English »   Malayalam »  

Can someone have faith in God or Sadguru without having much devotion?

[Shri Bharath Krishna asked: Padanamaskaram Swami, What is the difference between faith and devotion (love). Can someone have faith on God or Sadguru without having much of devotion? Your servant, Bharath Krishna.]

Swami replied:- Faith is foolishness and devotion is the best quality. If you have faith in the king that he will do a favor to you, whatever may be the extent of faith, will the king help you? Even if you go to the king and say that you have tremendous faith in the king, will the king help you? Devotion or love is always the best way to attract anybody towards you. But, this devotion must be true love and not false love. Loving the king for the sake of fulfilment of some worldly desire is false love. Loving the king without any worldly desire is true love. Moreover, mere theoretical love without practical proof of service and sacrifice has no public value. This means that if God rewards a devotee just for His theoretical love without any practical proof, even if that theoretical love is true love as known by God, the public will criticize that God favored the devotee with partiality. Hence, at least for the sake of public interest, God conducts tests for practical true love so that there will be no place for public criticism in the future. Hence, faith is a foolish word, theoretical devotion is of low level and practical devotion is always true and is the climax level.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★