When I was sixteen, I purchased an aged broken-down pickup. It cost my entire summer earnings, but if I could make it run, it would be freedom beyond imagining.

I had a socket set, a torque wrench, and a willing spirit. I just needed guidance. So I turned to the Good Book. I turned to the Haynes manual.  

Haynes was the alpha and omega of automotive repair. It didn’t matter what you were driving. Find the Haynes manual for your vehicle and its pages would reveal the secrets of every valve, seal, and gasket. It made even the poorest mechanic a master. 

I set to work by night and lamplight. Wrenches slipped, bolts sheared, knuckles rasped, and blood dripped and swirled in plastic buckets of spent oil and brake fluid. Days passed and Haynes grew more stained and dogeared.

Many times I doubted. Perhaps I wouldn’t put all the springs and nuts and washers back in place and I’d be left with nothing. Money gone, summer gone, youth gone, and a hollow husk testifying to my hubris.

But I trusted Haynes. I knew its wisdom. And after many evenings of joy and despair, my truck rumbled to life with a new clutch, brake cylinders, hydraulic lines, machined drums, alternator, radiator, and greased differential and bearings. 

I trusted Haynes, you see, as I trusted my spiritual teacher. Both delivered directions that produced results. Adherence to my guru’s teachings had taken me into samadhi, the greatest of yogic experiences, and this gave me confidence to continue. 

It never occurred to me that this might represent faith. As Bob Marley said, Oh, brothers, you should know and not believe. Knowing made sense, believing without proof did not.

Then I mentioned meditation and spirituality to an old friend last week and he remarked that I had found faith. Bob Marley in me grimaced. 

But I looked closer, and I realized my friend was right. It simply wasn’t the blind faith of religious conviction. It was the faith of Haynes.   

As Haynes had proved to me its wisdom in gears, grease, and drive shafts, so had the instructions of my guru—and the great mystics Jesus, Patanjali, and Siddhartha Gautama—proved to me the way to supreme Knowing. Like Haynes, they had delivered me the product that they promised, and that made me trust them going forward. 

So yes, I have found faith, and I think Bob would approve. 

 © James Andrew Grove