to have faith in consciousness at subtler levels to be a reality.

2) The experience of an almost undisturbed state at a deeper/subtler plane of consciousness during the meditations resulting in enormous peace (no conflicts) with feelings of Reverence.

Master’s consciousness is beyond senses. I am also eligible to feel it.   Master’s love is so great that He enabled even me to start to feel His Grace in-spite of my earlier stinking habits. Master and His Grace are not restricted to a set of born-great individuals.

3) There is a feeling of mergence with a vast, undisturbed, indivisible and unlimited consciousness with a feeling of lightness along with a strong feeling from within that I really belong to this place. Any amount of curiosity to look deeper into it during that condition repels me out of that condition. Any expectation initially to get into that condition blocks me to get into it.

a) The underlying reality is that I am part of that unvarying One consciousness of the Master which is eternal and immortal. No matter how small and insignificant I am, I still am connected to and am part of that Great Whole. This leads to the conclusion that others are also part of That same consciousness of the Master

b) Yielding becomes easier when I understand my smallness. Interdependence start to grow in life by the understanding of that common connection.

c) There is a spontaneous and natural feeling from within that my soul is longing to feel its characteristic. - Orientation to the Master/ Master as the Goal is a natural or an inherent feeling to all of us.

When my sincerity to live in the consciousness of the Master increases, I tend to introspect sincerely and work towards getting out of my problems to become better. This starts to come in daily life too. Faith in the Master, I feel, also leads to the path of duty and everything is attempted sincerely at family and work also.

Faith, in general, of a set of people following a system can also be defined as the set of principles that they try to naturally live in or the consciousness in which they would like to live in. My understanding is:

To live in the eternal and immortal consciousness of the Master is our Goal. The dependence on the Master i.e. Faith in the power of the Master to bring us up to that stage where we can live in His consciousness is the lively link. So Prayer/dependence on the Master is the connecting link. So to keep this link always active, the key is that we should to try to live in a state of Prayer all through. Following the 10 commandments enable us to live in His consciousness and keep the feeling of dependency on Him all through during all walks of life and leading to a path of duty. Our path is Path of Grace and so to put it practically: for us it is path of yielding/dependence, prayer with love & devotion (leading to Grace) for our movement on the Path.

The balance between faith in the self and the yielding/dependence on the Master as mentioned in the book Three Truths and Trillion Doubts is a tight rope walk. If there is no proper guidance, we could easily give undue importance to the things in our meditational experiences and may develop wrong proportion of faiths, i.e. strengthen our ego. I feel very much thankful to the Institute for encouraging the spirit of Bodhayanti Parasparam and by publishing literature which explains the practical points & correct interpretations and the due and right importance to be given to the experiences for our effective sadhana.

I am thankful to Imperience for training us through these seminars by bringing in the clarity on those mandatory areas of practical importance, apart from the standard meditational methods and practices prescribed. I feel grateful to the Master for showing me the Path and thankful to Imperience for giving me an opportunity to share my thoughts.

Pranams.