trust

In this episode, I'm going to talk about having an attitude of trust. Trust has tremendous significance on our spiritual journey. In a way, one could almost say the endpoint of the spiritual journey is to be living in a complete state of trust.

Now, trust can be difficult to come by at times, especially if one has felt wronged. And of course, most of us do feel that we've been wronged from time to time in our lives. Probably everyone has had experiences where they feel that what has happened to them has been unfair, not justified. We feel hard done by at times. And this erodes our trust. And once our trust has gone, we live defensively. We live with rather a mean spirit. We live protectively in a closed off way, at least partially. And our outlook for the future tends to be rather bleak without trust.

So regaining trust is a vital step on the spiritual path. It's important, though, to distinguish between deep trust, that everything is okay, to distinguish that from more superficial trust, that something specific is going to work out the way one wants. For example, a specific trust might be, if I trust that my train is going to arrive on time. These more specific or narrow trusts are really showing a lack of a deeper trust. Perhaps my train will be late and the deeper trust is whether the train is on time or is late will somehow be perfect. And that deeper trust is an acknowledgement that one cannot see the whole picture. One doesn't know what else is going to happen.

So seeing that our knowledge of the world is always limited, then our understanding is that we cannot actually know what is best for ourself. We can only have an idea of what to do in the moment. And of course, that might be driven by some plan, some idea, some expectation of how things will unfold. But to have deep trust is to realise that things probably won't unfold the way we expect or the way we want. That doesn't mean they're going to unfold in a worse way, though. They're going to unfold differently. And the deep trust is that, however things unfold, it's perfect. We will have some different experience. Perhaps we'll learn a new lesson. Perhaps our whole life will take a different direction and will bear some other fruit in years to come. We can't know this in advance. But if you look back at your life historically, you can probably see how the twists and turns of fate have steered your life in a way that has ultimately enriched it.

So this is one way to develop this deeper trust, is to look back at one's life from time to time and see how at times when things have not gone according to plan, they have, nevertheless, in the long run, worked out beautifully. This builds a trust in the whole flow of life, the whole process, a deep trust, trust in existence. And as I mentioned, this trust includes an implicit acknowledgement that we cannot know what is best, and also that we are better off surrendering to life than trying to control everything. So trust and surrender are closely linked.

And this is another way to develop this deep trust, is to practice surrender. The two come together, so if when things don't seem to be going according to plan, one can take a deep breath, to let go to what is happening, to surrender to the flow of life in that moment, practising surrender in this way will help develop our deep trust.