It is easier to disbelieve than to believe because disbelief is an act of descent, whereas belief is an act of ascent. Descending is easier than ascending.
It is easier to disbelieve than to believe because disbelief is an act of breaking and belief is an act of building. Building is more difficult than breaking.
It is easier to disbelieve than to believe because disbelief is an act of our self-centred mind, whereas belief is an act of our self-giving heart.
Disbelief begins its journey from the doubting mind and ends in the destructive vital. Belief begins its journey from the illumining soul and continues to march in the vast kingdom of the aspiring heart.
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A man of disbelief, with his eyes firmly closed, tells what others are, what the world is and what he himself can do for the entire world if he wants to. A man of belief, with his heart’s door wide open, tells what God has done for him, what God is doing for him and what God will do for him.
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Disbelief has a perfection of its own. Disbelief finds its perfection in the cyclone of separation.
Belief has a perfection of its own. Belief finds its perfection in the music of the universal oneness.
Disbelief tells the world, “Be careful, be careful. If not, I shall devour you.”
Belief tells the world, “Come in, come in please. I have been eagerly waiting for you.”
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The human eyes most often believe only themselves; they do not believe others. The human ears most often believe others, even if it is the worst possible gossip. But the divine heart believes in God, in mankind, and in its own aspiration.
Disbelief hates the world. Why? It feels that the world is never of it and can never be for it. A man of disbelief always feels that this world does not belong to him and that he can never lord it over the world. This is precisely the reason why a man of disbelief dares to hate the world.
A man of belief loves the world. Why? He believes that this world of ours is verily the aspiring body of God, the glowing dream of God and the fulfilling reality of God.
In the spiritual life, if one cherishes disbelief, one is simply lengthening the distance of the ultimate Goal. But if a seeker has abundant belief in his spiritual life, in his own quest for the ultimate truth, then undoubtedly he is shortening the distance. Finally, if his inner being is surcharged with boundless faith, then he feels that the Goal itself, the Goal of the Beyond, is running towards him. He feels that the Goal is fast approaching him, instead of he trying to reach the Goal.
There comes a time when a man of disbelief, being totally frustrated, wants to kill the world all around out of exasperation. But to his wide surprise he sees that the wild ignorance of the world has already stabbed him. With his proud knowledge he wanted to kill the world, but before he could kill the world, the world, his own wild ignorance, has killed him.
A man of belief wants to love the world. To his wide surprise he sees that his entire existence is in the very heart of the world. The world has already placed a throne in the inmost recesses of its heart for the man of belief to sit upon.
In our spiritual life, disbelief is nothing short of crime. When we disbelieve we pour slow poison into our system. It is we who kill our possibility and potentiality. It is we who wallow consciously, deliberately, in the pleasures of ignorance.
Unfortunately, even before the highest illumination, in the cases of some spiritual Masters, disbelief firmly, powerfully, knocked at the door of these spiritual giants. But by God’s Grace they overcame this disbelief. Again, there are other spiritual giants who were blessed with belief right from the beginning of their spiritual journey.
Why do we disbelieve? We disbelieve because we are afraid of oneness, afraid of the vast. We feel that when we enter into the vast we lose our identity, we lose our individuality, we lose our very existence. But we forget the true truth that when we enter into the vastness, this entering is not mere entering, it is nothing short of enlargement of our divinised consciousness.
A seeker finds it infinitely easier to believe the truth, the reality, for his is the life of conscious awareness. For an ordinary person, an unaspiring human being, it is extremely difficult not to disbelieve. An aspiring person, an aspiring seeker, knows that there is something within that is pushing him forward to the Light, to the Reality. An unaspiring person feels that something from without is pulling him backwards, pulling him to something unknown, something that will bind him.
When we consciously disbelieve someone, we do not realise the fact that the inner magnet within us pulls the undivine quality of that particular person into us. What happens when a person has achieved something but we do not believe it? The person and his achievement remain the same whether we believe it or not. But the person has also imperfections, limited capacity, impurity and our disbelief is a magnet which pulls only the imperfections of the human being in question. If we have belief, if we offer our belief, then we have to feel we have a magnet which draws the good qualities, the divine qualities, the illumining qualities, of the other person.
The more we enter into the spiritual life, the more we become aware of the capacity of disbelief and belief. Disbelief is nothing short of destruction. Belief is nothing short of a new creation. Each time we believe in something, we see the face of a new creation within and without us. And when we go one step ahead, when our inner faith looms large, then we see in us a perfected man and a liberated soul.
Again, when we dive deep within we see that the so-called man of disbelief will also have a time to knock at the proper door of realisation. Let him disbelieve to his heart’s content; let him run with his disbelief towards his self-chosen destruction. When he is about to reach the door of destruction, God’s omnipotent Compassion will send him back to the starting point to start his march once again towards the real Goal. Even if the man of disbelief is going on the wrong path, let him march, let him not sit inert. Let the world judge him, let the world offer its comments. A day will dawn when a man of disbelief will come to the right path.
In disbelief the question arises. In belief the answer dawns.
In the spiritual life, in the life of aspiration, in the life of inner awakening, even if one does not have abundant belief or faith in oneself, one need not and must not be doomed to disappointment. Let that person feel that he is sick, he is weak, he needs treatment, he needs hospitalisation. Let him feel that there are people who are physically strong, vitally strong, mentally strong, psychically strong and let him mix with these people. If he really wants to see the face, the real Face of the real Goal, then let him mix with a man of belief even for a fleeting hour daily and he will see the power of belief, the power of inner faith.
When we disbelieve God, when we disbelieve the Reality, God remains the same for the seekers, for the lovers of truth. But what happens is this: Ignorance, the teeming vast, gets the opportunity to envelop the disbeliever more powerfully and more completely. And when we believe in God, God’s Compassion gets the utmost opportunity to work in and through us most powerfully.
We start our journey with belief, but when the mind starts functioning, disbelief secretly, like a thief, enters into our system. A child always believes his parents. To him everything that his parents say is true, unquestionable. But when he enters into his adolescence the questioning mind, the doubting mind begins to work. Always he says, “Why? How?” Why and how enter into his mind. “It is not possible. It is impossible.” At that time it is easier for him to believe even the impossible, than to believe something that is possible, natural and quite obvious. This is what we see in the adolescent life. But again opportunity knocks at our door when we see that the mind has not given us any real satisfaction.
When we enter into full-blooded youth, when we see that the mind, by suspecting and doubting has not given us a moment’s satisfaction, we want to walk along another road and that is the road of the heart, the aspiring heart, the self-giving heart. Here we enter into the realm of spirituality. Here the lotus within our heart begins to bloom, petal by petal. Each time a petal blooms, we see that our inner divinity is being manifested more and more.
Then there comes a time when we see a thousand-petalled lotus within us, fully bloomed and we see consciously our divine Pilot, our divine Comrade, our eternal Friend, The Supreme, right in front of us and He makes us see and feel that through eternity we shall be not only with Him, but also for Him. In our conscious awareness, in our conscious seeing of His Presence, in our conscious feeling of inseparable oneness with Him, we shall establish here on earth, here and nowhere else, the Kingdom of Light, Truth, Peace and Delight.
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AUM 855. This talk was given by Sri Chinmoy at the Dag Hammarskjold Auditorium of the United Nations' Secretariat on 1 June 1972. Series III; Lecture 2↩
From:Sri Chinmoy,AUM — Vol. 8, No. 1, 27 August 1972, AUM Centre Press, 1972
Sourced from https://srichinmoylibrary.com/aum_69