Truth & Faith

Sometimes I wonder what could generally be the force behind most of our activities. During the day, and perhaps so during a year, a decade or even a life, man continues to perform certain deeds as if he had been programmed much earlier and his actions seem to be automatic. It is not just with the routine daily necessities like sleeping, getting up, freshening the self, taking meals etc., but certain things which might need special skills have also become automatic for him and he goes on performing them in a very habitual manner. Take for example driving to the office or to the market or performing certain specific deeds during his/ her duty hours. All these seem to have become an integral part of man’s existence.

But what is that which makes him accept those acts as essential for his short term or long term existence? It is perhaps the two motivating factors of Truth and Faith. To simply define them one may say that these two are perhaps the same at the bottom. Truth is something that is accepted as factual existence of a thing or an idea. It is perhaps the thing which others can also see and experience and accept as such, though with slight variation. For example the contention that I need some amount of money and for that I have to work or generate a source of at least that much income that can keep me going. This is one of the facts/ truths of our existence, though all of us may have different views about the quantum or type of that income which is needed by a person to keep his life going smoothly. This of course generates the idea of needs, desires, comforts, likes, dislikes etc. in one’s social and economic circumstances and also the related responsibilities.

Hence while the basic truth would remain the same for a large number of people, their actions may be quite different and sometimes even opposed to one another. It is this fact of variation that we start raising the question of desirability. We start questioning the intensity of an action which may otherwise be rooted in some basic truth. For example the idea of earning more money for the family’s needs even by unfair, immoral, unethical and corrupt means is the outcome of one’s intense passion/ desire for money and its related comforts.

If we go deep into such a working of one’s mind we will find the genesis of faith. Faith is in a way an unproven form of some supposed act or idea or a thing. The person who works day and night for money has the faith that more money will give him more comfort and would satisfy most of his and his family’s needs and desires. Since it is unproven it may or may not turn out to be true in the long term or it may be really so in some cases and may prove to be just the opposite and untrue in many other cases. This is what would amount to be a faith in the general sense of the term.

Same is perhaps the case of truth and faith with relation to peace and happiness in one’s life. The enjoyment of these two virtues in one’s life through the means of material utility or with the spiritual attainments is a real understanding of truth and faith. A person or a group of persons who have experienced peace and happiness always with the material means and also the quantum and intensity of peace and happiness in proportion with the availability of these material resources or have seen others having this experience will consider this as a proven fact or principle and hence the truth.
Almost the same contention can be forwarded in favour of faith. One may feel the validity of an idea though it may not be proved so or one may not be able to display its validity to others logically or in a conclusive manner. This would be his faith. For example my idea that money cannot bring me lasting peace and happiness and that a strong and meaningful relationship with the Supreme Soul is a source of true and lasting peace and happiness is my faith, since, though true, I cannot prove the validity of this idea to others in a convincing manner. So this is my faith.

There is also a difference between an individual and a larger or even a universal faith and truth. Faith is accepted as truth when a large number of people or a whole community or society accepts and follows that idea in their life. Hence we have the concepts of Universal and Regional truth and values or the question of Transitory values.