Question: When we are in great difficulty, why does our faith in the Supreme Lord decrease? How can we keep great faith in the Lord in such time?
Answer by Romapada Swami: In the Bhagavad Gita (Bhagavad Gita 2.41 purport) Srila Prabhupada defines faith as “unflinching trust in something sublime.” Krishna is beyond the immediate perception of our senses and intelligence. Therefore, faith means feelingly completely dependent and confident that having taken shelter of Him, Krishna will definitely protect me, although one may not understand exactly how the Lord is going to protect; therefore it is called sublime. The actual strength of our faith is tested only when there is some disturbance. In fact, there is not much meaning to having faith when everything is going our way, isn’t it! Therefore such difficulties are a blessing in disguise, showing us where our faith is lacking, and giving us an opportunity to strengthen it.
Faith wavers when we lose sight of Krishna, or when we are unable to see Krishna’s hand behind the course of events. By continuing to take shelter of the Lord amidst difficulties, we can see how Krishna protects us at every step of life – this magnifies and strengthens our faith in Him manifold. This is what we see in the lives of devotees like Draupadi and Kunti, and therefore Kunti prays, “Let these calamities come again and again.” (Srimad Bhagavatam 1.8.25)
Another reason that our faith weakens is because we look for material shelters. Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura prays, taking the role of conditioned soul, “O Lord, I have fallen into this deep ocean and instead of searching out for the infallible boat of Your lotus feet, I am trying to grab hold of the sea-weeds floating by, thinking they will give me protection.” Because of lifetimes of being in forgetfulness of the Lord and being accustomed to placing faith in our own efforts and intelligence, we fail to recognize that Krishna alone can give protection and we may try to look for some quick-fix solution.
We can strengthen faith by hearing in the association of faithful devotees. Repeated hearing the topics and pastimes of the Lord, specifically those pastimes in which He displays His protection and loving reciprocation with devotees who know no other shelter than Him — such as the pastimes of deliverance of Gajendra, Prahlada, Dhruva Maharaja, the Pandavas and so on — this is both pleasing to the heart and acts as a potent medicine to endow us with firm faith and devotion. (Please see Srimad Bhagavatam 3.25.25) Srila Prabhupada therefore repeatedly stressed the habit of hearing every morning and evening, and this hearing process is repeatedly recommended throughout the Bhagavad Gita and Srimad Bhagavatam.
