In plain words
On time?’ he asked. ‘Sir, relying on the mantra you taught me, I walk here on time. Even the river makes way for me,’ she said. But he himself had no trust in the Name he had taught. The scholar grew doubtful. At once he came along with her. ‘I too will come with you today; we shall see how I cross,’ he said. She came to the river. She set the basket on her head. She closed her eyes. Saying to herself ‘Oṃ namo nārāyaṇāya’, ‘Oṃ namo nārāyaṇāya’, she walked across and reached the other bank. She had no doubt of any kind; without the least doubt she reached the other bank.
But when the scholar came to the river, thinking ‘I may fall into this’, he hitched up his dhoti, said ‘Oṃ namo nārāyaṇāya’ and jumped, and fell in. He was swept away. Did you see? So those who trust with faith, if they follow what the guru has told them, whatever the path, will surely reach the shore. But when the guru who taught it has no faith in it himself, he drowns. The atmosphere today is in just this state. ‘You can talk of a crore of things, they will not do one’: saying is easy, doing is hard, whether for the giver or for his grandfather. For anyone at all, it is only when what is said is done that it becomes meaningful. Today's influence, the modern influence, is extremely valuable. But in the students, and in education, faith is indeed abundant. But here and there some become doubters and sink. That is why: saṃśayātmā vinaśyati. If we give no room to doubt, make our trust firm on one word alone, and live relying on it, we can achieve anything at all.
In the drama he performed, too, the blind man went to Jesus and asked Him to give him eyes. Jesus too asked the same question. ‘Do you have faith that I can give? Do you have the trust that I can give you sight? If you have that trust, I will give. If you do not have that trust, I will not give,’ He said. ‘I have the trust,’ he said; at once He gave it.