mistrust is not an option
Continuing with last week’s theme of the significance of trust in love, I’d like to share a beautiful passage written by Osho on this subject. I’m sure it’ll inspire you to make trusting others a key discipline in your life and your relationships.
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It is very easy to trust when everybody is loving and nobody is deceiving you. But even if the whole world is deceptive and everybody is bent on deceiving you—and they can only deceive you when you trust—then too, go on trusting. Never lose trust in trust, whatever the cost, and you will never be a loser because trust in itself is the ultimate end. It should not be a means to anything else, because it has its own intrinsic value.
If you can trust you remain open. People become closed as a defense, so that nobody can deceive them or take advantage of them. Let them take advantage of you! If you insist on continuing to trust, then a beautiful flowering happens because then there is no fear. The fear is that people will deceive you—but once you accept that, there is no fear, so there is no barrier to your opening. The fear is more dangerous than any harm anybody can do to you. This fear can poison your whole life. So remain open, and just trust innocently, unconditionally.
You will flower, and you will help others to flower once they become aware that they have not been deceiving you a bit, but they have been deceiving themselves. You cannot go on deceiving a person endlessly if that person continues to trust you. The very trust will throw you back to yourself again and again.