The statements of realized beings are the guidelines which can lead one from ignorance to wisdom, from a restrictive nature to liberation, yet one needs to follow these guidelines and disciplines faithfully as they are set forth. In Chapter 17 of the Bhagavad Gita, Arjuna delves into the question of faith and discipline. Arjuna asks, “Can one walk the path just by faith, without following any discipline or guidelines?” (17:1):
Ye shaastravidhimutsrijya yajante shraddhayaanvitaah;
Teshaam nishthaa tu kaa krishna sattvamaaho rajastamah.
Those who set aside scriptural injunctions and sacrifice with faith,
where do they stand, Krishna, in sattwa, rajas or tamas?
The question is: Are those people who attempt to walk the spiritual path by faith alone, without adhering to any form of discipline, doing the right thing? Is that kind of nature, in which faith is predominant and effort non-existent, sattwic, rajasic or tamasic?
Not surprisingly, Sri Krishna anticipated other questions and so he said, “Look, you are asking me about faith only, nevertheless, I will tell you everything in relation to the individual. There is no doubt that everything falls into the category of sattwa, rajas and tamas, so faith is also sattwic, rajasic and tamasic. Even effort, purushartha, is of these three kinds. Not only that, even the means and lifestyle which you adopt as a sadhaka falls into the three categories.” The faith that exists in embodied beings is born of their nature, swabhava. Faith is not something which one receives from outside or which one can cultivate; it is inherent in everyone. Sri Krishna says (17:2):
Trividhaa bhavati shraddhaa dehinaam saa svabhaavajaa;
Saattvikee raajasee chaiva taamasee cheti taam shrinu.
The inherent faith of embodied beings is threefold:
sattwic, rajasic and tamasic. Hear about it from Me.
Love is also inherent in everyone. Only due to one’s association with the senses and the objects of pleasure which colour one’s mentality, one is not able to discover one’s faith and bhakti.
When people ask how they can learn bhakti, Sri Swami Satyananda said clearly that bhakti is not like hatha yoga or raja yoga, something that one can learn in an ashram. Bhakti is a natural, spontaneous expression of one’s life and it already exists within everyone; one does not have to develop it. Sri Krishna is telling Arjuna the same. Faith is born out of one’s nature as the result of accumulated experiences, samskaras and karmas. In each lifetime one has another nature, swabhava. In each lifetime, as one gathers more impressions and experiences, the new collection is creating a different nature for the next life.
Faith is the result of one’s accumulated personality blooming in this life.
If one is sattwic, one’s faith will be sattwic. If one is tamasic, one’s faith will be tamasic. If one’s nature, personality, attitudes, thoughts and behaviour are rajasic, one’s faith will be rajasic. This sloka explains everything (17:3):
Sattvaanuroopaa sarvasya shraddhaa bhavati bhaarata,
Shraddhaamayo'yam purusho yo yachchhraddhah sa eva sah.
The faith of each accords with his nature.
Faith constitutes the very being of man. As a man’s faith is, so is he.
Faith is what one feels inside, and the entire being survives on faith. Faith is not linked to a religious concept, belief or dogma. Faith is what nurtures the personality. Faith is what connects the individual being with the higher being. It is the link, the connection, and each person expresses that faith and is that faith in their life. Sri Krishna continues to explain the three kinds of faith (17:4):
Yajante saattvikaa devaanyaksharakshaamsi raajasaah,
Pretaanbhootaganaamshchaanye yajante taamasaa janaah.
Sattwic people worship the gods, the rajasic worship
the spirits guarding wealth and power, and the tamasic worship ghosts.
People who are endowed with sattwic faith don’t identify with the lower levels of existence or life, or with nature spirits. In their mind they only have one idea, “How can I attain the highest?” Therefore, Sri Krishna says that worship of the gods is performed by the sattwic person. Their inherent faith, due to the accumulation of positive karmas and samskaras, makes them seek union with the highest nature. People who are rajasic seek dominance, power, position and control. They are manipulative. Such people are endowed with faith, which is rajasic in nature and therefore they take refuge in rajasic spirits to assist them in attaining their desires. Similarly, people endowed with tamasic faith are going to take recourse to the lower forms of nature spirits to help them attain their goal.
In people’s lives, when one guna is predominant, thoughts often come such as, “Oh, I wish I had that power.” To attain that siddhi, people perform sadhanas that invoke the lower category of forces or link them with the intermediate category of forces. Some people also perform sadhana for siddhis that involve connecting with the higher forces; however, those who connect with the higher forces eventually lose the desire to attain siddhis and become self-disciplined.