Faith (Yakeen) and Doubt (Waswasa)

Faith (Yakeen) and Doubt (Waswasa)

In Islam as well as Sufism, faith forms the basis of every step that a person takes to reach God, to identify God, to love God, to respect God and understand God's existence. Whenever a candidate approaches a dervish or peer or buzurg for becoming his disciple, usually the buzurg asks the mureed to make an informed decision, observe the buzurg that he is behaving according to shariah, sunnah etc, also to take his time in knowing the principles of that spiritual silsila/tareeka,

When the disciple enters the domain of discipleship under the counsel of his Peer, the amount of love (ishq) that the disciple holds in his heart for the Peer is directly proportional to the amount of faith that a disciple has in his Peer.  

In the heart, only one thing can reside; either faith or doubt, not both.

What is Faith?

Faith is a belief that a disciple holds for his Peer. Its a belief that the Peer is capable of doing achieving anything through his prayers to God. Faith can move mountains as well as shake the Earth.

It was the faith of Hazrat Ali R.A in God and Hazrat Muhammad SAW that the Gate of Khyber was lifted up and thrown aside by him (R.A).

Why is faith important? 

One should have faith in God and thats it, right? Logically whenever a person starts any journey, he has faith he will reach his destination. He makes ways to reach his destination but having faith gives him hope,keeps him positive, motivates him to keep going forward. The disciple should have faith in his Peer that the peer will guide him through thick and thin, empower him with instruments of success, pray for him and show him his weaknesses so he improves his personality, stature and thinking. 

There are many disciples who doubt their Peer. They doubt the order he gives, they doubt his words, doubt his intentions, doubt his abilities, doubt his spiritual status and doubt the ways and means through which he performs actions. Doubt (Waswasa) is an effective weapon used by satan to derail a disciple from the path intended for him by his peer. A teacher/peer/Murshid knows the disciple inside out, he knows what the disciple needs since he is guiding the disciple. But when doubt starts to sink in, things start to go wrong. Doubting causes self damage.  

The Peer obviously knows whats going through the disciple's mind. The peer has been blessed with the schematics and system of acquiring such know-how before he was made Peer. Even then the Peer loves his disciple and guides him without any prejudice. The Peer knows that the disciple is damaging himself by by doubting the Peer, a 50/50 mind set is a confused mind set. Either go in 100% or dont go at all. Its like wasting own time. The Peer wouldn't mind if the disciple decides to leave the silsila by cancelling the ba'it. That's one less mureed to worry about for the Peer. Most people in live like this with half mindset accepting the Peer and half mind doubting him. 

People do the same with God; accepting what they find easy and ignoring what they think is difficult to obey and adapt.    

Those disciples who don't doubt their Peer,their sisila, the closeness/affiliation of the Peer with God... those disciples have clean heart and clean mind. They start to get blessed by the Peer. God Himself wants those disciples to get blessed since they don't give in to Satan and his network of doubts. These disciples then attain spiritual blessings, their everyday life starts to become easy and their matters start to get solved. 

A Peer is farsighted, He is capable of foreseeing much farther than an average person. 

A few types of Doubts(waswasas) are explained below

SCENARIO 1

When disciples come to him and show their interest in acquiring a job or wealth or property or anything that they have set their upon, the Peer may ask them to do otherwise or tell them to do something else instead. The Peer could tell them to avoid this idea and concentrate on something else. Thats when the doubt starts to sink in:

1. Maybe the Peer is incapable of doing such and such thats why he is asking to divert. 

2. Maybe the Peer doesnt want me to do excel.

3. Maybe the Peer doesnt have enough knowledge and doesn't understand that how modern or useful or financially viable such and such thing is for me instead he is asking me to do something else.

4. Maybe the Peer wants it for himself and is diverting me towards something else

5. The Peer is not as educated as I am, what would he know.

SCENARIO 2

There are lots of trials, tests and tribulations in spirituality and sufism. Testing is a way of blessing with spiritual power or worldly gain like a job. When the Peer tests a disciple by telling him to do certain thing or complete a task,the disciple is expected to act on it without having any doubts or second thoughts, juts like military when an order is given.The task may not make sense to the disciple but on the basis of faith he must carry it out.This is a way of testing faith also.

The task maybe as simple Peer asking disciple to meet him everyday for next 7 days, a very simple thing. But since it could be a test, the disciple will get busy the 3rd day, work will come in the way, his child or parent will get sick or he will get sick and would not be able to meet the Peer. The disciple will consider himself justified but this is where faith comes in. A small test was sent on him on the 3rd day and he simply gave in. He did not think for even a second that he agreed to follow an order. Maybe the Peer wanted to bless him by meeting him everyday at certain time. Maybe some pious spirit told the Peer that tell your disciple to come and meet you everyday for 7 days and then he will get blessed with such and such thing, spiritual or worldly. 

If the disciple has faith, he will not care if he gets sick, if work comes in the way etc, he will ensure that he manages everything and makes effort to meet his Peer. After all, if he gets sick or a problem comes in the job, it will be the Peer who will be praying for him to God at the end of the day.

This is what happens to many muslims in offering salah, reciting koran, giving time to God. Something comes up and God is given secondary importance .  

SCENARIO 3

When the disciple starts to rise in worldly life (career, studies, business etc) through the prayers of his Peer, he starts to think that he is rising up in the ranks due to his capabilities, knowledge and intelligence. He forgets that before meeting the Peer, he was jobless, his business was in tatters or he used to fail in subjects or get low grades as a student. 

Credit has to be given where due. 

Humility and humbleness goes a long way but it has to come from the heart. Its the Peer who stays up all night praying for the disciple's job, health, family, security, forgiveness, money, food etc, while the disciple sleeps at night and gets everything in the morning.

The disciple starts giving credit to own self, he may also start dwelling in arrogance. True that he put in the effort and did hard work, but a mason also works hard lifting bricks all day and cementing them, he doesnt make enough money than a person who may work less and put in less effort than the mason. 

There has to be Faith; that my Peer is capable of making impossible into possible. People used to flock to sufi saints like Harzat Baba Fareedudin Masood Ganjshakar R.A to ask for children, wealth, status etc, because they knew he is closer to God than them. He R.A is beloved of God.And the esteemed Baba Fareed R.A would bow his head and shed tears in front of God and God would accept his prayer and people would get what they want. 

If the Disciple has doubts in his head, he will never get blessed. Doubts will confuse him, keep him restless, make him negative and hopeless. Even if God wants to bless that disciple through his Peer's prayers, that disciple's heart and mind will be filled with doubt and he will not be able to understand whats God intends for him. Peer is just a medium being a beloved of God. Peer has done the duty of ensuring that God agrees to bless his disciple but now the onus is on the faith of disciple.

"Faith and Doubts" is a massive topic in sufism and spirituality, I will make new episodes on this and post them from time and time since i need to cover other topics also.