According to Lord Krishna, each one’s faith is according to their nature. This makes us different, writes AJIT KUMAR BISHNOI

As I have begun reaping many rewards due to my faith in God getting stronger gradually, I have wondered why more people do not pursue the spiritual path. I got the answer from the Bhagavad Gita. In the verse #17.3, Lord Krishna states that faith of all is according to their natures only. He states that in the human species, whatever faith one has he is that only. (17.3)

We know that the human species has faith and that is what makes them different from other species. A lady, though highly educated, chooses to engage herself in household activities; she is known as a housewife. Similarly, a person pursuing an acting career is known as a filmstar; a person playing cricket as a profession is known as a cricketer, etc. They do so because they have faith that these activities are the best for them, and are known as such.

Fate has two parts. One, which is commonly known, is connected with events such as someone landing a highly lucrative job. The other, which is not so well known, is the personal nature. People are born with certain natures due to their past acts. And we know that personal natures are products of the three modes. Lord Krishna has stated that faith of human beings are of three kinds, i.e. in goodness, in passion and in darkness. (17.2) An IAS officer retired from serve chose to live in a tribal area to sever them. His faith is in goodness. A boy born in a family of businessman is in passion, because he pursues a business career later in his life. Some unfortunate souls are born in the mode of darkness and turn out to be criminals, etc. Their faith is in such activities.

Fortunately, our natures are not fixed, they can be changed, but it will take enormous efforts to be able to successfully do so. I was not entirely happy with my life. I looked for reasons and found that my nature was defective in many respects. Therefore, I set about to change it. This is how I began. We constanly desire something. Most of them are not serious, and we know it. For change of nature, we require deep desire, i.e. from deep inside of us; we must really want it. Then and then only we will be able to do the required ‘tapasya’ for achieving it. Those, who get started in the childhood, are the fortunate ones; their parents set examples for them to emulate. My father was a “bhakta’ of Hanumanji and my mother was a devotee of Ramji. They tried to live very exemplary lives, which left deep impression on me. I knew from their examples what was really desirable but couldn’t apply myself till much later in my life. I took help from God through the Gita. This book of eternal wisdom became my guide. God became my teacher and I got started. Subtle changes began to take place in my nature, but the price was not small, because we are what our natures are, as stated earlier. And to reject the self is not very pleasant. But I persevered. What really helped was change in the proportion of the mode of goodness in my nature. The other two modes began to get subdued somewhat. Don’t we know that the three modes are forever trying to become dominant by overpowering the other two. (14.10) My spiritual acts, which I had started doing seriously by now helped. Purification of the body, the mind and the intelligence was taking place. All these began contributing towards reinforcement of faith in God.

I can honestly state that it has been tough going and it is not easy even now, but I have progressed. My nature is better or let me say somewhat more tolerable and my faith in growing stronger.

Bishnoi is a spiritual writer and can be reached at spiritual@ajitbishnoi.com