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Understanding Faith and Its Role in Spiritual Development · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  There's a long history of debate about what we believe and how we
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  know what we know. Science and religion have
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  historically taken opposite positions in this debate.
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  Science takes the view that the mind must be able to ascertain
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  objective facts and draw conclusions based on them.
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  This includes potentially developing hypotheses and
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  testing them, discarding or modifying those that do not bear
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  themselves out in the test. Science is therefore most
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  comfortable with phenomena that are observable, or at least
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  measurable as to their existence, their result, and
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  their uses. They may not be able to see
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  electricity, but they can validate its effects, channel
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  it, and measure it. This approach limits, however,
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  the ability of science to deal with deeper significance or
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  first causes, or the purpose of our existence, as these quickly
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  devolve into indistinct and somewhat contradictory
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  assertions which science has been unable to prove.
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  It is thus eventually left either in a state of agnosticism
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  or in an appeal to faith at some ultimate level.
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  Religion, on the other hand, has taken its stance in the field of
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  what is called faith. Faith has been generally
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  dismissed by science as not being subject to proof.
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  This leaves a wide field for claims to be made, many of which
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  can be demonstrated to simply be inaccurate.
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  For instance, it was a doctrine of faith in the Western world
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  for many centuries that the sun revolved around the earth.
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  When scientists began to assert facts and proofs that concluded
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  that the earth actually was not the center of the universe but
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  itself rotated around the sun, they were ostracized, penalized,
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  tortured, and made to retract their facts to preserve what we
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  now know was an entirely misplaced application of faith.
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  There is a role for faith, just as there is a role for the
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  mind's action in its search for truth through the mental powers.
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  Once we recognize that the mind has its own limitations and that
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  knowledge is progressive, we can begin to accept that there are
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  forms of knowledge which rely on senses, intuitions and methods
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  which are not based in the mental activity, and which thus
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  rise up within us in such a way that we call it faith.
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  Faith in its deepest sense is not faith in a particular
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  doctrine, teaching, book, teacher, or modality.
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  Rather, it is the deepest sense of the soul identity, espousing
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  and expressing its innate, deeper knowledge through its
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  connection with the divine and the divine reality.
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  Once we understand that faith is not the same as dogma and that
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  we need not suppress, torture or be fearful of the mind's
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  approach to knowledge, we can find the harmonious interplay of
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  both aspects of our being. Whereby faith brings us to a
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  knowledge that lies outside the mental range at present, and the
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  mind works to consolidate and organize this knowledge as it
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  becomes available to us. We take an article of faith and
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  focus intensely on it until it reveals its deepest secrets to
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  us. What starts out as faith may
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  indeed turn into fact over time. This is particularly true when
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  the soul awakens to the deeper realities of existence and
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  begins to understand things that the mind cannot define with its
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  narrow and limited capabilities, Triorobindo notes quote.
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  Faith is the soul's witness to something not yet manifested,
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  achieved, or realized, but which yet the knower within us, even
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  in the absence of all indications, feels to be true or
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  supremely worth following or achieving.
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  This thing within us can last even when there is no fixed
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  belief in the mind, even when the vital struggles and revolts
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  and refuses. Who is there that practices the
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  yoga and has not his periods, long periods of disappointment
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  and failure and disbelief and darkness.
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  But there is something that sustains him and even goes on in
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  spite of himself, because it feels that what it followed
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  after was yet true, and it more than feels it knows The
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  fundamental faith in yoga. Is this inherent in the soul,
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  that the divine exists and the Divine is the one thing to be
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  followed after? Nothing else in life is worth
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  having in comparison with that. So long as a man has that faith,
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  he is marked for the spiritual life.
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  And I will say that even if his nature is full of obstacles and
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  crammed with denials and difficulties, and even if he has
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  many years of struggle, he is marked out for success in the
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  spiritual life. It is this faith that you need
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  to develop, a faith which is in accordance with reason and
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  common sense, that if the Divine exists and has called you to the
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  path, as is evident, then there must be a Divine guidance behind
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  and through and in spite of all difficulties.
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  You will arrive not to listen to the hostile voices that suggest
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  failure, or to the voices of impatient vital haste that echo
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  them. Not to believe that because
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  great difficulties are there, there can be no success, or that
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  because the Divine has not yet shown himself, he will never
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  show himself but to take the position that everyone takes
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  when he fixes his mind on a great and difficult goal.
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  I will go on till I succeed, all difficulties notwithstanding, to
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  which the belief in the Divine adds the Divine exists.
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  My following after the Divine cannot fail.
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  I will go on through everything till I find Him.
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  End Quote. Reference.
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  Srioro Bindu and the Mother looking from within.
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  Chapter 5. Attitudes on the Path, pages 128
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  to 129.