In this cynical age of ours, it is hard to have faith in anything. Could you comment on why you think faith and belief are important in the life of a person?

Ans : When food is completely withdrawn from the body, the person may fall ill, lose weight and eventually starve or even die. Even if the person is given some food, but due to a diseased condition the stomach cannot digest it, he will slowly starve unless he is fed through the veins. So the essence of sustaining yourself physically lies in your ability to assimilate and utilise the food that is given. Similarly, the enhancement of our inner faculties of mind, thought, intelligence and so on depend on what we are actually able to absorb, and it is what we take in that makes for gradual growth in our personality, our wisdom and our understanding. All of our growth depends upon how much we are able to absorb and assimilate; our becoming sensitively aware of certain insights in life, seeing into the nature of things and people, understanding human relationships-again, all depend on our ability to take them in.

It is not without reason that our ancients reiterated again and again; "You must not only hear and read, but you must reflect, meditate, understand, and then you must make the knowledge your own. You must become that." In the Gita it says: "A person is what he believes in." The key to the process of successfully assimilation from whatever you learn, and becoming what you assimilate, is in believing in what you want to become. Have firm and deep belief: "I believe, and I know I will be what I believe. I will become what I believe because that is the truth. And, if I do believe, it will certainly transform me into what I wish to become and believe in."

So, faith and belief are the twin wings, as it were, of the bird of your spirit. Faith and belief are the two legs that take you to your destination. Faith and belief are the indispensable twin factors that succeed in making you what you wish to become-deep faith, deep belief. Again and again you should keep the company of those in whose company your faith increases, your beliefs become confirmed, and you become firmly established in what you believe. Then, with deep faith and belief and being what you believe in, striving your very best to actualise it in your life so that it becomes your very nature-then you become that.

Translate what you are into your daily activity. Never put much interval between what you have become and your acting it out. What you are, that you must do. Otherwise, a condition will arise when your faith and belief become a static condition, not a dynamic and progressive condition. There is stagnation, arrested movement, no action. Therefore, examine yourself, and keep on examining yourself, ruthlessly. "Am I actively manifesting my faith and belief in every detail of my day-to-day life?" Backed up by firm faith, being and doing will take you to the goal, to the supreme consummation of your life. The ingredients of sure success lie in these four: belief, faith, becoming what you believe and have faith in, and living and doing that which you are.