5.3 Doubt and faith
Whenever you have a doubt, surrender the doubt and faith both at the feet of the master. You see, the master is the one who gives you the faith and he is the same person who gives you the doubt. When you are stuck with doubt, tell the master mentally, 'Master, it is you who gave my faith in you, it is also you who gave me doubts about you. I am surrendering both at your feet. I don't want to play this game. I have suffered enough with this game. Please take care.'
When you surrender both doubt and faith at the feet of the master, you will see something called trust happens in you, which is neither doubt nor faith. It is the courage to experiment with the truth.
5.4 Deep trust
A Zen master was bringing up a small boy from a young age to be his successor. This little boy had a very deep, loving connection with the master but he was a very naughty boy. He would try to behave in the same way as the master. He would try to imitate and make fun of the master, standing behind him. The master had a habit of always holding his thumb up whenever he wanted to emphasize a particular point. This boy also would stand behind the master and do the same thing!
One day the master got annoyed and just took the knife he was carrying and cut off the boy's thumb. Understand: the story says very beautifully that the trust and feeling of connection was so deep, the boy did not even think once for a moment that something wrong was done to him. The disciple felt very clearly that if the master does something, it must be good for him. The story says that this deep trust even during the intense pain enlightened him at that moment.
Understand two important things here. First thing, that much of connection and trust over the master existed in the boy. Second thing, the disciple was willing to go through any suffering, pain and any kind of tapas or penance. Penance is being ready to work on the technique at any cost since enlightenment is the first priority. Of course, this technique is for the people for whom enlightenment has become their first priority.
5.5 Suspect your identity, not the master
The stronger you hold on to an ideology or to a person, the deeper will be your depression. If you hold on to a person, say your boyfriend or girlfriend or husband or wife, your son or brother or father, you will be bound by the sway of the relationship, and you will invariably fall into depression and start blaming that person. This is how depression happens. In the same way, if you hang on to your ego or identity or ideology, again you will face depression.
When you face the depression due to the ideology or identity or ego, you start blaming the whole world because there is no second person to blame! You lose confidence in the whole world. You lose trust on the whole world. You don't even know the reason for your depression, and you start blaming the whole world. Living with a strong ideology or strong identity is like being in the worst possible hell.
When you fall into this kind of depression, you will not have the intelligence to associate the depression with the identity that you created. You will not have the intelligence to realize that your identity is the cause for your depression. You will start suspecting everybody and blaming everybody. Even a simple incident will be enough for you to blame another person as the reason for your depression. That is the big problem with this ego-based identity.
You always think that if you don't have a strong identity, others will cheat you. But understand that if others cheat you, they will cheat you at the most for a few hours. Whereas if you build a strong identity for yourself because of this, the very identity will cheat you for your whole life. It will be with you when you are in the waking state, dream state, and deep sleep state; and you will be blissfully unaware of it. So it is better to be cheated by others than to be cheated by your own identity.
Always remember one thing:
Do not suspect the master, suspect yourself. Suspect the identity that you are carrying. That's the right thing to do.