Learning to Trust Yourself while Trusting God
In today’s world where there is so much uncertainty, we have time to reflect as a collective society and as individuals what is important to us in our lives and our relationships. Majority of people would rank trust as an important part of all relationships. Common usage of the word “trust” would refer to relying on someone or something for a future action. It is highly conditional in nature and is usually subject to constant review.
Recently one of my students stated during a conversation, “You don’t trust anyone”. I paused for a minute and then I answered “Yes, you are right! I only trust in God”. I followed on to say that “I only have faith in love, truth & God. I truly love everyone, but I do not trust everyone”. My student responded “I believe in what you have previously taught me that you trust a person’s soul because it works on ethics but you do not trust a person’s mind because it works on logic”. Our dialogue made me reflect and share my views on trust, self-trust and the importance of our connection with our trust in God.
During my early twenties, I went through necessary radical soul transformation. The key to this transformation was forming a habit to trust God, in every area of my life. Trusting God is simply believing that He loves you.
Trust & Spirituality
Our mindset towards God and towards life is the foundation for our spirituality. Trust is at the heart of spirituality. When we truly trust we find ourselves, God and life. Trust is a knowing that life will continue to have meaning and beauty even in episodes of suffering and darkness. Trust is a gift delivered by love. Trust can be realised at different points or experiences throughout our lives.
When we bring in an attitude of trust into our lives, we allow ourselves to open up to the universal energy of abundance, we open to God and the background of this is love.
Trust challenges our individual limitations. I encourage you to invite this energy of trust into your daily meditation or mindfulness practice as well as your daily lives. You must believe that trust comes from God and it is attainable. The key to finding trust is self — knowledge.
Trust & Self — knowledge
When we believe that trust is at the heart of spirituality then this will help us achieve self — knowledge and self- discovery. We can discover that we deserve love and we accept that God loves us unconditionally. In this discovery we find that life ultimately is trustworthy. Self- knowledge and true transformation is found once you pledge yourself to what some call “innate trust”. This type of trust is based on the belief that if you live mindfully and live according to your values even through difficult situations. Innate trust is a vital component in feeling connected to others, be it a partner, friend or family. Innate trust allows you to love selflessly. This trust allows you to trust the core goodness of these people in your life. They may hurt and disappoint you as we are all human. This trust is not based on a transactional outcome.
If we approach life with an attitude of trust and to avail of the resources we were given to guide us, here I mean the resources from our own soul and from God, then we will navigate our way through the periods of darkness and fog in our lives.
How do we achieve trust?
Trust is something that we cannot create by force or will. The more we crave for a spiritual awakening, the further we are away from it. One of the secrets to achieving trust is to simply listen. We need to especially listen to our own hearts. Listening to the wisdom of those who have gone before us, those who are around us. We need to start listening to creation — animals, birds, rivers, trees. These are all God’s creations, and these are all important ways of listening to God. When we are ready to listen only then we will know there is something important to hear. We constantly struggle with life situations, we try to control every aspect of our lives, we strive for spiritual enlightenment. We keep searching without taking time to stop and listen.
Finally,… while many world religious leaders, Guru’s and spiritual teachers encourage us to be mindfully present moment-to-moment in our lives, living in this manner is to trust in the eternal now. Amidst all our day to day fears, pain and anxieties the key is to find some joy. This cannot be achieved without trust. This trust is a gift. Our job is to nurture it, find ways to be receptive, to listen. Our task is to believe that we can have faith in the spirit of love. This love becomes a gift of trust and is the basis of our spirituality, our belief and trust in ourselves and in God.
