And the third thing is self-confidence – that is very important. And Sri Ramakrishna mentions it in several ways. The individual self-confidence – can you do it? The Guru says “you can do it, I know. You continue my instructions.” You go home ask the same question yourself – can I do it? The answer should be “why not? I can.” That is self-confidence – “I can do it. If all the others have done what is special about me that I can’t? I can.”
So that is what the Vedanta calls faith in yourself. Faith in God and faith in yourself are synonymous to us, they are not separate. So whenever we say “have faith in God” then immediately people turn to the religions that have insisted on faith. Faith, faith – otherwise you are lost. No the Vadanta says “Faith in God is Faith in yourself.” What do you do sit and ask “are you such a weakling? are you a sinner? or you deserve that? that you have to be lost.
No, you are Divine and you have to manifest. You have to think repeatedly of the Divinity in you. Then the Divinity manifests. Can’t you do it? Is it so difficult to think for a while, during the day, of the Lord in the heart? It’s not difficult! You can do it. So this is initial self-confidence. Now there is a way the Buddhist monks explain the fact of complete obedience to the Guru. It’s very interesting.
The story is that there were four monks in a monastery. Young monks. And the Guru had told them to repeat just one simple name of the Lord. And said that is enough, don’t add or subtract anything. Just do what I have told you and you will progress. Now after a time they saw many people coming to the Guru giving him presents and all that and not caring for the disciples. And they had been living with him like monastics.
So one of them who was smart said to the others “look here, you know why these people who come don’t care for us so much and why they always go to the teacher? We are also progressing spiritually. They should recognize us also to that extent, you know. You must do something that these people can see, then they will respect you. What shall we do? We can’t do anything you know. Very, very difficult.”
Then this man proposed “let us keep silence for a while, absolutely no talking and we will sit right in front here at the front door on the porch as people come they will wish us. No talk and they will again come tomorrow, they will see we are silent – that will do the trick. They will also respect us for keeping perfect silence. It’s a wonderful control. So they did not tell the Guru, all the four sat and then they started the silence by common consent at six a.m in the morning.
Then it was evening and it was becoming dark. And so as people came in, they went into the Master’s room. They didn’t see these people sitting outside and so one of them could not hold on any longer. So he said “say look here, I am not talking in the sense of talking but I say can’t you put a candle somewhere here you know burn a light?
People can’t see us sitting here. Then the second one said after five minutes, you know, he was a little stronger probably, he said “look here you have broken the vow of silence you have talked.” Then they both kept quiet. Then the third one was a little stronger than them, then he thought so and he said “you both are stupid, you have talked and then we have also lost everything. All that we wanted to do to attract people is lost” and so he also talked the third one.