**Sivananda answers**

[Guest guest]

1. Why should we believe in God ?

 

Belief in God is an indispensable requisite for every human being. It

is a sine qua non. Owing to the force of Avidya or ignorance, pain

appears as pleasure. The world is full of miseries, troubles,

difficulties and tribulations. The world is a ball of fire. The

Antahkarana (mind, intellect, ego and the subconscious mind) charged

with Raga (attachment), Dvesha (hatred), anger and jealousy is a

blazing furnace. We have to free ourselves from birth, death, old

age, disease and grief. This can be done only by faith in God. There

is no other way. Money and power cannot give us real happiness. Even

if we exercise suzerainty over the whole world, we cannot be free

from care, worry, anxiety, fear, disappointment, etc. It is only

faith in God and the consequent God-realization through meditation

that can give us real, eternal happiness and free us from all kinds

of fear and worries which torment us at every moment. Faith in God

will force us to think of Him constantly and to meditate on Him and

will eventually lead us on to God-realization.

 

2. What is the harm in not believing in God's existence ?

 

If we have no faith in God, we will be born again in this world and

will undergo considerable miseries. The ignorant, faithless doubting

self goes to destruction. He cannot enjoy the least happiness.

Neither this world nor that beyond is there for the doubting self.

Those who have no faith in God do not know what is right and what is

wrong. They have lost the power of discrimination. They are

untruthful, proud and egoistic. They are given to excessive greed,

wrath and lust. They hoard up money by unlawful means. They become

men of demoniacal nature. They commit various sorts of atrocious

crimes. They have no ideals for their lives. They are thrown into

demoniacal wombs. They sink into the lowest depths, deluded birth

after birth.

 

Some one hundred and fifty years ago there lived a very famous Yogi-

Jnani (a self-realized saint) by name Sadasiva Brahmendra Sarasvati

in Nerur, near Karur, in the district of Tiruchirapalli in South

India. He is the author of Brahma Sutra Vritti and Atma Vidya Vilasa

and various other books. He has done innumerable miracles. Once when

he was absorbed in Samadhi (superconscious state) on the banks of the

Cauvery, he was carried away by the flood and thrown somewhere else.

He was deeply buried underneath the sand. Labourers went to plough

the fields. They hit against the head of the Yogi and some blood

oozed out. They dug out, and to their astonishment, they found a Yogi

seated in Samadhi.

 

On another occasion, as an Avadhuta, Sadasiva Brahmendra entered the

Zenana (tent) of a Mohammedan chief naked. The chief was quite

enraged at the sage. He cut off one of the arms of the Mahatma

(saint). Sadasiva Brahman walked away without uttering a word and

without showing any sign of pain. The chief was greatly astonished at

this strange condition of the sage. He thought that this man must be

a Mahatma, a superhuman being. He repented much and followed the sage

to apologize. Sadasiva never knew that his arm was cut off. When the

chief narrated to the sage what had happened in the camp, Sadasiva

excused the chief and simply touched his maimed arm. Sadasiva Brahman

had a fresh arm. It is the life of this sage that made a very deep

impression in my mind. I came to a very definite conclusion that

there is a sublime divine life independent of objects and the play of

the mind and the sense. The sage was quite unconscious of the world.

He did not feel a bit when his arm was cut off. He ought to have been

absorbed in the Divine Consciousness, he ought to have been one with

the Divine. Ordinary people yell out when there is even a pin-prick

in their bodies. When I heard of the marvelous incident in the life

of Sage Sadasiva from Apta (realized) persons and when I read in the

book, it gave me a very strong conviction about the Divine Existence

and a divine eternal life where all sorrows melt, where all desires

are satisfied and one gets supreme bliss, supreme peace and supreme

knowledge.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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