There is much in our lives that depends upon suggestions, suggestions which come from outside, either consciously or unconsciously, as well as suggestions which come to us from ourselves. The superstitions which existed in ancient times and which still exist in some countries tell us something of the psychology of suggestion. If a person saw a certain bird, a certain animal, before beginning his work, that impression affected his work. If a man, when starting some business or industry or new enterprise, met with an unpleasant incident or a disagreeable person, naturally this brought him ill luck. On the other hand, if he encountered desirable conditions and people with a good influence his whole life might be changed. People called this superstition; in fact it is a science, it is the psychology of impressions. It is in accordance with every impression which is made on us that our life works.

The greatest impression is made by the word. The Bible says, "In the beginning was the Word ... and the Word was God", which tells us of the creative power of the word: that the word is as creative as God Himself. In the East, in good families, children were taught when quite young to avoid words which might cause ill luck; such expressions as boys use, "I will kill you", "I will shoot you", or as are used by girls, "I wish I were dead", "I wish that it was all destroyed." The children were taught never to use words with a destructive meaning; for as far as we know at a certain time a universe may be connected with the word of man, and the word he speaks may come true. If he had spoken of something he did not wish to happen it would have been better not to have said it. People do not think about this. They say things as a joke, things that might cause serious trouble in their lives or in the lives of their friends, nor realizing how great is the power of words in our lives. Therefore the great teachers have made a science of words, so that by the repetition of certain words a definite result can be produced in one's character, in one's circumstances, or even that a person can help another by the use of a certain word.

Man's character can be changed by the repetition of certain words, entirely changed; the results brought about by their repetition are wonderful. Thus suggestion often proves to be the secret of a miracle. It is a field which still remains unexplored by science, and the more man gets to know about it, perhaps in five centuries from now, the more he will begin to believe that behind suggestion the spirit of God is hidden, the secret of the whole of creation.

Now coming to the question of attraction and repulsion, why are we drawn towards some people, and why do we feel repulsion in regard to others? I would say that it is the same with souls as with the notes in music. It is their combination which makes the notes either harmonious or inharmonious; it is not the notes themselves. Every note is harmonious enough if put with other harmonious notes, the notes which blend and make a consonant chord. Therefore it is wrong to say. "That person is inharmonious", or "harmonious." It is the blending of persons that proves either harmonious or inharmonious in accordance with their grouping.

It is the same with color. No color is inharmonious, however striking or however pale. If it is in its right place, if it is well blended with other colors, it is harmonious; it is inharmonious if it is not put next to colors that blend with it. And it is exactly the same with human nature. The wise person can get on with another who is near to him in wisdom, or he can get on with a foolish person; but a wise man has difficulty in getting on with the semi-wise, because the semi-wise makes it difficult for him. With a strong person another who has strength himself will get on all right, as well as the one who is quite feeble, but not the halfstrong. This proves to us that there are two principles to be understood. The person must either be of the opposite quality, or he must be of the same quality to blend harmoniously with the other. In other words, with a black coat either a black tie will be worn or a white tie; when the tie is of another color then there is disharmony.

The reason why the same quality is attracted is that like attracts like. Water attracts water, fire attracts fire; all elements attract their like, so every person attracts his like. A thief, wherever he goes, will find another thief; wherever a gambler goes he finds another gambler; wherever a drunkard goes he finds another man who drinks. And it is extraordinary that very often the first person these people will meet when they come to a town will be of their own kind; they attract each other unconsciously. If they are traveling they will be sitting in the same compartment, brought together by destiny. The wicked will be attracted by another wicked person, just at the meeting of a glance. They instantly become friends. But if a person is half-wicked he will not get along with the wicked one, although the wicked might get along with a good person because then he finds his opposite. The reason for the attraction of opposites is that the one lacks what the other has, and therefore one has power over the other.

Then there is the law of positive and negative forces. Where there are two people of positive nature there is always trouble, nor can two people of negative nature get along together. But the positive person can get along with someone who is negative, because the negative person needs what the positive one has. A talkative person is never happy with another talkative person; he wants someone who will listen to him.

Besides these laws there is an attraction of quality. There is a noble quality in every person, and there is a common quality. A noble quality is repulsed by commonness, and the common quality is irritated by the noble quality. It is such an amazing thing to see that someone of noble quality can be repulsed by a person of common quality. He gets irritated and cannot stand it, for the one quality cannot be compared with the other. It is the same with the quality of sincerity and that of insincerity. An insincere person is as antagonistic to a sincere person as a sincere person is to one who is insincere. The insincere cannot conceive of another being sincere; even if he saw it he could not believe it, because he does not know anything except insincerity.

Among Hindus there is a custom, a custom which still exists, that when a marriage is contemplated a Brahmin is consulted, a special priest, and he comes with his books of horoscopes. And after he has made his calculations he decides whether the marriage can take place or not. But in reality the drawing of the horoscopes is an excuse. He is a psychologist, and he considers the question whether the two who are to be married have the same qualities.

The Brahmins conceived of three qualities: Manusha, Deva, and Rakshasa, which means the human quality, the angelic quality, and the animal quality. The one left out was the devilish quality; may be they did not have it at that time! And then they saw if the two young people who were going to marry both belonged to Manusha, Deva, or Rakshasa; and if they found that for instance the girl was of the angelic quality and the man of the animal quality, then they thought, "It will never go right"; and they advised against the marriage. But if they thought that the man was of the human quality then they allowed it, because then there was only a difference of one degree, not of two degrees. The great and countless difficulties that are experienced today in marriage come from lack of consideration of these qualities. There is now a kind of false conception of equality; everyone says, "I am as good as you", but therefore there is no chance to be better.

I shall always remember an old man in India telling me, "The moment you think you are good, learned, wise, you close your heart's door to goodness, learning, and wisdom." The spirit of today is that a child begins to say, "I know what you do not know." There is no regard for the idea that another knows more, there is no appreciation of it. It is because something is missing in education; the children are not taught that way. What they are taught is self-pride, and even that is a false quality. True pride should be based upon a stronger foundation: the nobility of the soul. False pride must break one day or another. That is why the consideration of individuality seems to be lost.

A poet once said, "Lord, let me not live in a world where camphor, cotton, and bone are all considered white." Now our world is becoming more and more like that every day. If there is a distinction it is of money, of rank, of position, but not of human quality. The real distinction is not recognized; if there is any disparity it is what sort of house one lives in, what position one holds, or how much money one has in the bank. Therefore instead of evolving mankind is losing its opportunity.

The Meaning of Faith

Often people use the word "faith" in the sense of the particular religion they follow, whether they belong to the Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, or another religion. And in this way they obscure the real meaning of faith, which is light itself. Faith is not necessarily a belief, but faith is the culmination of belief. Belief is a conception, a conception which one has formed oneself or a conception of a certain idea arrived at by reading something. A person will hold this belief as long as his reason is not strong enough to root it out, or as long as he does not meet someone who will dig it out, or as long as he has not had an experience which entirely destroys it. How many does one see in the world around, counting spiritual words on their rosary, sitting in churches with eyes closed, worshipping every Sunday; and yet when someone who is more intellectual and whose reasoning is more powerful meets them he is able to change them completely. From being orthodox such a person has become a practical man, from a dreamer he has become. wide awake!

Steps of Belief

(1) No doubt one belief can be stronger than another. A sheeplike belief is a belief which everyone holds without admitting it. People think that they have a reason for believing that which they believe, but this is not always so. Often a person thinks that he has a reason for something, but he may be wrong. Religious questions apart, when one comes to political matters, a man may be raised up by one person's influence and the whole country follows him; he becomes the man of the day. Everyone follows him with his eyes shut. But then he may be despised by someone else and the crowd despises him too. That is crowd psychology. At the same time everyone says, "I am an intellectual. I always tell the truth for I know what I am speaking about." But is it so? It is not.

When I went to Russia I saw pictures of the Czar and the Czarina in every little shop. Do you think the people did not have a feeling of adherence to the Czar? Was it all hypocrisy? It could not have been. And what happened the next day? They broke the crowns in the street with hammers and carried them in their processions. Where had that belief gone, which one day was so great that they thought that the portrait of their Czar was sacred? Next day the belief was changed; it took no time. You may think, "This happened in Russia"; but you will see it in every country just by studying the psychology of the crowd.

Therefore wise people have never depended upon the praise of the crowd. They have always known that it was worth nothing. Buddha, with all the worship and praise given to him did not even look at it. He kept his work before his eyes, his service to humanity, and so did all the sages and prophets and seers and thinkers; they never believed in the praise of mankind, in its love and affection. What is it? The man who has not reached the realm of faith is not living; he does not yet know his mind. One day he believes something, the next he does not. Therefore faith is not only adherence to a certain religion or belonging to a certain church; faith is much greater than that.

(2) The next step on the path of belief is that one does not believe something because the crowd believes it, but because it comes from a certain authority. This is the child's belief, but at the same time this is the way one has to go. The child progresses when the mother says, "This is called water", and it repeats, "Water." It does not argue and say, "It is not water, it is bread." It just listens and believes, and that is the way it begins to learn.

(3) Then there is the third step, when the belief has a reason, when one says, "Why do I believe? Because I have a reason for it. I can explain my belief; therefore I believe it is such and such." This belief is more dependable. Yet, is reason always dependable? Reason sometimes proves to be so tricky that one day a person may reason out a certain thing, and the next day he has every reason to root out his belief. For is it not reason that makes the evildoer commit evil? No one does anything without reason. One day a person reasons how to do something, and after only a couple of hours he may discover that it was not a good reason.

(4) But there is a fourth belief, which alone can really be called belief, a belief which does not even depend upon reason, a belief which is a natural belief; one cannot help having it. Nothing can root it out, no argument, no reasoning, no study, no practice, nothing can take it away from one, for it is a natural belief. This is what faith is. A person who has not reached this belief is still on the way, and he cannot say that he has faith.

Faith is such a great virtue. Even in everyday life one cannot value enough a companion, a relative, a servant, or a friend who is faithful. There is no price for it, it is beyond price to have someone who is faithful, someone in whom one can have confidence, upon whom one can rely with closed eyes, of whom one can say that one is sure that he will never change his affection, his love, his kindness, his right feeling. If one has someone like this one should be most thankful, for it is more precious than any worldly treasure.

If I had to describe the meaning of faith I would say that faith means self-confidence. The secret of faith is that it can be used as a medicine and better than medicine, as wealth and greater than wealth; it can be religion and greater than religion, happiness and greater than happiness. For nothing can buy or sell faith. If there is anything that can be called the grace of God it is faith and selfconfidence. It is something one can neither teach nor develop; it must be in one, and it can only be strengthened by loving it, by enjoying it. It develops by itself. If a person comes to me and says, "I believe in you so much that I will believe anything you say; but I do not believe in myself", I will say, "Thank you, I will not believe in you either. You had better believe in yourself first; then I can depend upon you." What kind of belief is this? If a man does not believe in himself he will say one day, "I believe in you", and the next day, "I do not believe in you." Besides, faith is inspiring, faith causes a man to be brave, courageous, successful, and faith makes life wonderful.

Five Aspects of Faith

Faith can be observed in five different aspects: faith in one's impulses, faith in one's reason, faith in one's principle, faith in one's ideal, and faith in God.

(1) It is the mystical temperament that causes a person to have faith in his impulse. When a mystic thinks, "I must go to the North", he goes there. He does not ask himself why; he accepts the divine impulse, and he goes towards the North to meet whatever he may. If an impulse arises to do this business, to enter this profession, accomplish this or that, and a person does it there is something wonderful about it. Columbus is an example of this. He had the impulse to go and seek for India, and indeed he found a continent. The outer form of the impulse was wrong, but the inner right.

The mystics of all ages have believed in this. They cannot help it, it is the mystical temperament. If a thousand people say, "No, it is not right", they say, "Yes, it is right. I must do it." It is not necessary for everybody to become a mystic in order to have these impulses and listen to them. Listening to one's impulses is a question of temperament. There may be one man who has it, and another, perhaps a very intellectual man, thinks, "Is it right or wrong? Shall I do it or shall I not do it?" And the time passes and the chance is lost. Out of a hundred people only one will follow his impulse, and ninety-nine will wait to see if something is right or wrong, light or heavy.

(2) The second aspect is faith in reason. The success of great inventors such as Edison depends upon faith in reason. If they had not had this faith they would not have been able to create successfully, but by having it they made wonderful inventions.

(3) The third aspect of faith is faith in one's principle. Principle makes one strong, if only one has faith in it. There is a story of the young Prophet, who was taking care of the cows on a farm. When some young men of his own age came and said, "Mohammed, come along, we are going to town to have a good time!" Mohammed answered, "No, I will take care of your cows and you go and have a good time. I won't leave my cows.'

With this principle the Prophet began; and eventually the same principle made him what he was, so that thousands and millions of people for fourteen centuries have held the name of the Prophet as their strength and power.

(4) And then there is faith in the ideal. Those who had a high ideal for the welfare of their nation, of their race, of humanity, held their lives cheap. To give their life was nothing to them, their ideal was always greater. Not every man has faith in his ideal, but it gives great power and uplift, and raises a man from earth to heaven.

(5) Finally there is faith in God. People may say, "Is it not imagination to have faith in God?" But he who really has faith in God can work wonders. Someone said to a Brahmin, "How foolish, O Brahmin, to worship an idol, calling it God!" The Brahmin answered, "If you have no faith and you worship the God who is in heaven He will not hear you. But if I have faith I will make this God of stone speak to me."

A preacher once told his audience, "When you speak the Name of God with true faith you can walk on the waters." There was a farmer standing there who was very pleased to hear this. He went home pondering upon it. Next day he went to the preacher and said, "I could not understand all the dogmas and morals you preached, but one thing impressed me very much. Will you do me the great honor of having dinner with me?" The preacher accepted, and the farmer said that he would come to fetch him the next day. This the farmer did, and on their way they came to a river which they had to cross. So the preacher said, "Where is the boat?" The farmer said, "Boat? You taught me that if we pronounced the name of God we could walk on the water! Therefore I did not take my boat but walked on the water, as you said." The preacher was very much afraid that he would have to walk on the water too, for he had never tried this. He said, "Will you do it, please?" And the farmer did; but the preacher could not.

Such is the phenomenon of faith. We may say, "We have so much to do, so much to think about." But to have faith is beyond all this; it is something which words cannot explain, something which springs up from the heart and which elevates man, raising him from the earth to the sky.