We can now understand what is the next step on the spiritual path. It is to develop our tendency to trust. A person who wants to go along the spiritual path should have a greater desire to trust than the average man. No doubt the world is going from bad to worse today. Promises have no value. A ten-cent stamp is valued more than a word of honor. Since this is the state of the world it is difficult for a person to develop the tendency to trust. But when we begin to tread the spiritual path trust is the first thing necessary.

Very often a person says, "I would like to trust people, but people are not worthy of trust." It may be practical to think about it like this in business, but when it comes to another kind of life, social life or the life of spiritual attainment, we should not look at it in this way. We can only develop the tendency to trust others by being ready to undergo every loss.

It is not always foolish to trust. On the contrary, it is the wise one who trusts more than the foolish one. Besides it is not a weakness to trust, it is a strength; the one who has less trust is weak, and every day makes him weaker. The one who does not trust people outside will soon not be able to trust his own relatives, his own friends; and finally that distrust develops to such an extent that he does not trust himself. That is the end.

There is a story of a great Sufi who in his early life was a robber. Once there was a man travelling through the desert in a caravan and he had a purse full of coins. He wanted to entrust them to someone because he heard that robbers were about.

He looked around and some way off he saw a tent, and a man was sitting there, a most distinguished looking man. So he said, "Will you please keep this purse, for I am afraid that if the robbers come they will take it." The man said, "Give it to me, I will keep it." When the traveller came back to the caravan he found that robbers had come and taken all the money of his fellow-travellers, and he thanked God that he had given his purse to someone to keep. But when he returned to that tent he saw all the robbers sitting there and among them was this most dignified man dividing the spoils. He realized that this was the chief of the robbers and thought, "I was more foolish than all the others, for I gave my money to a thief! Who can be more foolish than that!" And he was frightened and backed away.

But as soon as the thief saw him he called to him and said, "Why are you going, why did you come here?" He said, "I came here to get my purse back, but I found that I had given it to the very band from which I wanted to protect it." The chief said, "You gave me your purse, is it not so? You entrusted it to me, and it was not stolen from you. Did you not trust me? How can you expect me to take it from you? Here is your purse, take it." This act of trustworthiness impressed the robbers so much that they followed the example of their chief. They gave up robbery. It moved them to the depths of their hearts to feel what trust means. And in his later days this chief accomplished great spiritual work.

This shows that by distrusting people we perhaps avoid a little loss, but the distrust that we have sown in our heart is a still greater loss.