Last Words

Raven took his perch on the Assembly Oak and addressed a special meeting of the Tallspruce community, saying, “It’s time for me to be moving on.”

Porcupine asked, “Where will you be going?”

Raven said, “Where cedar roots stand bare in the creek.”

A hush fell over the circle. Grouse could be heard sniffling.

At last Porcupine asked, “Do you have any last words for us?”

Raven said, “Trust.”

Simply Trust

Zen masters never leave any doctrine but they leave the message to live. He was dying consciously. It only says that he lived his life consciously. Death reveals how we have lived our life.

Raven left the message Trust. He was going to die. With this message he wanted all his perch to become alert and watch how consciously man can die. Only human beings have brought the capacity to die consciously. If you can live in trust you can die in total trust. The change is so beautiful from form to formless. What is needed is trust. In that trust you will be utterly silent. There will not be any ripple of thoughts.

Trust Is an Inner Quality

“Once you know the quality of trust, you simply trust.

It is not a question of whether you trust in God or you trust in Jesus or in Buddha – remember it. If you trust, you simply trust. If a Christian says ‘trust only in Jesus not in Buddha’, he has not known what trust is, because trust knows no distinctions. If you have trusted in Christ you will trust in Buddha too, because you will not see any difference. Maybe the languages are different, maybe their ways of expression are different, but trust will be able to go directly to the heart of the matter, to the very core, and will see that Christ and Buddha exist on the same plane. It is the same consciousness, the same awareness, the same enlightenment. If you trust Buddha, you will trust Krishna and Mohammed. If you trust me, you will trust Christ, you will trust Zarathustra.

Trust knows no address. It is not addressed. Trust is an inner quality. If it is there, it is there. It is like you bring a light, you bring a lamp into the room. Now the light will not fall only on the table, it will fall on the chair too. And it will not fall only on the chair, it will fall on the walls too, and on the paintings hanging on the walls. It will not fall only on the walls, it will fall on the floor and on the roof too. When you bring light into the room, light simply falls on everything that is there. So is trust. It is a light. If trust is kindled in your heart, then it makes no difference. You trust God, you trust Christ, you trust your wife, you trust your husband, you trust your son, you trust your friend. You trust your enemy. You trust nature, you trust death, you trust insecurity. In short, you simply trust.

Learning from the story Last Words: Simply Trust

Experience Learning

Just Trust, and Godliness Will Come Seeking and Searching for You

Trust is not of the mind. Mind cannot trust. Distrust is very intrinsic to the mind; it is inbuilt. Mind exists on distrust, on doubt. When you are in too much doubt, you see too much mentation around inside, moving. Mind gets in too much activity. But when you trust, there is nothing for the mind to do. Have you watched it? When you say, ‘No!’ you throw a rock into the silent pool of your consciousness; millions of ripples arise. When you say, ‘Yes’ you are not throwing any rock. At the most, you may be floating a rose flower in the lake. Without any ripple, the flower floats. That’s why people find it very difficult to say yes, and find it very easy to say no. ‘No’ is always just ready. Even before you have heard, the no is ready.

I was staying with my friend once. I heard the wife saying to my friend, ‘Just go and see what the boy is doing, and stop him.’

She does not know what the boy is doing: ‘Just go and see what the boy is doing, and stop him.’ Whatsoever it is, is not the point; but stopping, saying no. Denying comes easy; it enhances the ego. The ego feeds on no; the mind feeds on doubt, suspicion, distrust. You cannot trust me through the mind. You will have to see the dichotomy of the mind – the constant duel, the constant debate inside the mind. One part is always functioning as the opposition.

The mind never comes to a decision. There are always a few fragments of the mind – dissenters. They wait for their opportunity, and they will frustrate you.

Then what is trust? How can you trust? You have to understand the mind. By understanding the mind and the constant duality in it, by witnessing it, you become separate from the mind. And in that separation arises trust, and that trust knows no division between me and you. That trust knows no division between you and life. That trust is simply trust. It is unaddressed trust, not addressed to anybody – because if you trust me, you will immediately distrust somebody. Whenever you trust somebody, immediately, on the other end, you will be mistrusting somebody else. If you believe in the Qur’an you disbelieve in the Gita; if you believe in the Bible, you cannot believe in Buddha. If you trust in Jesus, you cannot trust in Buddha. What type of trust is this? It is of no worth.

Trust is unaddressed. It is neither addressed to Christ, nor to Buddha. It’s simple trust. You simply trust because you enjoy trusting. You simply trust, and you enjoy trusting so much that even when you are deceived, you enjoy. You enjoy that you could trust even when there was every possibility of deception, that the deception could not destroy your trust, that your trust was greater, that the deceiver could not corrupt you. He may have taken your money, he may have taken your prestige, he may have robbed you completely, but you will enjoy. And you will feel tremendously happy and blissful that he could not corrupt your trust; you still trust him. And if he comes again to rob you, you will be ready; you still trust him. So the person who was deceiving you may have robbed you materially, but he has enriched you spiritually.

But what happens ordinarily? One man deceives you and the whole humanity is condemned. One Christian deceives you; all Christians are condemned. One Mohammedan has not behaved well with you; the whole community of Mohammedans are sinners. One Hindu has not been good to you; all Hindus are worthless. You simply wait. Just a single man can create a distrust of the whole humanity.

A man of trust goes on trusting. Whatsoever happens to his trust, one thing never happens: he never allows anybody to destroy his trust. His trust goes on increasing. Trust is godly. People have told you to trust in God; I tell you, trust is godly. Forget all about God; just trust, and godliness will come seeking and searching for you wherever you are.