The Bhagavad Gita by Eknath Easwaran

╭ introduction
ogous to the body’s organ systems, that is one aspect of shraddha;
he is referring to the power to heal or harm that is inherent
in our ideas of ourselves. One person with a serious illness
believes he has a contribution to make to the world and
so he recovers; another believes his life is worthless and he
dies: that is the power of shraddha. Similarly, self-image is
part of shraddha. One person believes she will succeed in life
and overcomes great obstacles; another, who believes she can
do nothing, may be more gifted and face fewer difficulties but
accomplish very little.
Yet shraddha is not brute determination or wishful thinking.
When St. John of the Cross says “We live in what we love,”
he is explaining shraddha. This is our world. Our lives are an
eloquent expression of our belief: what we deem worth having,
doing, attaining, being. What we strive for shows what
we value; we back our shraddha with our time, our energy,
our very lives.
Thus shraddha determines destiny. As the Buddha puts it,
“All that we are is the result of what we have thought. We are
made of our thoughts; we are molded by our thoughts.” As we
think, so we become. This is true not only of individuals but
of societies, institutions, and civilizations, according to the
dominant ideas that shape their actions. Faith in technology,
for example, is part of the shraddha of modern civilization.
“Right shraddha,” according to the Gita, is faith in spiritual
laws: in the unity of life, the presence of divinity in every
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