The Importance Of Faith In Studying the Vedas
Faith comes first, even before intelligence! It is the foundation on which all else is built.
The other day I visited the very special Veera Narayana Temple with Bhairavi & Michael that has an incredible Narasimha statue in it . Unfortunately we were not allowed to take a picture of the Narasimha that was there, but here is one from my previous visit to one of the incredible Hoysala temples in the Belur area:
The story of Narasimha is told in Bhagavata Purana, Seventh Skanda (I highly recommend reading it in the unabridged translation by Bibek Debroy!). The short version is as follows:
There was once an asura name Hiranyakashipu who did incredible penance that earned him a boon from Brahma. Hiranyakashipu, wishing immortality, asked that he would not be killed inside the house or outside, during day or night, not through a weapon, not on the ground or in the sky, not through a man or animal. Brahma granted the boon.
This gave Hiranyakashipu incredible power, which he used for his personal gain to conquer the three worlds! He lived in abundance covered in riches with everyone serving him.
However, he had a son named Prahlada who was deeply devotional to Vishnu. While Prahlada was in his mothers womb, his mother was protected by a great rishi who taught the Vedas to her, with Prahlada listening in the womb. Prahlada had such faith in Vishnu, that he was not at all influenced by any of the asura teachers despite being a young child. In fact, he soon started telling the other asura children about the greatness of Vishnu, who also started believing in him.
This made Hiranyakashipu extremely angry. He hated Vishnu for killing his brother Hiranyaksha and here he had a son who wouldn’t stop talking about the greatness of Vishnu. Hiranyakashipu tried everything to hurt his son - teach him, say abusive words, injure him, but no matter what punishment he gave, Prahlada kept being extremely devotional.
Finally Hiranyakashipu decided he has to kill his son! But Prahlada was not disturbed. He had great faith in Vishnu. So in that moment as Hiranyakashipu was about to strike, Narasimha (not man, not animal) emerged from the pillar in the doorway (not inside, not outside) during sunset (not day, not night), put Hiranyakashipu on his lap (not on the ground, not in the sky) and killed him with his nails (not any weapon)!
It was Bhairavi who pointed out to me that Narasimha is an incarnation of a god that comes out of deep faith. Narasimha was not born like other Vishnu avatars - he just appeared literally out of a column extremely briefly in the moment of need and then disappeared. It shows that if you have unshakeable faith, you don’t need to worry. God will come help you in your deepest moment of need.
We keep hearing about “The Vedas” in a vague sense, but when you ask about what “The Vedas” really are, you will learn that it is a set of knowledge that manifested to great sages to teach us how to connect to the Paramatman - the highest universal energy, god, creator, etc. In the process, the Vedas will teach the methodology on how to live on daily basis, what to eat, what to think, which mantras to say when, what rules to follow, etc to reach that ultimate goal. But the first step to the ultimate goal is to have deep faith in the Vedas. After all, this knowledge cannot be scientifically proven. You have to trust the sages that shared what they perceived that we don’t have access to.
Dr. Satyajith pointed out that at the end of many prayers, we ask for:
श्रद्धां मेधां यशः प्रज्ञां विद्यां बुद्धिं श्रियं बलम् ।
आयुष्यं तेज आरोग्यं देहि मे हव्यवाहन ॥
You can find the full translation for this shloka here, but the first word श्रद्धां means faith. Followed by मेधां, intelligence, and यशः, success. Faith comes first, even before intelligence! It is the foundation on which all else is built.
In the course of the Vedic system of education, many unexplainable things will come up. This requires a deep faith and trust that even though it is unexplainable (to us at that level of education), it is correct.
It also requires faith that the right knowledge will come at the right time. I’m currently taking a Karma Yoga Bhagavad Gita class at the Karnataka Samskrit University where Professor Shrinivasa Varakhedi told a beautiful story about the Bhagavad Gita:
Krishna shared the Bhagavata Gita to Arjuna on the battle field, a very intense time! Later, after the war, the Pandavas asked Krishna to come and teach the Bhagavada Gita to them again as they didn’t remember it all and wanted deeper explanations. But Krishna didn’t feel like teaching, so he didn’t come.
Here, the point of the story is that Arjuna needed the Bhagavad Gita in that moment as he was on the battle field deciding whether he should go forward with killing his relatives. And in that moment of need, Krishna told it. But later, during the peace time, it was not needed, so Krishna didn’t come to teach it. When there is need, the god comes with the right knowledge to those who have faith.
If you read the Mahabharata, Ramayana, and the Puranas, you will find many such stories about the importance of faith coming up again and again! Those who have faith are saved no matter how much trouble they end up in.
Unfortunately, faith is not a quality that we cultivate in the West. We are taught that others may cheat us, to prove everything scientifically, and to question everything. Following a teacher blindly no matter how weird their request is or how much the request doesn’t make sense to us is hard to do, but that deep blind faith is required to go deep into the world of the Vedas.