Until recently, I thought of Hinduism as a religion centered mainly on rational thought; I thought of it primarily as a religion based on reason, focused on understanding the world around us through the four yogas — service, devotion, knowledge, and discipline. For the longest time, I wondered at the emphasis on miracles in other religions: the resurrection of Christ, the importance of divine revelation and God’s word in many Judeo-Christian traditions, and the emphasis on magic in many African traditional religions. Somehow, I couldn’t ever understand how practioners of other religions could rely so heavily on miracles—perhaps it was my inherent scientific side that questioned the validity of these miracles, or perhaps it was because within Hinduism, I was always more focused on inner character development than devotion to a specific God whose holiness was proven by the performance of miracles.
For that reason, I had never really realized the extent to which miracles are also prevalent in Hinduism – Sathya Sai Baba produces ash for skeptical onlookers as a symbol of his divinity, Sri Ramakrishna proved his divinity to Swami Vivekananda by touching him on the chest and thereby revealing the true nature of the universe to him, there are countless stories which chronicle the miracles of Sri Krishna, ranging from instances in his childhood in which his mother, Yashoda, saw the whole of creation in his mouth, to the revealing of his true nature to Arjuna during the Mahabharata.
The stories and references to miracles in Hinduism are countless, and after some thought, my slow realization is that perhaps these miracles are at the basis of faith. Without miracles, or some form of divine revelation, how can the ordinary person recognize divinity? To some extent, perhaps we believe in the divinity of Krishna because of his awe-inspiring ability to lift mountains with his pinky; perhaps young Narendranath wouldn’t have become the legendary Swami Vivekananda if Sri Ramakrishna hadn’t shown obvious signs of divinity; perhaps the millions of devotees of Sai Baba would still be devoid of faith if he neglected to prove his divinity.
So, it seems like there are two sides to the argument. On one hand, belief in miracles seems like blind faith, without any scientific evidence to back it up; for this reason, it seems to go against intuition, and raises endless questions in the skeptical mind – where does Sai Baba’s ash come from? What is the scientific basis of transferring a feeling of nirvana simply via touch? How could anyone contain the entire universe in his mouth? On the other hand, miracles give us a reason for faith, allowing us to believe in something that we might not otherwise recognize. Divine revelation can potentially form a basis for devotion, allowing skeptics to become devotees.
What are your views on miracles? Have miracles played any role in your religious life, whether through skepticism of their validity, or belief in them as a source of faith? Do you have a completely view on the purpose of miracles in religion?
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“On one hand, belief in miracles seems like blind faith, without any scientific evidence to back it up.”
I’ve held that view to varying degrees for most of my life. And at times I’ve struggled to reconcile that with my desire to increase the role that spirituality plays in my life. But your post made me think about this more deeply. Why is it that my default response (and I suspect, the default response of many others) is one of skepticism, when rational thought and scientific evidence often neither supports nor refutes these occurrences? Just because we cannot provide a mechanism for a proposed occurrence is not by itself evidence for or against that occurrence.
Another point is that we need not restrict our beliefs to the plausible. Just because a miracle may not be valid is no reason not to believe in it. Perhaps this belief stretches us in ways that improve us as a person.
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