According to Osho, trust cannot be cultivated; any cultivated trust is false and mental. Trust is your inborn nature; it flowers when hindrances—especially doubt born of fear—are understood and dropped. Rather than trying to create trust, unlearn doubt through awareness and meditation. Meditation clears thought-clouds, reveals your deathless center, dissolves fear, and then trust naturally flows from your depths.
You don’t learn trust like a skill; it’s already inside you and shows up when you let go of fear and doubt by quieting the mind.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Can trust be cultivated?
A cultivated trust will not be trust; it will be false, it will be insincere. It will just be on the surface; it will never touch your centre. Whatsoever is cultivated remains superficial, because whatsoever is cultivated remains of the mind. Trust cannot be cultivated, just as love cannot be cultivated: you can't teach people how to love. Dangerous will be the days when people are taught how to love, because they will learn the lesson, they will repeat it accurately -- it will be technological but it will not be of the heart. Anything that belongs to the depth has to come out of its own accord. So what is to be done? I understand the question you are asking. Then what to do? The only thing that can be done is to remove hindrances. Trust cannot be brought out; hindrances can be removed. When there is no hindrance,…
Osho, would you talk about trust?
The title was BHAGWAN MAHAVIRA AND MAHATMA BUDDHA. I said, "Can't you call both Bhagwan?" "Mahatma" means a very great man but still a man, and "Bhagwan" means one who has gone beyond man. I said, "How can you bring about a synthesis? You have already discriminated! " He was shocked and he said, "I have shown my book to many people -- nobody has indicated that. I have shown it to great scholars, pundits, and they have all appreciated it." I asked him, "Have you shown it to any Buddhist?" He said, "No." I said, "Show it to any Buddhist and he will see the insult that you have done Buddha. Ask him what he would suggest. He will say, 'Write BHAGWAN BUDDHA AND MAHATMA MAHAVIRA -- change it!" What is Mahavira compared to Buddha to a Buddhist? But to a Jaina, Mahavira is greater. Buddha comes very close,…
Beloved Osho, please speak about trust. What is trust in you? What is trust in your communes? Does trust mean that I have to accept everything?
Somehow you have got a wrong idea about trust. Trust is not in someone, it is not a relationship. Trust is a quality in you. A man of trust... it does not mean in what he trusts, but he trusts; that is his innocence. Even if he is cheated because of his trust, that does not matter, because trust is more valuable than any small thing that he has been cheated of. You can take everything from him, but you cannot take his trust. Trust is your inner growth, your consciousness at its peak. Certainly your trust will come in contact with many people, but you will be trusting because trust in itself is such a joy, and distrust is such an agony, that you have chosen trust rather than distrust. People are miserable all over the world because they have chosen distrust. From their very childhood they have been…
Osho, is the fruit of meditation self-realization? And how does one come to trust?
There is nothing to do—just loosen your grip a little. When the guru calls, loosen a little. Have just enough trust to step into that shallow water. I have heard: Mulla Nasruddin went to learn swimming. He slipped on the steps, fell; he hadn’t even entered the water, and he ran away from the ghat. The instructor shouted, “Mulla, where are you going? You’ll never learn to swim like this.” Mulla said, “Until I learn to swim I won’t come near the river. This is a danger to life. I escaped today; if I had fallen into the river when I slipped, I’d have been finished! I will come only after I learn to swim, master.” The instructor said, “Then you just stay where you are...” He still hasn’t arrived—and he never will. If you make it a rule to come to the river only after learning to swim, where…
Beloved Osho, why don't I trust you?
How long will you be able to pretend with a person with whom you have to live in love? You can pretend in the marketplace, you can pretend in the Lions' Club and the Rotary Club -- smiles, all smiles. You can do beautiful acting and role-playing. But if you live with a woman or a man for twenty-four hours a day, then it is tiring to go on smiling and smiling and smiling. Then the smile tires you, because it is phony. It is just an exercise of the lips, and the lips become tired. How can you go on being sweet? Your bitterness will surface. Hence by the time the honeymoon is over, everything is over. Both have known each other's reality, both have known each other's phoniness, both have known each other's falsity. One is afraid to become intimate. To be intimate means you will have to…