Yog of Knowledge and Action
Chapter 4, Verse 40
ajñāś-cāśraddhānaśca
saṁśayātmā vinaśyati
nāyaṁ loko’sti na paro
na sukhaṁ saṁśayātmanaḥ
The ignorant who has not faith and is full of doubt goes to perdition; neither this world, nor the supreme world nor any happiness, is for the soul full of doubts.
Here Lord Krishna says to Arjuna that faith is of utmost importance. Those who don’t have faith, who lack the capacity to differentiate between truth and untruth, who are ignorant, are “full of doubts” and go to perdition.
This word ‘perdition’ means that you are completely damned. There’s no hope for you. If you have doubts, if you have no faith, if you lack discrimination, “neither this world, nor the supreme world, nor any happiness is for the soul full of doubts”. There is no happiness anywhere. Without faith, one will never have the knowledge of the Self, or the knowledge that God is the doer of everything. And this will be one’s downfall!
Krishna says that a spiritual fall is not the only loss that people will suffer. When people have doubts and can’t remove them, they can’t even prosper in this world: they can’t even obtain wealth, glory, or fame. Nothing. To obtain things in this world, you also need faith. If you want to do your duty, your work in this world, you must have faith in what you are doing.
If you want to attain the Grace of God, you must have faith. Through this faith everything becomes easy; with doubt, everything becomes difficult. One will never enjoy this world, because greed will be present. One will always want more and more and more and more. How can one be free? One will never have peace of mind. One will never enjoy the blessing of Heaven. One will go to other spheres to spend some time in misery, and then one will come back here, to do more miserable things.
Krishna says to Arjuna, “Remove all the doubts! Have faith. Have faith in Me. I am guiding you, I am telling you Arjuna, fight! This is your dharma, your duty. Remove all this faint-heartedness. With doubt in the mind, there is no success. It is the end of human existence. You will not be happy here. You will not be happy in the next world after leaving this world. Surrender!”
If people have doubts in their mind, but they have faith in the Master and surrender to the Master’s Feet, through the Grace of the Master, if they practice their sadhana (even if they don’t fully believe in the sadhana, but they have faith in the Master), the Grace will flow to them from the Master. Through that Grace, they will gain discrimination, be cleansed from doubt and the Grace of the Master will free them. Faith is surely of utmost importance. Through faith, everything is possible, even what seems impossible to the doubting mind.
If the Master tells the disciples to do something and they have faith in the Master, they will do it, without questioning. Through that faith, the Grace which flows into the Master will flow from the Master to the disciples and they will be free. Here Krishna is offering this blessing of the Master to Arjuna. He is telling Arjuna, “Have faith in Me! Even if you have doubts that it will be adharmic to fight this war, trust in Me. Open up, Arjuna. If you open up now, you will see that everything will flow. You will attain everything. The blessing of Heaven will be with you. This true knowledge, the Brahma Jyaan, the knowledge of the Self will awaken inside of you. You will see the glory of God everywhere. Open your eyes. Have a little faith. Let the doubts be removed from your mind!”
In this verse, the Lord says that there will be no happiness for people who have doubts. And that’s true! One who has doubts is never free, and one who has faith is fully free!
Bhagavad Gita
