Meaning of Trust

One day it happened that a man came to me who was really in a mess, very miserable. And he said 'I will commit suicide.'

I said 'Why?'

He said 'I trusted my wife and she has betrayed me. I had trusted her absolutely and she has been in love with some other man. And I never came to know about it until just now! I have got hold of a

few letters. So then I inquired, and then I insisted, and now she has confessed that she has been in love all the time. I will commit suicide,' he said.

I said 'You say you trusted her?'

He said 'Yes, I trusted her and she betrayed me.'

What do you mean by trust? – some wrong notion about trust; trust also seems to be political. 'You trusted her so that she would not betray you. Your trust was a trick. Now you want to make her

feel guilty. This is not trust.'

He was very puzzled. He said 'What do you mean by trust then, if this is not trust? I trusted her unconditionally.'

I said 'If I were in your place, trust would mean to me that I trust her freedom, and I trust her intelligence, and I trust her loving capacity. If she falls in love with somebody else, I trust that too.

She is intelligent, she can choose. She is free, she can love. I trust her understanding. This is unconditional, not the conditional thing.'

What do you mean by trust? When you trust her intelligence, her understanding, her awareness, you trust it. And if she finds that she would like to move into love with somebody else, it is perfectly

okay. Even if you feel pain, that is your problem; it is not her problem. And if you feel pain, that is not because of love, that is because of jealousy.

What kind of trust is this, that you say it has been betrayed? My understanding of trust is that it cannot be betrayed. By its very nature, by its very definition, trust cannot be betrayed. It is impossible to betray trust. If trust can be betrayed, then it is not trust. Think over it.

- Osho, Tantra Vision