Question: I feel that I am a child of God and I also feel, unfortunately, that I am a child of belief, tradition and all sorts of things. Is it possible to be free from all past beliefs and be absolutely one with God?

Sri Chinmoy: We tend to believe everything that we hear from our parents, from our friends, from the world around us. Let us think of having ‘faith’, which is a stronger word than ‘belief’. Faith deals with our strong inner convictions. George Bernard Shaw once said that we have not lost our faith in God, but we have transferred our faith to the doctors. This is often true. Very often people have more faith in doctors than in God; most of us have more faith in human beings than in God.

But you want to empty yourself of all the old beliefs, superstitions or unnecessary traditions that you have accumulated from your childhood. Yes, a child of God, a true child of God, can have total oneness with God consciously. You can be one with God without acting on the strength of the old beliefs which you cherished or are still cherishing.

Your mind can be totally emptied of old ideas, traditions and beliefs which you cherished or are still cherishing. These beliefs can be replaced by your soul’s spontaneous and constant assurance, and by your growing inner Light.

In human belief there is a mixture of doubt: fifty percent may be belief, fifty percent will be doubt; or one percent may be belief, and as much as ninety-nine percent may be doubt. But when you live in the soul and grow in the soul, you are illumined by the soul’s light, which embodies all inevitability and certainty. Not only will you get assurance from the soul, but also the soul’s inevitability, which is absolutely one with God’s dynamic Reality and God’s dynamic Vision.

Through sincere aspiration you can get rid of the mental beliefs or worldly beliefs that you have kept in your heart and mind. You can now have the soul’s spontaneous light, which expresses itself as inevitability or immediate assurance. This comes only from the soul and through the soul. And this oneness and instantaneous expression, which is full of light, can be established in your mind and heart. The so-called worldly beliefs you can discard as you discard old clothes. It is possible and it is inevitable; in fact, it is necessary for God-realisation. Otherwise, your old beliefs will come in the form of society’s dictates or in the form of traditional morality to hamper your spiritual progress.

We have to go beyond beliefs, all beliefs. We have to be in direct constant oneness with God, with the highest Reality. Reality is expressed through the soul, and if we can live in the soul constantly, we can express that highest Reality. At that time belief has no place in our lives.