In God We Trust. Do we? And what in the world could it mean?

Do you trust your parents? Of course. Yet, Freud in his early "wisdom" posited that all neurosis was caused by male relatives especially fathers, uncles and brothers. Incest, molestation, beatings.. Did you know that Freud was one of the early feminists? Well, he was also wrong. By now, his theory of libido and psycho-sexology is proven terribly wrong.

Yet, he was on to something. In fact, in more general terms, he was right. Most, if not all, mental disease is triggered by early trauma. The earlier, the worse!

So then, can a child ever trust her parents? Well, at least she's got two. Kind of like insurance. One of them is at least decently good, we'd hope. And in some cases, we would sadly be wrong.

Our society realized this and we agreed to establish child protection services. But, let's not get into that debate here. Our sight is on something even more fundamental than the crucial question of how to raise young ones.

Should we trust our spouses? Of course. But, then again, statistics and the grapevine agree: Most marriages fail. Incompatibility. Infidelity. Dishonesty. Simple failure to get a long. 

Should we trust our families?

Should we trust money?

Should we trust the government?

How about friends? One should at least be able to trust one's BFF, right?

Well, you know, I don't need to say it but, no, life teaches us not to trust even our best friends. Not because they are bad, but, they have their conditioning, programming, their way of life...

How about our memories? Should we trust them?  Well, you heard about implanted memories? Or Alzheimer's, or many other forms of dementia?

How about our feelings and emotions? Of course not! Who could be reasonable when moved by some upset, anger or even worse rage? No, the point is that we better pay attention to, not suppress, our emotions. Just like a burning sensation on your finger may be saying that it is over a flame. Pull it out. Now!

Ok, so, we won't trust them. Then, how about our minds? The rational, the better angels of our soul part of the mind? Yes, you guessed it, don't trust it! In fact, all the good old scriptures hint at, nay, clearly put forth: don't trust your mind. It will deceive you! The mind is the best of servants, but the worst of masters. Just remember how much greed or pomposity or self-righteousness failed many of us.

So, what does that leave us with?

Trust no one and nothing! Ok, maybe you can trust yourself. But, then, there is the guy named Siddhartha, the awakened. The Buddha. He insisted that there is no such self separate from all the rest!

Now you know why we say "In God We Trust." It is simply a shorthand to remind us to not trust any of those other things that we do trust and be fooled and hurt by when our trust turns out to be misplaced.

How come? You ask. Why is that the moral of that statement? I trust God, you say? What do you mean? Which God? The one or the many? And, do you really know that God? Or is that simply a partially formed idea? Again remember the Buddha. He never, well almost never, used the word God. His teaching excluded that complex concept. It was a breath of fresh air to the Hindus, one of which was Siddhartha himself, who in their wonderful myths had infinitely many Gods and many many stories thereof: Ganesha, Krishna, Vishnu, Shiva, ... The Buddha, having awakened to the simpler facts of life, you know, old age, sickness, death... simply didn't need to refer to God. He instead helped those who were suffering due to their trust in their own minds full of drives and cravings. He likened his role to those of medical doctors caring for our ailing bodies. He said he was the doctor for our minds. He said he knew the cause of our suffering and the way to end our suffering. Here and now. Not in an otherworldly solution that told us to go through hell quickly, and don't linger in the purgatory for too long and make it to heaven. Nor in an inner worldly separation from the rest of our fellows like the desert fathers or the hermit or the life long Zen practitioner. The secret is out: trust your experience, but not the conclusions your mind jumps to from those experiences. Question them. All of them. The beliefs. The opinions. The positions. The judgements: This is good. That's bad. Do we really know? Many Christians are supposed to believe that we fell from the garden and lost paradise because of our belief in such value judgements.  Yet another belief. In the right direction maybe. But, yet another thought to question. After all, sometimes we know that coffee is good, and to pee, after too much coffee is even better!

What is trust? Do you have it? Sometimes?  Where does it come from? Where does it go?

There are worse questions to ponder.

Enjoy.