TRUST

Trust. The wisdom of the ages in a single word. Think about it. Every wise elder says it. As a policy and philosophy it is built into every great religion I have ever heard of. Trust is the single greatest tool for survival in the face of terrible odds or hardship or low self-esteem. It is the most basic and simple, the most accessible inner ally and support. Trust is aligned with or sourced in the very core of our being. No one else can force us to it. No one can steal it from us without our collusion. It is our own to forget and stand on as we will.

So many times I have been at a place in my life where I have realized that I simply could not afford not to trust. It is precisely when things are so bad and when trusting is so hard that we must trust. Usually, when I am at this level of “survival,” trusting is the hardest thing to do, and the only thing to do. At the time this irony is usually lost on me. During the hardest times, when there is nothing else, when I just seem to be trying and struggling and going nowhere, when I am scared to death that I cannot make it any farther and feel as if I am about to self-destruct – that is when I must reaffirm my trust and surrender. That is when I can brook no weakness in my resolve. Faith in myself is called for, and if I can not muster this, then faith in the Universe, in Spirit and my own humble relationship to the Power That Moves All must be found.

I believe, that ultimately, trusting or not trusting in one’s self is trusting or not trusting in God and the Universe. It is a spiritual problem – a spiritual crisis. What the great religions advise in times of spiritual crisis is Faith. And what else is faith but Trust?

So the crux of the problem/solution seems to be in a personal relationship with God, Spirit, a Higher Power, something greater than one’s self, one’s problems and one’s circumstances. In fact, without this, we are left so utterly alone that it is no wonder our lives fall apart. And maybe this seemingly life crisis is merely a symptom or reflection of a deteriorating relationship with Spirit, the Tao, the flow of life and the harmonious movement of energy through Grace.

So have I, in the hard times, removed myself too far from the Source? And are all of these pesky disturbances and problems a barometer of the ecology of my inner spiritual landscape? There is even a way in which we can accept the most horrible current circumstances life can offer up and realize that there is a part of us untouched wif we have this River to buoy us up.

There is a teacher named Jack Schwartz, now living in Ashland, Oregon who survived the atrocities of Nazi Germany to her Jews. What this man saw, in the face of his torturer, was …himself. He saw the connection, the inter-connection of himself with

Other, and through that connection – God. It was an epiphany for him. His spirits could no longer be manipulated by his torturers. He was free. This is no small accomplishment in the face of such horror.

So trust, I say, and if you can’t trust, then pray hard to be able to, because you must. As individuals and as a species, we can no longer afford not to trust. I believe that we have collectively reached a place in our development where many of the problems arise from our denial of spirit. It is denial in what many call God in everything and everyone that allows us to destroy without reflection or respect.

It may not even be about personal survival. It may not be about species survival. All of these things we know are transitory. But we do know that energy can not be destroyed. And when we see, when we acknowledge and believe that we are energy, and as such are part of the matrix of all life and existence, what some peoples call the web of life, then we have something to believe in - something that we are part of but which is unbelievably bigger than us or our problems, or our world.

We are made from the same stuff as the stars. Literally. The elements of our bodies were once part of the bodies of stars. The energy in our bodies and coming from and through our bodies in the form of ki and movement, and electricity and metabolism came from the stars. There should be a sense of freedom in this knowledge… but to feel it we need to reflect on it. Sometimes to reflect on it we must be “forced” to. But trust we must, or suffer the consequences.

Bob Drake

April, 1994 for Journey Books