It can be noted from most of the previous posts that have been published on this site that the idea of blindly following an idea isn’t necessarily the best way to practice religion.
However, if you think about it, weren’t we all blindly following the religion that our family passed onto us when we were younger? Only after some time did we begin to question certain aspects of our religion. For example, until I was a teenager, I said my daily prayers as well as prayed to Ganesh without even knowing what exactly I was saying in the prayers. Only after I asked about the prayers and their meanings did I find out that we prayed to Ganesh in the morning to help eliminate the obstacles we may encounter during the day.
If I was introduced to a new concept in Hinduism today, I would first question it and would only start practicing it once I fully believed that it would be helpful to me. That would be the ideal situation. However, this only works if we go in with a neutral mindset — if we start with the intention of disproving something, the negativity will prevent us from gaining anything positive from our questioning. There is a fine line between being open and questioning concepts and simply challenging them to try to invalidate the concept. At times, one may think that one is simply questioning the concept when in reality, he or she has already made up his or her mind that the concept is not valid.
Unfortunately, I have found that often, I do exactly that. So far, the only ‘cure’ to this negative questioning that I can think of is to have a little bit of blind faith initially, so that I can test new concepts and make a fair and balanced decision as to whether or not I should practice and follow certain concepts.
Should we never have blind faith? Or do we actually need a little blind faith to help us move forward?
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