Trust Yourself, Then You Can Trust Life

Interview with Geetee by Jayesh. Interviewed for Osho German Times

Jayesh: Trust in life sounds like a great concept, but when I look at my life, there are plenty of times that I am only interested to satisfy a particular need and when criticized I often get caught up in defending my actions rather than looking at the criticism in a balanced way.

In these situations, trusting in anything seems to go out the window. You have practiced for many years to stay open and centered, even when faced with extreme emotions from the participants in your groups. What does trust in life mean to you?

Geetee: I am very excited. I want to say the right things and do a great interview. I used to call it being nervous, now it is excitement for me.

Ok, when I listen to my heart I hear Veeresh saying: “You have to start from the position that you are ok, you are lovable. This needs to be your foundation at all times.” For me that means before you can trust in life you have to learn to trust yourself.

Veeresh showed me that my intentions are good. I am a loving man and I see the same in you. My behavior is not always appropriate and sometimes I make mistakes, but who I am as a human being is good. When you operate from that position you learn to trust yourself. The more you trust yourself especially in difficult situations, the more you will appreciate the opportunity to make mistakes because then you can learn more and grow.

Being ok or coming from a loving position means, I have to include all the parts of myself. Not just the nice parts or the parts that make me look good. I have to also include that sometimes I create a mess.

I would like to be grateful when I am being pointed out my mistakes but I accept that in reality it is not that easy.

I remember one of the interviews I did with Veeresh. I came to him and I said: “I am grateful for my life, I am grateful to my parents, I am grateful for everything that I have achieved today. But still I get caught up in negative mind fucks and I get distracted and react. He told me something that really blew my mind. I thought he would say:” It’s ok Geetee, it will go away at some point.” But he just looked at me, smiled and said: “Welcome to the human race.” (laughing) I was shocked. I thought:” Wow, what an arrogant fuck I am, trying to be perfect and wanting him to approve of me and give me a magic cure.” And he went further and said: “Celebrate your negativity.” My first reaction was you can say that, Osho can say that, but not me. But because I love and trust Veeresh, I looked at it. I realized that my negativity is based on me not being able to transfer my love to another person. My intentions are good, I want to contribute something positive to this world. I want to love. If that is not being received it upsets me, but instead of reacting to the other or the situation I have to take responsibility and learn. I have to see what I can change in the situation, rather than just reacting to it. I thought: “Wow, this is quite an advanced position to take.”

All the so called negative feelings such as helplessness, despair, distrust, are all based on the absence of love. If I am not able to feel love in my heart, it results in emotional pain.

So, to trust in life means I have to learn to have compassion with myself in every situation in daily life. I need to include the parts in me that are difficult, when I am not perfect, or when my image is at stake.

But in my heart there is nothing wrong with me and I see the same in you. You are a loving man, you have to learn to believe and trust that. Then you can start trusting life because whatever happens, you know that your loving heart will always guide you the way.

That is when your life starts to transform into a miracle, a wonder, without you trying to control situations anymore. You do not have to hold on to that this is what I have to achieve now. Veeresh used to tell us over and over: “Keep it open. Don’t try to design or control anything. Just see what happens and look at how you can bring more love into the situation.”

Do you have any tips to keep remembering, or to practice coming back to your heart?

You have to learn the forgotten language of the heart. The heart has a huge capacity we have just started to realize. For me it comes down to shifting your attention on the positive, focus on keeping your heart open and practice.

It takes discipline. Your negativity will always be there. You can hold on to it and go down with it. Or you can say: “Ok, I know that part, I accept it. It is a part of me, but I choose to focus on creating something positive for myself and the other.”

Could you explain the relationship between vulnerability and strength?

When you open your heart you start to feel, you become sensitive. You are able to feel a lot of love, but with this love also all the moments where love was absent come up. That makes you vulnerable, and most people only want to hold on to the good feelings. They want love to continue and they disregard their negative emotions.

You have to learn to accept all what you feel, when you are in despair, when you are on top of the world, or helpless. Accept when you are completely blissful, feeling hurt or in pain, totally grateful, angry, or frustrated, and all the other emotional states a human being can experience.

If you don’t accept what you feel totally, you are denying a part of you. You are denying your wholeness. You are in conflict with yourself. The denial of your human potential is emotional pain.

If I am hurt it is my responsibility to communicate that in a way that the other person understands it and feels my heart behind it. The other will feel my authenticity, and feel invited to respond in the same way. And if a person cannot appreciate me then that’s too bad, but it doesn’t say anything about who I am as a human being.

Once you can accept yourself in different emotional states you become authentic. Then exposing yourself just the way you are makes you vulnerable, because your heart is open. Being authentic and accepting where I am at in the moment, makes me strong because I can’t be anybody else.

And sometimes I am hurt, or sometimes I am excited because we are going to do an interview and I want to do it really well. I accept my excitement and then I can let go of it and focus on my heart and what is needed in the moment. My base is the love in my heart, so my vulnerability is my strength.

When your heart is open you attract good energy and loving people into your life. You are sending out beautiful vibrations and people who are open to them respond and feel invited to contribute.

To love each other in different ways is what I call our human potential. It is our human nature. We will start to realize our potential when we open and follow our loving hearts. Then miracles will happen. That is what is called synchronicity.

You trust in life and life gives back to you.

What in your opinion prevents people from trusting?

I think most people are afraid of stepping into their human potential.

When you trust your heart and you operate from a position of love you cannot control the situation. You cannot predict the outcome or another person’s answer. You can only say this is who I am now. That makes you vulnerable. When you open your heart, you can get hurt.

For me looking inside was scary because I didn’t know what I would find. When I started my training I had the expectation I would find something really horrible. I thought that one day the sky would open up and God would look down on me and say: “Geetee, you really fucked it up. You are a horrible person…” Somewhere that was what I believed about myself. Deep down I didn’t trust that I was a good man. I thought I had to pay a price, or I had to achieve something before I would be loved. I had to have a title, be a top sportsman, be good looking, whatever, only then could I be lovable.

Having Veeresh loving me over and over for who I was and not for what I did, enabled me to trust that I am lovable just the way I am.

To open my heart and to love and accept myself took a lot of courage and it was scary. So I believe the easy solution for many people is to avoid going there.

When you meet people who are not trusting in your work as a group leader and trainer how do you work with them?

I try to be the best role model I can be. I live what I am teaching and I include myself in the group process. I walk into the group room and share exactly what’s going on with me. I make myself vulnerable, I open my heart and say: “Look, this is who I am. I want you to trust me.”

I just had some beautiful feedback on a workshop that I did in Osho Leela, UK. A participant told me that when I came in he expected a showman but what he met was a human.

I learned that from Veeresh. He was so humble and loving and shared what was going on with him.

When people see a human being, who also allows pain and feeling insecure, then they feel they have the right to be insecure also, and that makes them relax and feel safe. Then they can explore on a deeper level what is going on inside. That’s beautiful.

I listen to my heart and when my heart tells me something I have to follow it.

Often in groups I talk to myself: “I think you should be talking about this.” and then my mind says: “Oh no, you cannot say that!” And I say it anyway, because it comes from my heart and I feel it is right. This makes me shaky, but I trust that I can handle whatever happens.

The people you work with need to learn to trust you, so that they learn to eventually trust themselves. And they trust you because you are an authentic, loving human being.

Veeresh trusted me more than I did myself. And because I loved Veeresh completely and wanted to be like him, I just did whatever he asked me to do. He threw me in so many situations which I would have never gone into myself.

Because of Veeresh’s love I learned to love myself.