Sri Humananda
Advaita Vedanta Tantra Yogi
On Truth and Trust
"Who to trust, and who to believe, and when, and who not to trust, and who not to believe, and when, is an enormous task that cannot be accomplished in the end. This effort only robs you of the valuable psychic energy that you could rather have expended on your quest for knowledge of the Self."
(Sri Humananda)
(Excerpts from a discussion, October 2005 – published here with permission)
“Can you talk to me about the issue of trust, and truth? Lately I have noticed a feeling in me that my (significant other) is lying to me, and although I cannot prove it, this feeling is strong, almost like an intuition, and so it makes it difficult for me to trust (the person). Can you give me your insight or opinion on this feeling I get, and generally just talk about things like trust and truth?”
Yes. Your concern for these things is encouraging to me. However, there can be more to this than meets the eye.
First, I need to caution you against this seemingly intuitive feeling you get. Examine it closely. For the purpose of my explanation now, one can divide intuition into Higher and lower intuition. Higher Intuition is perhaps a topic for another occasion, so when I say ‘intuition’ I mean what we’ll understand for now as the “lower intuition”, so let's look at that now.
If you evaluate this intuitive feeling you get, be careful. We get these “vibes” and think them of a higher nature, but they may indeed be only vibes.
While it is true that as you progress in your quest for your Self you develop a more reliable intuitive sense, it is also true that one develops a better sense of empathy, and thus, of human behavior in general, which makes it so that we notice things that are generally not noticed by most people. Knowledge of oneself makes knowledge of others more reliable. These can include common sense things; eye movement, tone and rhythm of speech, logic, and a certain “fit” into the situation. Furthermore, if we know the person (who we think is lying to us) we have even more cues – extraordinary subtle behavior and actions, and so on. The list is almost endless, but together or in part, they can contribute to what we then come to accept as our intuitive sense. It may be, but it may be simply deduction and induction.
But there’s even more... Inside of ourselves we, too, have certain orientations. We have a predisposition to rather believe some things than others and some people more than others, for various reasons, and we like to believe that people are telling us the truth, because that validates our relationship somewhat – shows us that it is “based on trust”, but look into why this seems so important to us. It is a worthy investigation.
The truth of relationships is that people do lie – to themselves as well as to others - whether the people are significant or insignificant to them. So what do we do with this fact?
An option would be to believe nobody and to trust nobody, but that breeds inside of us an unnaturalness of being, and can eventually even result in paranoia and isolation. So this does not seem a viable path.
One could trust all people and believe at all times all things that people say, but that does not seem sensible either because there are people who would take advantage of this and who are by nature disposed to falsehood. So this option is not viable either.
We can say that we will trust and believe some, but not all. That seems reasonable, but the actuality of this path is laden with heaps of energy-expense in the pursuit of determining who to believe and when, and who not to believe and when. Our judgment might also not always be clear, for a million reasons. But take as an example yourself, right now; you could have asked me a variety of significant questions, yet you opted for this one, because it takes up so much of your consciousness. It has indeed become an energy-vampire to you, so it's really no good.
Who to trust, and who to believe, and when, and who not to trust, and who not to believe, and when, is an enormous task that cannot be accomplished in the end. This effort only robs you of the valuable psychic energy that you could rather have expended on your quest for knowledge of the Self. So, how then should we deal, personally, or spiritually, so to speak, with issues of trust and truth as it relates to our relationships, whether significant ones, or insignificant ones?
I’ll give you the short version first: Neither truth nor trust should be a factor in your relationships with others.
Now, that will immediately strike you as odd, but let’s examine the factors.
First, what does it really matter to you if somebody lies to you? What effect does it really have on you? Think about it deeply. And what is it that makes you want to rely on a certain trust as it relates to others? In some way, is that not a dependency? It is, so be careful. I’m asking you, why bother with the truth/trust items? Why expect from somebody to tell the truth and to be trustworthy?
If you look to the real source of these needs – in you – you will find that these requirements are indeed your very own needs - that these needs for truth and trust lie only inside of yourself. But these are truly not required by you in order for you to continue your development. The truth or falsity from some person to you is not going to affect your development in any way. Whether or not somebody is trustworthy has nothing to do with your development or your search for your Self. Nor does it impact your quest - either way.
If these issues of truth and trust matter to you, you will most likely find that they matter to you a great deal and, therefore, that they are going to require from you huge amounts of energy-expense that cannot affect the truth or falsity or the trustworthiness or untrustworthiness of any individual in any way.
What would happen if you call somebody on their truthfulness or trustworthiness? Will that make them change their behavior? Probably not, and you may only alienate them. And how many times are you going to repeat that process with any one person? Ask yourself that. Then, multiply that answer by the number of almost all the people you know and you can quickly see how expensive the energy-expense becomes.
My advice is not to bother bringing issues of truth and trust - as far as your relationships are concerned - into any of your spiritual developmental living equations. Do not trust and believe, and do not mistrust and doubt. Neither path is worthy or significant.
So now I’ll give you the short version again: Neither truth nor trust should be a factor in your relationship with others, understand it now?
A strange thing then happens... sometimes fairly quickly or sometimes over some time; people who come to understand your take on these issues start to become a little more truthful to you, and a little more trustworthy, even though these are not required by you from them. In fact, the very fact that these issues are immaterial to you fosters in others more of a willingness to become a bit more truthful and trustworthy by themselves.
Finally, again, if you truly examine your need for truth from others, and your need for trustworthiness, you will see that they have everything to do with your own ego and needs, and nothing to do with the people at all.
From your side though, as much as what it is possible for you, be truthful and trustworthy nevertheless.
