Doubt your doubts and believe your beliefs by Chaitanya Charan Das Based on Bhagavad Gita Chapter 04

When we get doubts, the forces of illusion delude us further into thinking that our doubts are evidences of our intelligence: “I am not like all those gullible believers.”

Actually however, such thinking makes us a much more gullible believer. How? Because we end up believing our doubts – and believing them not just in a naïve way but also in a self-congratulatory way.

And believing our doubts makes us reject things as wrong, but it never reveals what is right – just as a patient who doubts every doctor rejects all prescriptions as wrong, but never knows the right treatment and stays sick.

Believing our doubts makes us reject things as wrong, but it never reveals what is right

If we want to learn what is right, we need to put faith somewhere. And the Bhagavad-gita is eminently faith-worthy. Firstly, it offers a coherent philosophy that answers life’s fundamental questions cogently. Secondly, it (04.39) also assures that if we put faith and mold our life according to its teachings, we will gain further, deeper knowledge. This knowledge refers not merely to intellectual knowledge but also to realized knowledge. That is, we will experience higher spiritual reality that is accessed by the purification and elevation of our consciousness brought about by yoga. The easiest and the most efficacious of all yogas is bhakti-yoga.

To successfully practice bhakti-yoga, we need to take the conscious and conscientious decision to believe our beliefs and doubt our doubts. Practically speaking, this means that we engage wholeheartedly in the things that nourish our faith and don’t dabble unnecessarily with the things that induce doubts. By such discerning practice, we will start relishing bhakti even during our seeker stage. Being buoyed by this taste, we will practice bhakti more enthusiastically till we become purified and ultimately realize the highest spiritual truth, Krishna – a realization that the Gita (07.01) states takes us beyond all doubts.

*

A faithful man who is dedicated to transcendental knowledge and who subdues his senses is eligible to achieve such knowledge, and having achieved it he quickly attains the supreme spiritual peace.