श्रद्धा

Shraddha means the inner trust by which a person turns towards a form, a deity or a path. The Gita uses the word in several places. In the seventh chapter the Lord says that whatever form a devotee wishes to worship with faith, he makes that faith steady in that very form (Gita 7.21). Faith, in his eyes, is real enough to be strengthened.

In the seventeenth chapter the word becomes a way of knowing the person: a person is made of faith, and whatever the faith is, that is the person (Gita 17.3). Where faith turns, worship follows, and what is worshipped is what is reached (Gita 9.25).

Common misreading: that shraddha means believing without thinking.

Better sense: it is the settledness of mind that decides what we worship and what that makes of us. That is why the Gita speaks of steadying it and of giving it the right direction.

The whole topic is in What We Worship, We Become.