February 15, 2012
Part 1 – Trust: Love’s Sweetest Gift
Valentine’s Day is here. Time to think about those we love. Even more importantly, time to consider what it means to truly love another. Have you ever deeply thought about what love is? Have you ever considered where it comes from and why we feel drawn to be with certain people over others? Love is indeed a complex and multidimensional subject . . .
We can understand love either from the perspective of what it is or what it is not. Love is the uplifting experience of joy, ecstasy, fulfillment, contentment, delight, and abandon. Love is not the painful experience of fear, doubt, suspicion, jealousy, obsession, and attachment. More than anything else, I think the highest expression of true love is trust. Indeed, trust is love’s sweetest gift. That is because trust gives rise to an experience that ordinary love cannot: Freedom and space. In fact, trust is the powerful experience of spiritual freedom within the context of human relationship.
We can easily experience spiritual freedom when we close our eyes and let the world disappear, when we contemplate the infinite nature of consciousness. But how do we experience that same freedom within the complexity of our relationships with each other? That’s a much more difficult endeavor. Attaining the perennial mystical experience of freedom by oneself—walking in nature or sitting alone in quiet contemplation—is, I believe, less of a challenge than achieving that same kind of freedom in relationship with other human beings.
In the utopian paradise of a spiritually enlightened world, “I love you” means much more than the expression of deep affection and attraction. It means “I trust you.” Think about it. For most of us, those words are not necessarily synonymous. It’s easier to tell somebody you love them than to tell them that you trust them. More often than not, love tends to amount to a strong emotion of affinity, fondness, intimacy, longing, and attachment. To be honest, it is an experience that, under the light of close scrutiny, is neither as profound nor inherently meaningful as it appears to be. We easily allow ourselves to feel affection or attraction without becoming truly vulnerable, without dropping our defenses. But if we want to know the extraordinary freedom that the awakening of profound trust bestows upon us, we must open ourselves up far more that most of us feel naturally inclined to do.
When we permit ourselves to trust deeply, we are letting another human being into our heart and into our soul. We have accepted the good intentions of another so deeply that we allow them to step so close to us that we cannot protect ourselves any longer. Now we are wide open and when we meet another in the infinite expanse of true vulnerability and profound intimacy, the experience is identical to mystical intimacy with God or Spirit. No boundaries, one Self, infinite freedom, and joy beyond measure. This kind of trust is more profound and more significant than any love that is merely personal. In this truly transpersonal love, through our relationship with the other, a new inner world opens up. This love, based on trust, is a sacred world of boundless freedom and infinite space. No fear whatsoever of loss or betrayal. This love means I’m always with you, forever.
This article was originally posted on BigThink.com and is the first in a 4-part series on love. Click here to see the other articles.
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Andrew Cohen is a spiritual teacher, cultural visionary, founder of EnlightenNext, and the author of 
Trust … and doubt (both a dual pair !)
What is Beyond ?
When one has developed Andrew’s tenet,”face-everything” self-honesty, “trustworthiness” is what that individual will automatically and unselfconsciously offer to everyone in every type of relationship.
I remember this stage of development, and the direct experience of finally knowing without knowing what “mystical trust” was, with humble delight, because it was manifesting in and as “my life” and within all of my relationships, except one, my committed, romantic relationship. While others, friends, coworkers and even perfect strangers, were spontaneously telling me that they “just feel that they can trust me and tell me anything, that they felt ‘safe’ with me,” my “romantic” partner was simultaneously acting more jealous, controlling, and frankly, out-of-control.
But no matter what dis-empowering techniques he employed, I was already deeply committed to my own development and to becoming free of the limitations I felt from both without and within. And so, even though I was communicating to him from a place of deep trust, he was not capable of reciprocating, and I came to the conclusion, based in my own deep trust of the process, that the relationship had to end. I had a “no looking back and no self-imposed boundaries” relationship with the life process, and if I had tried to “save” this relationship, I would have had to sacrifice what I was then feeling to be the most important part of me that I could offer in service to the world.
I had developed deep trust, and trustworthiness, by transcending all those aspects of myself that I found mirrored in this romantic relationship…jealousy, low self-esteem, fear of not being accepted,etc. I started the process out of faith in myself, that I could be free, and ended up confirming all that I suspected existed from more deeply within; that there was a Spirit in and as my being very interested in my Wholeness. I just had to become the “fearless warrior” committed to Truth that Spirit was asking me to be, and becoming self-honest and trusting was the first major step.
Uniting your faith with the process and the Energy of the process is to make a positive, no-turning back connection with the Evolutionary Impulse. This is, in my estimation, the very beginning of developing Nonduality.
Develop and stay Grounded in Trust, and the Evolutionary Impulse will become the wind in your sails.
LOL (;}
Thou most glorious Thought of Thought, – I Trust Thee, who sits in the midst of Thoughtful, whom I Trust as the Mighty I AM presence and leave it to Thee to determine the destiny of Infinite designs.
Let the Radiating Rays of Thy Divine splendor fall upon my composite Being. May I, even I, just rising from out of depths of creation,
passing through complications of evolutions too complex to fathom at an hour of awe and surprise,
behold the frame that holds hidden Thy Divine Heart, and catch even of only a stray of Thy Illumination. My Thy Light Rays pass through my frame of DOUBT,
to brighten every particle of my doubtful nature, that I may recognize and Trust Thy Designs within the crude of natures phenomena as well as in the finer forces of human kind. May I, even I Trust the correspondence of all things of life,
and thus come into the TRUST of the Powers that alone determine the safe guiding of the helm of my Life boat.
In the midst of the sea of Doubt, Thee alone I beseech, who art I AM Presence, – The Thought of Thought amidst the Thoughtful;
Thou art the only one in whose TRUST man can safely follow, and attain the goal that holds the key unto eternity.
Thy Trust I invoke, O Mighty I AM; May the Mighty TRUST be rejoiced.
In Trust,
Nada
Amen!
- What is Beyond ?
- « Nada » ! = Nothing = Rien = Niente… beyond all pairs of opposites.
Its dissociation : “la Dissociation Paradoxale” (Split Paradox), allows Existence of Reality .
That is ORIGIN.
That is to be Origin of Life Harmony within completeness of reciprocity…
Hi ZOe, I like what you said, but have to disagree with the term “dissociation.”
“Harmony” could never be “dissociation”: Harmony is Union, in all it’s forms at every level of existence. One doesn’t “dissociate” themselves from the paradox, one *becomes* perfectly paradoxical through Union of the Complimentary Opposites, the Pairs, call them the God and Goddess, Eros and Agape, Ascending Descending, Wisdom and Compassion, Shiva and Shakti, etc…
It doesn’t matter what name you give to those Paradoxical Opposites; naming them doesn’t do you a bit of good if you’ve genuinely contacted them and created even the most subtle beginning with them, because if you have Union with them, they will take you where they want to go in order to create greater and ever-greater Union, until all is resolved and dissolved in the Unmanifest Ground, and one bursts forth Nondually Realized as the Perfectly Paradoxical Condition, the Source and Suchness of All.
Perhaps by “dissociation” you actually mean “differentiation, transcend and include”? Because, strictly speaking, the term “dissociation” means one has alienated oneself from a potential, the paradoxical potentials as we’ve been illuminating, and as been shown by spiritual developmental models (spiritual psychology), dissociation can leave the psyche of the individual very fragmented. How can one apply their energies to “Union” if they are fragmented? It has been shown that many long-term Buddhist meditation practitioners end up depressed because they have been taught to “detach” themselves. And while detachment certainly serves its purpose in development, there is often much that one should actually be actively engaging, like “shadow” elements” of the psyche.
Wouldn’t you agree that “completeness” and “reciprocity” requires a non-fragmented psyche and personality and co-creative imperative/approach to be mutually beneficial and capable of serving the Higher or Highest Good?
“Nada”, by the way, in Sanskrit means Sound. Do you know what Sound is? OM…the Sound of All sounds, the Vibration of All vibrations…
Thanks for your response, and are you familiar with “Integral Theory?”
LOL (;}
Hi Nada !… I forgot…
Here my definition (mathematical and paradoxical) of « dissociation » :
Division or multiplication of SAME.
ZER0 = nada = nothing = rien = niente…= ONE
Dear ZOe,
You don’t feel any pause about reducing the Living Spirit, Divine Possibility, the Unknowable Source and Suchness of All, into a math-like definition?
I beg you to reconsider…
Nada
Only in SILENCE Thy shall Know the TRUTH.
So why did you reply?
With gratitude to your reply, to your question yes I am.
Nada – the Silent Sound of Creation – Sanskrit
Nada – Hope Slavic Hope is in the physical world.
Trust is in the spiritual world.
Love is in the Divine world.
In Joy, – ( If you are not joyful you will lose you hope)
Nada
Nada !
NoTHINGness of Silence
The Sound of Music
Beyond any possible WORD
Hi Andrew !
Where and When LOVE is… Trust is IRRELEVANT !
I agree with Zoe,
trust is the product of Love not the Seed of Love.
If someone betrays me shall I stop loving for this reason ?
It might hurt, it might be unbearable, but love is still there, deep down.
If one loves once , really, one loves forever said a Sufi Master whom I met recently.
So I agree with Zoe here. When love is real and strong, trust is an absolutely irrelevant drive. It is generated as a flower, as a gift between two lovers, but never as a condition for love.
Trust is a very complex notion, it raises many issues.
When I say “I trust you”, what do I mean ? I trust you “for what”?
Do “I trust you” to “be with me always” ? I actually never understood that one wants people to be with us always. What about if they want to go away, isn’t true love then, to let them free and bless them ?
When I say “I trust you” , do I say `I have faith in you ?”" I have faith that you will succeed. I have faith in your ability to succeed? then it is another matter altogether. It is a much higher form of love. To say “I have faith in you” is to empower our lover, to make him or her strong and beautiful and give him or her space to develop.
To me love has much more to do with empowering the other one and let him /her free of attachment to us rather than trusting each other. Doesn’t trust always generate attachment, one way or another ?
Trust is a blessing, it cannot be desired. If and when it is desired, it immediately generate Karma, attachment and power over the other one.
Trust as empowerment can be given though, and it doesn’t have to be reciprocal to be given. It can simply be given, as an empowerment of the other. The simplicity of it…
Do you remember the story of Rumi meeting his spiritual Teacher ?
It is a classic Sufi tale about Trust, so I want to relate it here. Rumi was the son of a very high ranking man in town. He was very gifted in many ways and powerful. His Spiritual Teacher was an errand monk who passed through town one day. The tale says that one look was enough to generate the ultimate spiritual love in Rumi. So he asked his teacher to teach him. What they did is that they stayed together in a room for three months, looking at each other’s eyes. One beautiful day after this period Rumi had received the transmission and was fully free, well almost…
it is when his beloved teacher … left. Simply took his big and left him alone. Disappeared, vanished.
Rumi was desperate, he cried, felt betrayed, suffered all the agony of the most horrible betrayal.
But then this feelings also passed, and then he was truly free.
He never saw his beloved teacher again in the flesh but true love was shining through him and reproved the world with it.
Sufis definitely now something of the way of the heart….
Catherine, Rumi trusted, then came to Love, the One and Only Love, which expresses Itself in shades and facets within manifestation. Trust is always and only radiating from the One Self; Trust and Divine Love are One. But Trust comes first, before one is Graced with Divine Love; it is a requirement by Spirit, for developing Spirit’s purpose in us. In my comment above, I’ve illuminated that Spirit was the force of my gaining Trust of the process, and it was Spirit that indicated that I must not continue in that relationship, that IT had other commitments, other work for me to do in the world. The person on the “Path” is no longer the chooser; Trust is the Choice, the Choosing and and the Chooser.
All that we are here to do is recognize how we identify with the shades and facets via romantic love or family love, etc., and not the One True Love.
And a major part of those habits of identification are that we are conditioned to egoic self-protectionism, self-interest, self-fulfillment, and this is all a partial expression of “becoming” more Whole, the very things to be surrendered in order to become Spirit’s servant in the world.
Genuinely Trusting the processes of Spirit is, as Andrew says, a willingness to be vulnerable, authentically surrendering our self-interest, because even when we feel we should stay with someone to “empower them” and help them develop, we can be doing it with unconscious impulses that are expressions of our arrogance, need for self-fulfillment and self-interest, that we can somehow “save them.” It is Spirit that Saves, and if it saves through us, it is because we have, through our own humility and fortitude, given ourselves to Spirit’s purpose in the world. And likewise, they were available to surrendering their own self-interest and arrogance. We are not the Do-er, only Spirit IS.
We can, and we should, serve Spirit’s purpose in all of our relationships, and the “committed romantic relationship” is an excellent crucible for evolutionary development, but both partners must be very committed to it. And both have to Trust; Trust is an activity that keeps the initial “romantic love” burning, but then forges it deeper and deeper in the flames of co-creative friction. If trust is not the activity of both, it tends to fall apart, because unconscious impulses destroy the trust, even if the “romantic love” continues to tug at the emotional heart. For emotional love, which is what Andrew is talking about in his quote, is just a shade or facet of Divine Love, which is indestructible. The “Mystical Heart” knows no bounds, the romantic heart tends to be very relative to its contexts, and to its yearnings, aimed at a love interest,not yet capable of yearning for its Beloved, for Ultimate Love.
But let’s help change the meaning of romantic love by contributing with our Trust of Spirit’s process, in and as, the world. Let’s help illuminate that *serving the self of the other* with deep trust in the process, helps to destroy the illusory boundaries of our identifications, serving Spirit as the Ultimate Love and Good.
“Spiritual materialism” the reaction and after-effects of scientific materialism, is just as insidious a cultural movement.
Ahimsa
Here is a quote from Frithjof Schuon:
“Being saved, and bringing others to be saved; there lies our whole vocation. It has been likewise said that the good tends by its nature to communicate itself.
For salvation, two things are needed before all else: Truth and Faith. Knowing something, and believing in something; that is to say: Knowledge of the Truth and union with the Truth.
And so also for Faith two things are needful, and they concern our will: namely, an activity and an abstention. Doing what is in conformity with Truth and what gives life and depth to Faith; abstaining from what is contrary to Truth and from what is harmful to Faith.
And to be able to realize this throughout the whole of life, the soul has need of two virtues; Patience and Trust. Enduring for God, and rejoicing in God.”
What comes FIRSTt : Trust or Love ?
Always two directions , opposite and reciprocal
SAME at the point ORIGIN
ZOé
Wow, how profound. I have not thought about love and trust being together in such a concrete way. When I say, “I love you” then think I am really saying “I trust you.” This carries a whole different feeling within the cells of my being. Thank you for that opening within me.
Trust is a pre-requisite of love, but they are not one and the same thing.
If I dont trust you, my heart is unlikely to open to any great degree. If I do trust you, my heart will be ready to open. How much it opens depends on many other factors – chemistry, compatibility, past karma, and mostly how much our souls’ resonate with each other.
Some people just inspire love in you, while others inspire awe or respect, or perhaps compassion.
The ways of the heart are ultimately mysterious, and cannot be so easily defined.
ANDREW,
I don’t agree with your well-meaning message below that divides feelings into two batches, “good” and “bad” — although you didn’t use those exact words. I will be very grateful if you or one of your colleagues could respond thoughtfully to my challenge expressed in the alternative view outlined below.
You said LOVE is “joy, ecstasy, fulfillment, contentment, delight, and abandon.” Then you said that NOT-LOVE is “fear, doubt, suspicion, jealousy, obsession, and attachment.” However, in my understanding of life, these NOT-LOVE feelings are precisely the raw emotions and energies — “raw” yes; but not “dark” or “bad” or “wrong” — that human beings can miraculoulsy transform into joy, etc. This happens when we embrace, own and honor these “raw” and “unfinished” parts of ourselves. By doing this, we release the potential that is inherent in all the painful energies and emotions that are inside us. Andrew, if you don’t agree with this process, what is your alternative understanding?
And don’t you agree that ALL things and ALL energies are actually inter-connected and one — even the so-called “evil” energies, events, actions and souls that we all love to judge and blame so easily and so often? If you agree with this Oneness view, then why separate emotions and energies into LOVE and NOT-LOVE. Because ALL is energy and ALL is love and ALL is God endlessly discovering and transforming itself. The beauty and art of the Life Force is that energies and emotions and souls and events can mix and merge and grow and heal — in stunning and beautiful ways.
Consider the old saying:- “TRAGEDY + TIME = COMEDY.” Time — as we understand it — is a tool that promotes the constant and eventual transformation of everything into something better — eternally.
I believe that human beings were endowed with this tremendous transformational capacity in order to thoroughly feel, embrace and understand our so-called “negative” emotions — a process that then changes these difficult and raw emotions into the joy, etc. that you speak of. Understanding and committing to this infinitely ongoing process is how we can constanly “improve ourselves and the world we live in.”
I think that setting up a false and judgemental opposition between LOVE and NOT-LOVE is contrary to the meaning of true spirituality. Life is training us to be not eternally needy, dependent, reflecting and “lunar”, but rather active, initiating and “solar” in a responsibly co-creative process with the God-Head.
“Ye are Gods!” Isn’t that the truth of our being that we are trying to retrieve? Isn’t the transformational process that I have outlined above at the core of our being? Do you agree that your message below of dividing and labelling emotions does not promote this transformational process, but instead encourages people to keep putting their “good” emotions and their so-called “bad” emotions in separate boxes?
Your message below goes on to celebrate TRUST — but how can we develop our sense of TRUST in the Universe and above all in OURSELVES if we do not believe that any and ALL painful situations will always evolve, sooner or later, into more enlighted experiences and energies. So, without the painful emotions to transform and the eternal transformation process itself, what is there that we can truly TRUST?
Donald Johnson
Cardiff, Wales
UNITED KINGDOM
Trust builds our evolution :
When a loving parent, friend, teacher, master, mate, spouse…trust our qualities they show, we evolve by reciprocal trust.
So, yes, Trust is Love’s Sweetest Gift : a Gift of Love … to Evolve and Love.
“God’s Trust” is our faith in Humanity’s Evolution to Absolute LOVE
This is so excellent. Thank you, Andrew. So glad I learned of you on
New Dimensions.
May you grow in the Soil of LOVE and unfold in BEAUTY