Have you ever seen any of those documentaries on the origins of planet earth from about four and a half thousand million years ago?
It is simply an astounding story of an initial fireball, subjected to a huge planetary collision, then meteorite bombardments, the arrival of literally oceans of water, the origin of primitive living organisms, climatic disruptions from snowball Earth to volcanic chaos, the oxygenation of the planet. And finally, after about four thousand million years, the first creepy crawlies appear in the oceans….
After which it took another 500 million years of trial and error to manage to give you the opportunity to read this book – on Trust!
Yes, it took a while to bring you and this book together – which is simply a reflection of the extraordinarily intricate process involved – as a tapestry of zillions of life forms evolve into one organic whole where you can feel at home.
Food, water, air, energy and valuable materials are all around us. You have been invited to what may be the most amazing play in the whole universe, called life, surrounded by abundance.
So, what’s the problem: why is “Trust” even an issue? As Osho puts it:
“Why can’t you trust? The whole existence trusts. Trees never go neurotic, birds and animals never go psychotic…1
So what’s going on? We are the most blessed of creatures – who react to this amazing gift from existence by wasting vast amounts of energy attacking ourselves, each other, and this beautiful planet in a way no other life form does.
Here is the missing bit of the puzzle. First, it took a few hundred million years for single cell life forms to appear, and then another few billion years of biological evolution before the animals and the trees appeared.
Up to this point, all life is pre-programmed how to live. Then, a mere few hundred thousand years ago we arrived.
As Osho explains, that prior to the arrival of our species…:
“…No other animal has been given the gift of being free, every animal is given an already fixed program. All animals are programmed except man.
“A dog is bound to be a dog, and forever a dog; nothing else is possible, there is no freedom. He is programmed, everything is built-in. The blueprint is there, he will simply follow the blueprint: he will be a dog.
“There is no choice for him, no alternatives are available. He is an absolutely fixed entity.2
With man, everything changes. As Osho outlines it further:
“The immense gift of existence is freedom. You are left unprogrammed, you don’t carry a blueprint. You have to create yourself, you have to be self-creative.
“So it all depends on you: you can become a buddha, a Bahauddin, or you can become an Adolf Hitler, a Benito Mussolini. You can become a murderer or a mediator. You can allow yourself to become a beautiful flowering of consciousness, or you can become a robot.
“But remember, you are responsible – and only you, and nobody else.3
This understanding provides a totally picture of our place in the story of life. Biological evolution has brought us only so far – to a point where it is now up to us to fulfill our potential as human beings, and to create a world fit to live in.
Unlike all evolutionary processes in the past, this next step is in our hands! It seems we humans are faced with a critical moment: we either change ourselves or we can expect the current madness in the world to continue.
Osho describes our dilemma so clearly:
“Man is always in crisis. Man is crisis…constantly. It is not accidental, it is essential. Man’s very being consists of crisis, hence the anxiety, the tension, the anguish.
“Man is the only animal who grows, who moves, who becomes.
“Man is the only animal who is not born complete, who is not born closed, who is not born like a thing – who is born like a process. Man is open.
“His being consists in becoming. That is the crisis: the more he becomes the more he is.4
Osho continues to help us unravel the underlying basis of this crisis:
“The unconscious pulls you back toward the animal world; its pull is downwards, backwards.
“And the conscious is trying to pull you upwards so you become more conscious, because consciousness has given you many things. Yes, it has given you anxiety, tension, anguish, but it has also given you music, painting, poetry.
“And it has given you a dignity which no animal has, the dignity of being conscious.
Of course, once you see what is happening in this light it makes total sense. If freedom is the highest potential of existence, then it cannot be just “given” to us, like our arms and our legs.
Anything given can be taken away and could never be the basis of true freedom. Either we live robotically, unconsciously destroying ourselves, our neighbors and the world around us, or we bite the bullet and accept the simple realization that either we change or everything will continue the same. It is up to us.
And what is the way out of this crisis? Osho again is clear:
“You have to bring some new element into the world of biology, and that I call meditation, a ray of meditation, a ray of watchfulness.
“That does not belong to biology at all, because animals are not aware, trees are not aware. They live in one-hundred-percent unconsciousness.
Naturally the question arises: what is the connection between meditation and trust?
Osho explains this precisely:
“Without meditation you will not be able to find trust in yourself. And the day of finding the trust in yourself is the greatest day in your eternal life.
“It changes all the vision, all perception, all judgment about existence and about other people. The trust goes on growing and spreading all around you.
“Only then will you have unconditional trust in existence.5
So, the way ahead for each one of us is inescapable. A journey, as Osho reveals, which can be the most delightful voyage there is:
“Relax into your being, you are cherished by the whole. That’s why the whole goes on breathing in you, pulsating in you.
“Once you start feeling this tremendous respect and love and trust of the whole in you, you will start growing roots into your being.
“You will trust yourself. And only then can you trust me.
“Only then can you trust your friends, your children, your husband, your wife. Only then can you trust the trees and the animals and the stars and the moon.
“Then one simply lives as trust.
“It is no longer a question of trusting this or that; one simply trusts.6
END
To continue reading follow the link to purchase this book:
Osho, Trust: Living Spontaneously and Embracing Life
The talks that are excerpted in this article, and published, can be read in full by following these links:
1. Osho, The Revolution, Talk #5 – Understanding Needs Courage
2. Osho, The Secret, Talk #6 – Trust Is a State of Your Being
3. Osho, The Secret, Talk #6 – Trust Is a State of Your Being
4. Osho, The Wisdom of the Sands, Vol. 2, Talk #7 – Die Each Moment to Be Reborn Each Moment
5. Osho, Satyam Shivam Sundaram – Truth Godliness Beauty, Talk #21 – Even Death Will Disappear
6. Osho, The Book of Wisdom, Talk #3 – Sinalta and the Seventeen Chakras
