Generally when it comes to Trusting people then we do it by seeing their work and behavior. We generally have different criterias for declaring a person good or bad. When a person fits into some or more of those criterias we set a level of Trust to them. When I see that, “Yes this person seems to have nice behavior with me”, “he talks to me well”, “he helps me when I am in need”, “he understands me when I tell him my problems”, “he doesn’t leak my secrets to others” etc. then I Trust the person. Criterias may be different or similar but the method is generally the same.

These criterias which we use are generally which we like. These are nothing but our own likings and dis likings. According to our training or conditioning which we have had in past in our environment, education and experiences we have different criterias for defining good. The thing which we define good are generally those which give us pleasant feeling, pleasant taste, pleasant gesture, happiness etc.

This desire for pleasant feeling, pleasant taste, nice experience, something new every time and continuous happiness is there within all of us. It is ever actively present within us. We are every time in search for some pleasant feeling or taste. When we are getting a pleasant feeling due to our association with some object then we like it and we want our association with that object to be continuous so that we can continuously keep getting the pleasant feeling, taste or happiness. When we are doing something which we do not like then we do not get that pleasant feeling and we want to get rid of that feeling and want some pleasant feeling again. It just implies that this desire for some pleasant feeling or happiness is there within all of us continuously.

Now if we look back to our understanding of Trust then we see that we set a level of Trust to the other person on the basis of our likings and dislikings. When we feel comfortable or get some pleasant feeling in the behavior of the other person or when other person behaves with us in accordance with our likings then we start Trusting that person. We feel comfortable with that person. We find the behavior of other person soothing. We can open up in front of that person, we feel like we have been unconditionally accepted. This feeling of being unconditional accepted gives us security. This is generally our basis for Trusting people.

Now the issue comes, when the behavior of other person starts changing, our notions of likings and dislikings start getting violated. Now the other person is not behaving in accordance to our criterias of liking. Since our Trust on the other person was dependent on our own likings and dislikings, so till the time other person keeps behaving in accordance to those criterias we are able to Trust him and as soon as his behavior changes our Trust shakes.

The thing here to notice is, we were getting pleasant feeling, comfort, happiness with the other person due to his behavior being in accordance to our notions of likings. We have been trying to derive comfort, happiness from the other person’s behavior. This is similar to deriving happiness or pleasant feeling by eating pizza. If we have spent a long time with a person who’s behavior with us has been in accordance with our notions of likings and when suddenly that person’s behavior starts changing then it really hurts us. In most of the cases we are not able to tolerate that change of behavior. It is similar to the case when a child is deriving immeasurable pleasure by eating an ice-cream and suddenly his mother snatches and throws away that icecream from him. We have been deriving happiness from other person’s behavior with us, it was giving us pleasant feeling and we also had expectations of other person’s behavior being consistent so that we keep getting that pleasant feeling and happiness continuously. The more and more time we spend with that person our expectations with the other person to remain the same keep getting stronger and stronger and we are most of the time are not even aware of it!! But, when the behavior of other person changes suddenly we get extremely hurt, our source of happiness is like snatched the same way ice-cream was snatched from the hand of that child. We want other person to behave with us the same way. We want to get that happiness again. When we are not able to get that then we blame that other person for our unhappiness. In fact we sometimes even become violent and that violence is also to restore the conditions back to as they were before or to vanish the other person who has been responsible according to us for our unhappiness.

Search for continuous happiness in an object which can not give its continuity is called Attachment.

The thing here to notice is, till the time we try to derive happiness from a thing which can not give its continuity we are bound to get hurt and get unhappiness. We want happiness and its continuity. When we get happiness from an object anytime then we desire for its continuity through that object. This happens unknowingly. Those expectations of deriving happiness and continuity from that object keep getting stronger till the time we are able to derive happiness from that object. When those expectations are violated we get hurt. Behavior of other person is the same thing. Other person’s behavior is not in our control. With the expectations of happiness and its continuity through other person’s behavior we give our state of being or our keys of happiness to other person and same thing happens with other person too mostly which ultimately becomes the source of our unhappiness.

Trust is defined as,

Total assurance that the Intentions of the other person are unconditionally good, is called Trust!

With the change in behavior of other person we doubt on his intentions and get hurt.

There is a need to look at our notions of happiness, relationships and Trust again in order to ensure them continuously since we want them continuously. Desire for happiness is such a desire which we can not kill or we can not suppress. This desire is ever actively present in us. We want happiness continuously. For continuous happiness we want such a thing which can ensure its continuity. We want our association with such an object which gives us happiness and keeps giving it continuously and which can not be separated from us so that we keep getting happiness continuously. Any object which is outside of us can not be associated with us continuously and even if we are able to associate it we will not be able to derive happiness from it continuously which we can experiment with us and come to know.

Object which can give us happiness and its continuity is proposed as Knowledge.

Knowledge includes:-

Knowledge of the Self.

Knowledge of Entire Existence.

and Knowledge of Natural Human Conduct.