Osho on Trust
THE FIRST QUESTION:
WHY DOESN’T TRUST ARISE OUT OF THE DECISION TO TRUST?
TRUST IS NOT A DECISION ON YOUR PART. You cannot decide for it. When you are finished with doubting, when you have come to see doubt through and through and you are completely convinced of the futility of the doubt, trust arises. You have to deal with the doubt, you are not to do anything about trust. Your trust will not be of much importance because your trust, your decision, will always be against doubt. And trust is not contrary to doubt; trust is simply the absence of doubt. When doubt is not, trust is.
Trust is not the opposite, remember. Notwithstanding what the dictionaries say, trust is not opposite to doubt, just as darkness is not opposite to light. It appears opposite, but it is not — because you cannot destroy light by bringing darkness in. You cannot bring darkness in. There is no way to destroy light by throwing darkness on it. Darkness has never been able to destroy the small flame of a very small candle. The whole darkness of the existence is impotent before a small candle. Why is it so? If darkness is opposite, inimical, antagonistic, then it should be capable sometimes of defeating light. It is sheer absence. Darkness is because light is not. When light is, darkness is not. When you put a light on in your room, have you watched what happens? Darkness does not go out of the room; it is not that darkness escapes out of the room. It is found simply not to be there. It never was — it is pure negativity.
Doubt is like darkness, trust is like light. If you have doubt, then you will decide for trust. Otherwise there is no need to decide for trust. Why decide for it? You must be having tremendous doubt. The greater the doubt, the greater the need is felt to create trust. So whenever somebody says, “I trust very strongly,” remember that he is fighting against a very strong doubt. That’s how people become fanatics. The fanaticism is born because they have created a false trust. Their doubt is alive, their doubt is not finished. The doubt has not disappeared, the doubt is there. And to fight with the doubt they have created a trust against it. If the doubt is very strong, they have to cling fanatically to their trust.
Whenever somebody says that, “I am a staunch believer,” remember, deep down in his heart he is carrying disbelief. Otherwise, there is no need to be a strong believer. Simple trust is enough — why strong? When you say to somebody, “I love you VERY strongly,” something is wrong. Love is enough. Love is not a quantity. When somebody says, “I love you very much,” something is wrong, because love is not a quantity. You cannot love less and more. Either you love or you don’t love. The division is very clear-cut. Just a few days ago a new book had come, and the first copy I always give to Vivek. I wrote ‘With love to Vivek’. She told me, “Why not MUCH LOVE?” I said, “That is impossible. I cannot write that” — because to me, more or less is not possible. I can simply write ‘love’; ‘much love’ is absurd. Quantity is not a question, but simple quality. When you say ‘much’, you must be hiding something behind that ‘much’; something of hatred, something of anger, something of jealousy, but something which is not love. To hide that, you have to show your over-enthusiasm, what you call ‘gung-ho’: MUCH love, STRONG trust, STAUNCH belief. Whenever you are too much of a Christian, you are not a Christian at all. If you are too much of a Hindu, you have not understood at all.
Just the other night a young girl was saying to me that she was afraid. She wants to take SANNYAS but she is afraid, “Because it will be putting Christ as number two; you will become the first.” She was very puzzled. “It will be putting Christ behind you,” she told me. I told her, “Just look into my eyes. If you really love Christ then you will find Christ in me. You will not find two persons. But if you are a Christian, then it is difficult. Then forget all about SANNYAS.” One who loves Christ can love me; there is no conflict. One who loves Krishna can love me; there is no conflict. But if one is a Hindu, one is a Mohammedan, one is a Christian, then it is difficult. A Christian is not a lover of Christ. To be a Christian is a decision on your part; doubt has not disappeared, doubt has been repressed.
Don’t repress doubt. Rather, just on the contrary, watch, look deeply into it, analyze it. Don’t leave any part of it unanalyzed, unknown. Become acquainted with all the layers of the doubting mind. That very acquaintance, the penetration into doubt, will dissolve doubt. One day suddenly you will awake one morning full of trust — not as your decision. It cannot be a decision because trust is something you are born with; doubt is a learned thing. Trust is tacit, inborn. Every child trusts. As he grows, doubt arises. Doubt is learned. So trust is there always as an undercurrent in your being. You just drop doubt, trust will arise. And then trust has a tremendous beauty because it is pure. It is not against doubt, it is simply absence of doubt. The rock has been removed and the stream has come bubbling up, flowing.
So please, don’t try to make a decision about it. Your decision will be a delay; and the more you decide, the more you will find, deep inside, the worm of doubt increasing. Then you will be divided in two and you will never be at ease, and there will be continuous agony. So many people believe in God, and deep down is doubt — throbbing, alive, waiting for its opportunity to destroy the trust. And the trust is bogus because the trust is on the periphery, and the doubt has reached almost to the very core of your being. Never decide about love, about trust, about God. These things are not your decisions. They are not arguments, they are not conclusions.
When doubt is no more there, trust is. It happens. It flows. It arises out of your innermost core, from the innermost shrine. You start listening to a new music of being, a new style of being, a new way of being. It is not of the mind, it is of the being.
Source:
This is an excerpt from the transcript of a public discourse by Osho in Buddha Hall, Shree Rajneesh Ashram, Pune.
Discourse Series: The Beloved, Vol 2
Chapter#2
Chapter title: When Doubt Is Not, Trust Is
2 July 1976 am in Buddha Hall
References:
Osho has spoken on ‘trust, life, love, light, music, Sannyas’ in many of His discourses. More on the subject can be referred to in the following books/discourses:
- Beyond Enlightenment
- Come Follow To You
- The Divine Melody
- From Death to Deathlessness
- The Razor’s Edge
- The Secret
- Unio Mystica
- The Wisdom of the Sands
- Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega, Vol 1, 2, 9, 10
- Zen: The Path of Paradox
- The Book of Wisdom
- Come, Come, Yet Again Come
- The Guest
- Satyam Shivam Sundram
- Ancient Music in the Pines