“When you listen to whatever I say, there are two ways in which your mind will work.
One is with doubt and the other is with belief.
Doubt is the way of the intellectual mind. With doubt, too much logic and reason will come in the way of receiving. When this happens, you will miss the whole thing.
With belief also, if you straightaway believe, you will miss.
Understand: you don’t need to believe in anybody, let alone in me.
The so-called believers are the weakest people, because it takes great courage to live without beliefs. When you don’t have a belief, you don’t have a fall-back system to support your actions. You don’t have a readymade idea to tell you what to think and how to act. To be without a belief requires great courage, because then you have to depend on your own intelligence for everything and this makes you feel unsure and insecure.
Both doubt and faith are two sides of the same coin – that is your mind.
At a very deep level, your greatest doubt will carry some faith and your greatest faith will have some doubt in it. I can assure you that!
Then what should you do?
How should you listen?
Just listen with an open mind, with a readiness to experiment, that’s all.
When you are ready to experiment, you are ready to translate teachings into practical life.
When I tell you, ‘The sun rises in the east’, you neither need to believe nor doubt; just get up the next morning and see for yourself – as an experiment! That is the right way.
Just take in everything with an open mind and experience what I am saying every moment.
There is no need to have faith.
Just the willingness to experiment is enough.
Take what I say as a hypothesis, integrate it into your life and see for yourself whether it works or not.
To know that an apple is tasty, you don’t have to believe or doubt.
Just take a bite and you will know!”
– THE AVATAR HIS DIVINE HOLINESS BHAGAVAAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM