Dr. Vijai S Shankar MD.PhD.
Published on www.academy-advaita.com
The Netherlands
15 September 2019
Trust (1)
“Certainty”
‘Trust me’- the words on every lover’s lips. ‘Trust me’ man implores, as if to say ‘I cannot be trusted’. Man finds it hard to trust another, but why? Is trust something which man has to do?
Is man prone to being dishonest? Is dishonesty real and how could it be real when the world is illusory, as proclaimed by the sages? If this world is illusory, trust must be illusory too.
There is no point in emphasising that man needs to be trusted. He just cannot be because man does not make the moment in which trust is. ‘Trust God’- the cry on every religious man’s lips, but can man trust God when he cannot trust his fellow human being?
When man has to relate to another human being day in and day out, how can man ever trust God? Does man meet God in everyday life so that he can trust God? What would be man’s testing-ground for trust in God or in another man? The testing ground is the moment ‘here and now’ in life.
Does man have any idea what God does and does not do? Is man sure that God ever does anything? Could God be living in the past or the future when the moment ‘Here and Now’ is all there is?
Why would God be living in the past or the future when life happens in the timeless and thoughtless ‘now’? Science proclaims that life is energy. It is life’s intelligence that makes science proclaim this.
This intelligence is God, energy or life. So, illusory though man is, how could he trust God, let alone man? If man is to trust God, it is an admission that God is in the present moment.
If God were present in the present moment, would God allow man to do wrong, particularly if man trusts God to prevent wrong? Now, to which man should God listen in the first place when there are so many in the world?
That God is watching over man instils fear in man. Why would God watch over man if God had created man? Would God not create the perfect man? If God has created a dishonest man, could man blame God? So what could trust be? Is it expectations? It just cannot be; yet this is man’s belief. It is exactly that, because man expects and so trusts that his expectations are honoured. When they are not, he finds his trust has been misplaced and broken.
Trust is certainty in life because the moment in life is certain to happen every moment, whereas neither man nor woman makes the moment in life. Trust is certainty in life no matter what happens in the moment. This is because every moment cannot contain anything besides what the moment contains.
The enlightened trust life as it is in any moment and do not expect anything in life in any moment because God, intelligence/energy/life is in every moment.
Author: Dr. Vijai S. Shankar
© Copyright V. S. Shankar 2019
Editor’s Note:
‘I promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of ......pounds.’ These words from the Chief Cashier are printed on every UK banknote. Mind you, the print is so small that few bearers would even read or be aware of the promise. A promise, albeit illusory, seeks to establish relationships of expectation and trust in daily affairs. So too the once established motto ‘My word is my bond’. The wise, however, in their compassion for man’s welfare, reveal in this article and elsewhere that man is not the doer. Understanding this is the gift of trust in every moment in life and what the moment contains. Such is the nature of certainty.
Julian Capper, UK
German Translator‘s Note;
The widespread attitude of modern man towards life is fear. What was still an instinctive phenomenon in animals and primitive humans, limited in time to dangerous situations, has spread to large parts of the waking state and dream state. This is due to the higher sophistication of the mind, which can imagine things that are not there at the moment. The imagination of the mind projects a reality that is illusory on closer inspection. The sages illuminate the illusory reality of mind by making clear how illusory the idea of a doer is who could create absolute certainty with regard to equally illusory expectations.. Where there is no real doer, there is no frightening helplessness or restlessness. So Dr. Shankar in this article does not share the avoidance or rejection of fear, but strengthens trust in the moment not created by man, the moment Here and Now with all its contents, which are also not made by man.
Marcus Stegmaier, Germany