Christianity, Jesus Christ, Vol. 3 Come Follow Yourself Chapter 2: Accept yourself as you are, and accept, Question 2

Question 2

CAN TRUST BE CULTIVATED?

A cultivated trust will not be trust; it will be false, it will be insincere. It will just be on the surface; it will never touch your centre. Whatsoever is cultivated remains superficial, because whatsoever is cultivated remains of the mind. Trust cannot be cultivated, just as love cannot be cultivated: you can't teach people how to love. Dangerous will be the days when people are taught how to love, because they will learn the lesson, they will repeat it accurately -- it will be technological but it will not be of the heart.

Anything that belongs to the depth has to come out of its own accord. So what is to be done? I understand the question you are asking. Then what to do? The only thing that can be done is to remove hindrances. Trust cannot be brought out; hindrances can be removed. When there is no hindrance, it comes, it flows. Trust cannot be cultivated; doubts can be dropped.

So one has to understand the doubting mind, the very mechanism of doubt, why you doubt. One has to see through and through why one doubts, because doubt is the hindrance. When doubt disappears, suddenly trust is there. It has always been there. Only a rock was hindering the path, and the fountain could not flow. You come with trust. Every child is born with trust, every child is trusting, so trust need not be cultivated. That's how everybody is born: it is in-built. You are trust.

But by and by, the child learns how to doubt. We teach, in fact -- the society, the family, the school, the university, they all teach how to doubt. Because unless you doubt, you cannot be very clever and cunning; unless you doubt, you cannot be left in this great world of competition: you will be destroyed. So doubt has to be learned; and once you learn it, by and by, trust is forgotten. It remains deep within you, but you cannot reach to it -- too many obstacles. You cannot cultivate it; it cannot be taught. The only thing is, you have to reverse the process -- you have learned doubt, now unlearn it.

Trust was there, trust is there, trust will be there. All that has to be done is to be done with doubt; nothing is to be done with trust. Why do you doubt? Why are you so afraid? -- because doubt means fear. Whenever you love somebody, you don't doubt, because fear disappears. Whenever there is love, fear is not. But when you don't love, you doubt; when you don't know a person, you doubt more -- a stranger, then you doubt even more; unfamiliar, unknown, then you doubt more. Whenever there is fear, there is doubt. Deep down, doubt is fear. If you go still deeper, doubt is death, because you are afraid of death. And it seems that everybody is trying to kill you; fighting -- everybody competitive -- everybody trying to push you aside, dethrone you. Doubt is death.

The whole mechanism has to be understood. Then what to do? Why is one afraid of death.? You have never known death. You may have seen somebody else dying, but you have never seen death. When somebody is dying, do you really know that he is dying -- or simply disappearing into some other world? Doubt is without base; fear is without base -- it is just an assumption of the mind. When somebody dies, do you think he is dying, or simply disappearing into another world, moving to another plane of life, or to another body? You will have to know it in deep meditation. When thinking stops, suddenly you see that you are separate from the body.

So I don't say trust first; I say meditate first. That is the difference between meditation and prayer. People who teach prayer, they say, "Trust first, otherwise how can you pray?" Trust is needed as a basic condition, otherwise how can you pray? If you don't trust God, how can you pray? I teach meditation, because meditation doesn't require trust as a basic necessity. Meditation is a science, not a superstition. Meditation says you experiment with your mind -- it is too full of thoughts; thoughts can be dispersed, the clouds can be dispersed, and you can attain to an empty sky of your inner being. And it needs no trust -- just a little courage, a little effort, a little daring, a little persistence and perseverance, a little patience, yes, but no trust. You don't believe in God? That is not a hindrance to meditation. You don't believe in soul? That is not a hindrance in meditation. You don't believe at all? That is not an obstacle. You can meditate, because meditation simply says how to go withinwards: whether there is a soul or not doesn't matter; whether there is a God or not doesn't matter.

One thing is certain: that you are. Whether you will be after death, or not, does not matter. Only one thing matters: right this moment, you are. Who are you? To enter into it is meditation: to go deeper into your own being. Maybe it is just momentary; maybe you are not eternal; maybe death finishes everything: we don't make any condition that you have to believe. We say only that you have to experiment. Just try. One day it happens: thoughts are not there, and suddenly when thoughts disappear, the body and you are separate, because thoughts are the bridge. Through thoughts you are joined with the body; it is the link. Suddenly the link disappears -you are there, the body is there, and there is an infinite abyss between the two. Then you know that the body will die, but you cannot die.

Then it is not something like a dogma; it is not a creed, it is an experience -- self-evident. On that day, death disappears; on that day, doubt disappears, because now you are not always to be defending yourself. Nobody can destroy you; you are indestructible. Then trust arises, overflows. And to be in trust is to be in ecstasy; to be in trust is to be in God; to be in trust is to be fulfilled.

So I don't say cultivate trust. I say experiment with meditation. From another angle try to understand it. Doubt means thinking. The more you doubt, the more you can think. All great thinkers are sceptical -- have to be. Scepticism creates thinking. When you say no, then thinking arises; if you say yes, finished -- there is no need to think. When you say no, then you have to think. Thinking is negative. Doubt is a basic necessity for thinking. People who cannot doubt, cannot think; they cannot become great thinkers. So, more doubt means more thinking, more thinking means more doubt. Meditation is a way to come out of thinking. Once the clouds of thoughts are not there, and the process of thinking ceases, even for a single moment, you have a glimpse of your being.

One of the greatest thinkers in the West, Descartes, has said, "I think, therefore I am." COGITO ERGO SUM. And Descartes is the father of modern Western philosophy.'I think, therefore I am.'Just the opposite has been the experience in the East. Buddha, Nagarjuna, Sankara, Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu, they will laugh, they will laugh tremendously when they hear Descartes' dictum,'I think, therefore I am'; because they say, "I don't think, therefore I am."

Because when thinking ceases, only then does one know who one is. In a non-thinking state of consciousness one realizes one's being, not by thinking, but by non-thinking. Meditation is non-thinking; it is an effort to create a state of no-mind. Doubt is mind. In fact, to say 'doubting mind' is wrong; it is repetitive -- mind is doubt; doubt is mind. When doubt ceases, mind ceases; or when mind ceases, doubt ceases. And then self-evident truth arises within, a pinnacle of light, eternity, timelessness; and then there is trust.

Right now how can you trust? Right now you don't know who you are -- how can you trust? And you ask, "Can trust be cultivated?" Never. Never try to cultivate it. Many have done that foolishness. Then they become false, inauthentic, pseudo. It is better to be a no-sayer, but sincere, because there is at least a possibility, through sincerity, that some day you may become an authentic yea-sayer. But never say yes until it arises from within and overwhelms you.

The whole world is full of pseudo-religious people: churches, temples, gurudwaras, mosques, full of religious people. And can't you see the world is absolutely irreligious? With so many religious people, and the world is so irreligious, how is this miracle happening? Everybody is religious, and the total is irreligiousness. The religion is false. People have cultivated trust. Trust has become a belief, not an experience. They have been taught to believe; they have not been taught to know -- that's where humanity has missed. Never believe. If you cannot trust, it is better to doubt, because through doubt, some day or other, the possibility will arise; because you cannot live with doubt eternally. Doubt is disease; it is an illness. In doubt you can never feel fulfilled; in doubt you will always tremble, in doubt you will always remain in anguish and divided and indecisive. In doubt you will remain in a nightmare; so one day or other you will start seeking how to go beyond it. So I say it is good to be an atheist rather than a theist, a pseudo-theist.

You have been taught to believe -- from the very childhood, everybody's mind has been conditioned to believe: believe in God, believe in soul, believe in this and believe in that. Now that belief has entered into your bones and your blood, but it remains a belief: you have not known. And unless you know, you cannot be liberated. Knowledge liberates; only knowing liberates. All beliefs are borrowed; others have given them to you. They are not your flowerings. And how can a borrowed thing lead you towards the real, the absolutely real? Drop all that you have taken from others. It is better to be a beggar than to be rich; rich not by your own earning, but rich through stolen goods, rich through borrowed things, rich through tradition, rich through heritage. No, it is better to be a beggar, but to be on one's own. That poverty has a richness in it because it is true, and your richness of belief is very poor. Those beliefs can never go very deep; they remain skin-deep at the most. Scratch a little, and the disbelief comes out.

You believe in God. Then your business fails, and suddenly, the disbelief is there. You say, "I don't believe, I cannot believe in God." You believe in God, and your beloved dies, and the disbelief comes up. You believe in God, and just by the death of your beloved the belief is destroyed? It is not worth much. Trust can never be destroyed -- once it is there, nothing can destroy it; nothing, absolutely nothing can destroy it.

So remember, there is a great difference between trust and belief. Trust is personal; belief is social. Trust you have to grow in; belief you can remain in, whatsoever you are, and belief can be imposed on you. Drop beliefs. The fear will be there; because if you drop belief, doubt arises. Each belief is forcing doubt somewhere, repressing doubt. Don't be worried about it; let the doubt come. Everybody has to pass through a dark night before he reaches the sunrise. Everybody has to pass through doubt. Long is the journey, dark is the night. But when after the long journey and the dark night the morning arises, then you know it was all worthwhile. Trust cannot be cultivated. And never try to cultivate it -- that is what has been done by the whole of humanity. Cultivated trust becomes belief. Discover it within yourself, don't cultivate it. Go deeper into your being, to the very source of your being, and discover it.

When Jawaharlal Nehru died, a small slip of paper was found on his pillow. In his own handwriting he had noted a few lines of Robert Frost:

THE WOODS ARE LOVELY, DARK AND DEEP.

BUT I HAVE PROMISES TO KEEP,

AND MILES TO GO BEFORE I SLEEP.

He must have written it just before he died.'The woods are lovely...' Everybody has to go alone; you cannot keep company. Because you have to go inwards you can only go alone.'The woods are lovely...' because the woods are of your inner being. If you go for an outer pilgrimage, you can have company; somebody can be with you: a beloved, a friend, a relative, a fellow-traveller. But the woods are lovely because the woods are of your inner being -- you have to go alone.

'Dark and deep...' and there is much darkness within. You have always heard that if you go inwards, you will find infinite light. That is only half of the truth. You will find infinite light at the very centre, but before that centre is reached, much darkness has to be passed through. It is not that you just close your eyes and there is infinite light; no, there will be infinite darkness first because that is the price one has to pay. The dark night is the price one has to pay for the morning. And remember, until you pay for it, it won't be worthwhile -- unless you pay for it you cannot value it. If a morning is given to you, and you have not travelled and struggled for it, you will not be able to see it.

Somewhere, Vincent van Gogh, one of the greatest Dutch painters, has written that he was in some part of France where sunsets are tremendously beautiful. One day when he was painting... a woman used to help him -- she asked van Gogh, "Can I run home and show my people: my father, my mother, my sisters and my brothers, this beautiful sunset?" Van Gogh said, "There is no need. The sunset is there; they will see it by themselves." The woman laughed, and she said, "I am thirty. I have lived on this seashore for thirty years, but until you came, we had never seen the sunset."

Just because a thing is there it is not necessary that you will see it: one has to learn, one has to grow. One needs a Van Gogh to show you, to make you sensitive, to make you aware. I love that story. This is how it has been happening -- God is there, but a Van Gogh, a Buddha, is needed to show you. And then you will see; you will be surprised, amazed, that this has been always there. Why did you miss? One needs growth. When you go in, infinite light is there. The Upanishads are true. When Jesus says, "The kingdom of God is within," he is absolutely true. But when you go in, first you will enter the kingdom of the devil, not of God.

Dark night of the soul....

If you pass through it, if you dare to pass through it, if you are courageous to go alone in it, only then you will be capable, you will have earned; then you will have a right to claim the morning.

THE WOODS ARE LOVELY, DARK AND DEEP.

BUT I HAVE PROMISES TO KEEP,

AND MILES TO GO BEFORE I SLEEP.

Before you can rest in your innermost core, in your innermost shrine of being, miles to go, miles to grow, miles to flow....

'But I have promises to keep...' To whom have you given promises? -- every seed has promised to be a tree -- not to anybody: to one's own destiny, to one's own self. Every seed has given a promise to be a tree, and to flower, and to blossom, and to spread into millions of seeds. It is not a promise given verbally to anybody; it is a deep existential promise given to one's own being, to one's destiny. Call it God, or call it whatsoever you like, but everybody is a traveller on a great pilgrimage.

BUT I HAVE PROMISES TO KEEP,

AND MILES TO GO BEFORE I SLEEP.

There is a dark night to be crossed, to be gone through. Only then will you be able, will your eyes be capable, to see light.

Remember, don't deceive yourself by beliefs. Beliefs can be given to you free; you need not earn them. Trust is a growth, a ripening of your being. It is painful, remember. Beliefs are very convenient -- to become a Mohammedan, to become a Christian, to become a Hindu -- nothing is needed, just the accident of birth is enough. That you are born into a family and you become a Hindu or a Mohammedan, is just an accident. If a child is born into a Hindu family and brought up by a Mohammedan family, he will become a Mohammedan. He will never know he was ever a Hindu -- just an accident.

No, life cannot be that cheap. Trust cannot be that cheap. Love cannot be that cheap; one has to stake one's whole soul for it. Never try to cultivate trust; never try to make trust function, because that will be belief. Drop doubt. Enter into doubt; realize the futility of doubt; realize the futility of thinking and try to come to a state of no-mind; and then trust arises. You simply remove the hindrances. Nothing positive is needed to be done, only something negative: something has to be removed. When the passage is clear, trust flows. You melt and you start flowing.

It happened that when Alexander came to India he met a sannyasin, a great sage. The sage's name was Dandamis; that is how Greek historians have pronounced it. Alexander asked him, "Do you believe in God?" The sage remained silent. Alexander said, "I cannot see, so how can I believe? How do you believe without seeing him?" The naked sage laughed. He took Alexander by his hand towards the marketplace. Alexander followed -- maybe he was taking him somewhere where he could show him God. A small boy was flying a kite, and the kite had gone so far away that it was impossible to see it. The sage stopped there, and asked that boy, "Where is the kite? Because we cannot see it, and without seeing how can we believe? Where is the kite? How do you still believe that the kite exists?" The boy said, "I can feel the pull of it." And the sage said to Alexander, "I can also feel the pull of it."

Trust is nothing but the feel of the pull. You don't see -- one has never seen God; only the pull is felt. But that is enough, that is more than enough. But then you have to be in a certain state where the pull can be felt. It cannot be learned from scriptures; it is not a doctrine. Nobody can explain it: you have to feel the pull.

The old sage laughed. Alexander also realized that it had been a revelation. But the sage said, "Wait; no need to believe in me. You take the thread in your hand and feel the pull, because who knows? This boy may be deceiving. Never believe. Feel the pull." If Alexander had gone away just listening to the boy, it would have been a belief But he felt the pull: the kite was there on the other end, the pull was here on this end. He could feel the force. He thanked the old sage.

Meditation is a state where you allow yourself to feel the pull of existence. That pull has been called by many names. In the Upanishads they say. EKAM SAD VIPARAH BAHUDHA VADANTI: that one is one. But sages have called it many names.

Christianity

VOL. 3, COME FOLLOW YOURSELF

Chapter-2

Accept yourself as you are, and accept