Q: Sweet Mother, I don’t understand very clearly the difference between faith, belief and confidence?
A: The Mother: But Sri Aurobindo has given the full explanation here. He has written “Faith is a feeling in the whole being”
The whole being yes. Faith, that’s the whole being at once. He says that belief is something that occurs in the head, that is purely mental; and confidence is quite different. Confidence- one can have confidence in life, trust in the Divine, trust in others, trust in one’s own destiny, that is, one has the feeling that everything is going to help him, to do what he wants to do.
Faith is a certitude without any proof.
Q: Mother, on what does faith depend?
A: The Mother: Probably on Divine Grace. Some people have it spontaneously. There are others who need to make a great effort to have it.
Q: If one has faith in the Divine and also trust, what is the difference between faith and trust?
A: The Mother: Faith is something much more integral - that is what Sri Aurobindo has written- much more integral than trust. You see, you have trust in the Divine, in the sense that you are convinced that all that comes from Him will always be the best for you: whatever His decision and whatever the experience He sends you or the circumstances in which He puts you, it will all be always what is best for you. This is trust. But faith – that kind of unshakable certitude in the very existence of God- faith in something that seizes the whole being. It is not only mental, psychic or vital: it is the whole being, entirely, which has faith. Faith leads straight to experience.
(‘CWM- Volume 6’, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust 1979, published by Sri Aurobindo Ashram)
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