Suppose a patient rejects a doctor’s advice, arguing that it is the doctor who is sick. Such a patient would be considered mentally sick. But suppose the patient is infected by a germ that could make its victim believe that the doctor is sick. That germ would be lethal indeed. 

Unfortunately, we all are prone to such a germ, which can afflict us with spiritual sickness. That germ is doubt. Whenever we embark on the spiritual path, we need to repose our faith in the existence of a higher spiritual reality and in the path that can help us experience that reality. While doubts are natural on the spiritual path, that doesn’t make them desirable and certainly not reliable. Put another way, our doubts don’t naturally deserve our trust. We need to doubt our doubts. Equipping us for dealing with our doubts, Gita wisdom provides us powerful resources: a profound philosophy that gives reasoned arguments and a time-tested process that gives transformative experiences. 

However, when doubts grip us, we neglect all these resources and start looking down at believers as naive. We think that we are not as gullible as them, that we are intellectually superior because we have higher critical faculties. 

While many believers may be naive, some are not; they aren’t just believers but are also seers. They have higher spiritual realizations, and they are expert spiritual doctors who can treat our doubts. But doubts can impel us to dismiss their wisdom as a delusion, without even considering that it may be we who are in delusion. No wonder the Bhagavad-gita (04.39) cautions that doubters create a dark future for themselves. 

Thankfully, we can protect ourselves from being deluded by doubt if we understand its modus operandi and equip ourselves with reliable spiritual resources. 

 

Think it over:

  • How is doubt like a deadly infection?
  • For dealing with doubt, what resources does Gita wisdom provide?
  • Have you ever felt superior to ‘naive’ believers? How can you best deal with those feelings?  

 

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04.40 But ignorant and faithless persons who doubt the revealed scriptures do not attain God consciousness; they fall down. For the doubting soul there is happiness neither in this world nor in the next.

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