Chapter 4.V-40. The ignorant, the person who lacks devotion,
the doubt-ridden: all these must perish. The man of vacillating
temperament finds no happiness in this world or the next. For him, supreme
bliss is not possible.
[Editor’s note:] There are two kinds of doubt: constructive and
destructive. Constructive doubt wants to know the truth and is open to it but is yet unsure or unconvinced.
Destructive doubt, by contrast, is not the kind of doubt that has no interest in pursuing the inquiry any further.
Rather, destructive doubt is his who wants the truth but is fearful of
being betrayed, made a fool, or proven wrong. Ego-protectiveness renders such a
truth-seeker impotent and paralyzed.
Here is what Swami Kriyananda writes about such a doubter in his magnum opus, Essence of the Bhagavad Gita:
Here is what Swami Kriyananda writes about such a doubter in his magnum opus, Essence of the Bhagavad Gita:
“The worst case, however, is that of the confirmed doubter. He
has all the intellectual equipment he needs to rise to the heights, yet his
compulsion is to keep listing all the shortcomings, the drawbacks, and the
mischief by which others might try to undo him. He has the devotion, and the
desire to rise to the heights, yet a cynical inner voice keeps whispering in
his subconscious, what will the end be treachery? lack of appreciation?
opposition? ingratitude?
Paramhansa Yogananda once commented, “The doubter is the most
miserable of mortals.” He was referring, not to constructive questioning, but
to the nagging tendency to oppose every constructive idea, to prejudge it for
no real reason at all, and to be disposed to reject everything wholesome or
constructive. It can’t be right, therefore, it isn’t right! It can’t work
therefore no matter what happens, it can’t really work even if it seems to be
doing so. People can’t know what they’re doing, therefore, they must be wrong!
To doubt a true teacher [or teaching], especially if one is his
disciple [or simply seeking] owing to arrogance or simply to a habit of mental
rejection causes seething turmoil in the mind. One assumes dejectedly that
whatever the guru [teaching] says must automatically be wrong: not because it
has been proved wrong, nor even because one wants to disbelieve a conclusion
that may simply be inconvenient, and not because one doubts the guru’s motives.
. . . The doubter deeply desires something true in life, but cannot accept what
he finds. A strange twist of mind rejects, not out of disinterest, but rather
out of intense interest. His doubt is born of almost a fear of finding himself
deluded in the end, when he wanted so much to be certain.
Were he indifferent, his condition might be better at least in
the sense that he’d then be able to direct his interest elsewhere. The tragedy,
for him, is that he desires his whole being yearns for the very truths which
subconscious habit impels him to reject. That habit proposes no acceptable
alternative. It simply shakes its head and says, No. The truths he wants so his
habit tells him cannot possibly exist. The habit gives no reason. Darkly,
instead, it poses the dire warning, What if . . . ?
What if all this should prove, in the end, to be chicanery? What
if my guru’s [teachers’] motives be not so generous as they seem, and all he [they]
really wants is somehow to squeeze others for his own benefit? Such doubts
quickly develop a life of their own, and create for themselves an alternate
universe: What if everything!? Ones will power becomes paralyzed; hope withers
away, and becomes in time a dry twig. The sweetness of friendship is soured by
suspicion.
For all the above reasons it may be justly said that the doubter
is indeed the most miserable of mortals.
Finally, the man of vacillating temperament can never accomplish
anything worthwhile. He will never commit himself to anything. He has no
loyalties. He drifts through life as his whims waft him, settling on no truth,
and forever uncertain of anything.
The determinedly ignorant person can only be left alone to his
own plodding rhythms. Eventually, he will emerge from his self-woven cocoon:
when he has suffered enough, and when, through suffering, he begins to care
and, in the caring, to make the first, faltering attempts to develop his own
latent abilities. Then he will emerge from his self-confinement.
The apathetic may at least be aware that there are clouds of
unknowing to be blown away. Although they’ve imagined that life has nothing
more to offer them, when their dreams of passive contentment or resignation
fade, they begin to look around anxiously for viable answers.
It is the doubter, alas, who suffers the most. His thinking
processes, despite his longing to be good and to do right, become paralyzed. He
yearns to find something on which he can fix as his ideal, but then tells
himself that, for one reason or another, that ideal cannot exist. His tragedy
is that he yearns for bliss, but finds bliss denied him by a compulsion in his
nature that he can’t understand. How can he overcome this self-damning
tendency?
He must tell himself, There is no road back. I have no choice
but to go forward, even if it means only trudging heavily, one slow step at a
time. He can expiate his karma by helping others to resolve their doubts. He
can concentrate on his own yearning for truth, until the very yearning pulls
him out of the dense fogs of doubt into the sunlight of a faith all the more
certain because it has rejected gloomy speculation as a waste of time and
energy. Helping others to resolve their doubts and uncertainties becomes, for
him, a way of affirming his own solution-orientation. For him at last, supreme
bliss becomes the only possible solution to every problem and difficulty in
life!”
[editor’s postscript] Swami Kriyananda was told by his guru, Paramhansa
Yogananda, that in past lives he (Swamiji) was eaten up with doubts and that it was part of his karma to help others overcome their doubts. Thus Swamiji’s karma
was to teach. As he said of himself, “I’ve probably had every doubt anyone
could have so I am well placed to help others.”
Our western society, oriented as we are to the rational,
reasoning mind, the consequence of which is to render intuition and heart
knowledge hidden from conscious view, inclines toward skepticism and doubt particularly as to non-material statements and realities. Thus it is not uncommon for many,
otherwise sincere and intelligent seekers, to remain on the sidelines of religion
and spirituality, and, indeed, many other worthwhile causes, for fear of being
wrong or disappointed and for lacking an inner intuitive sense of what is right for them to do.
All outward activities in a world of duality necessarily contain
both good and not so good; truth and untruth. Just as each of us is a mixture
of positive and negative qualities. The “Hamlet complex” (“Shall I, shan’t I?”)
is easily found in a culture where comfort and material gain are constantly
upheld as the summum bonum of life.
Swami Kriyananda urged us to take action (in the spirit of
Krishna’s counsel in the Bhagavad Gita) saying “Doing something is better than
doing nothing.” Even more useful, he explained that “action is clarifying.”
While mental pondering leaves you stuck, taking some, even but tentative action, by contrast, helps you see and feel the consequences and to determine kinesthetically whether further efforts in
that direction are warranted. Perfection in world of duality can never be achieved outwardly in form or in action, only in intention and consciousness.
If therefore you are, by habit, indecisive, or even temporarily
so, take some tentative steps in the direction that seems best (or right in
front of you). By your action, you will see and feel more clearly the results
and the inner guidance as to the next step.
May the Force be with you!
Swami Hrimananda
