There is a very thin line between faith and blind faith. Faith is something which is in built, faith is due to repeated success which occurs by doing one thing again and again. Faith is the positive state of mind which brings results of your desire. When the result of your desire is a reward it is due to your faith and when it is a punishment it is due to your luck. So to change abruptly from faith to Luck we humans are worst than chameleons.

The one thing which I tell all my patients as a spine surgeon is that’s it’s only faith which heals you. 80% of my results occur in my consulting chamber and the remaining 20% in the technical operating room. Faith is when a 20year old mother hands over her 1year old son with congenital spinal anomalies in my hands to take care of him. Faith is when a family brings a 80 year old mother who has not walked since last 6 months with some flickering toes and a belief that some of the members of their family whom I have treated in the past and are performing all their duties normally now. Faith is when I play with my 3 year old and throw her in the air and she is laughing out her heart as she knows that papa will hold her back. Faith is when I’m driving at night and my family is peacefully sleeping in the car. Faith is when I’m flying in a plane or travelling in a train and never go and see who the pilot or driver is. This is faith which is built up over time with positive fruitful results. As a surgeon/ pilot/ driver the faith was built with technical success over the years with rewarding results. This was further supported by scientific knowledge, education and wisdom of experience.

AndhVISHWAS or Blind Faith is something which is so endearing to a individual that it can provoke that person to perform anything irrespective of the consequences. Whether it is right or wrong is immaterial once a person is engrossed in blind faith. Recently, after performing a successful 6 hours long Scoliosis surgery on a 17 year old boy, which required 22 screws and a 1-2% risk of complete permanent or partial neurological deficit, when I went in the recovery room I saw picture of Asaram Bapu on the pillow. When I asked who kept the picture there, the mother told me that it is because of Baba that the surgery went very well. When I further poked why didn’t Baba cured him well in the last 6-7 years since he was having this progressive deformity which was finally becoming disabling. The prompt reply was that it is due to Baba’s blessing that he was destined to get operated today and everything have gone well because of him. I was zapped and forced myself out of the room; as a crook who is convicted because of rape charges and is behind bars in Indian jails is still praised by the followers due to blind faith. On similar grounds few months ago I saw a 27 year old woman, mother of two kids, travelling from the interiors of Madhya Pradesh was brought on a stretcher with severe branding rod marks on her back. The marks were of hot iron rods which were placed on her back by a Baba to get the disease ( Dayan) out of her body. After thorough investigation the girl was diagnosed with tuberculosis of spine, which post surgery was completely healed. When I encountered the family in one of her follow-ups, I was told that the patient suffered with the disease due to her evil doings in her past life. Now this is AndhVISHWAS, a faith which doesn’t have a scientific basis. A faith which puts fear in opposite persons mind so that once they are frightened it’s very easy to rule them. This belief due to fear would force an individual to go to any extreme as desired by the proposer.

When faith turns into blind faith disaster is caused. This disaster is harmful not only to the person involved but to the family, society and country at large. Any object, belief, activity, which creates this kind of fearful environment to control the individual should be monitored and controlled before it becomes notorious and malignant.