Everyday experiences

by F. W. Sears

BETRAYING ONE’S CONFIDENCE

“Once I betrayed the confidence of a very dear friend, afterward doing everything in my power to regain the friendship, love, and confidence, but the injury seemed too deep for forgiveness. Now what shall I do next?”

This is an inquiry which I recently received and contains a problem that affects many lives.

This man said that he did “everything in my power to regain the friendship, love, and confidence.” I have no doubt but what that is true in so far as his knowledge goes as to what was in his “power to do,” but he made the same mistake that the world always makes and that is he did all of his work in attempting to influence and control the other party.

Let us first understand that it is impossible for one person to either betray another’s confidence or injure him in any way. The careless and indifferent thinker will at once say that this is not true. I do not intend to argue the question, for my work is not to either proselyte or convert, but rather it is to teach, and so it does not make any difference to me as to whether any one agrees with me or not.

No one is asked to blindly accept any statement I may make, but the one who really wants to learn will accept “on probation” such statements as are not as yet truth to him, and then test them out for himself in every way he may wish until, through his own experience, he is able to see their truth and accept them because he has proved them for himself and not because I have made them.

It is true that we often seem to betray another’s confidence or seem to injure some one else, but we do not do this in reality, we only seem to do it simply because we have not gone deeply enough into the study of life to understand the Law of Cause and Effect and the instruments which are used by God—the great Universal Law—in working out the effects of causes man sets in motion.

We can and do betray our own confidence and inflict serious injuries upon ourselves again and again, but never upon another person.

When we study life deeply we see the great universal Law of Cause and Effect manifesting everywhere and we come to understand that this Law prevails throughout the Universe and that back of every effect, no matter how trivial and unimportant it may seem to us, lies the determining cause which produced it. It is true that this cause is too deeply hidden for the superficial and unsuspecting student to observe it but it is always there and can be found by the soul which has the real want to discover it.

People and things are only instruments in the hands of God—the great Universal Law—to work out in the lives of those with whom they contact the effects of the causes they set in motion, and when we become convinced of this wonderful Truth we cease to blame others for any effect we may receive and neither do we blame ourselves for any effect which we, as the instrument, may give to others. Each life always does the best it knows how at the particular moment of the commission of any act. Many times afterward we see that we have made a mistake and are “sorry” for it, but it is another mistake to be “sorry.” When we see we have made a mistake and done what we say is the “wrong” thing, it is because we are in a different state of consciousness, one that is more harmonious and constructive and where we can see the bigger vision and larger ideal than the one we were in at the time the “wrong” act was committed. In the lesser state of consciousness we were in at the time the act was committed, that which we did was the best we knew how to do in that thought current.

It can therefore be readily seen that had our “know how” been better at that particular moment—that is had we been in a more harmonious and constructive state of consciousness, or mind, or thought current at that moment—we would not have committed the act.

Our work then is to so develop our human mind that we will create within ourselves such a harmonious and constructive state of consciousness as will cause our “know how” to at all times accord with our highest ideals.

Had the man who wrote me the inquiry at the beginning of this letter done this he would never have “betrayed the confidence” of his friend, for his “know how” would have accorded with his highest ideals and so prevented the betrayal when the opportunity arose. He then could not have been used as the destructive instrument in the life of his friend to betray the latter’s confidence.

While it is true that we are only instruments in the hands of God—the great Universal Law—to work out in the lives of those with whom we contact the effects of the causes they have set in motion, it is also true that we are not compelled to be blind, ignorant and destructive instruments, directed and propelled by a “fate” over which we have no control. It is for each life to determine whether it shall be a constructive or destructive instrument in the hands of the Universal Law. No one else can decide this question for us. We alone have the power of choice. We alone are responsible for the effect of our decision. We can make this decision consciously and intelligently or unconsciously and ignorantly. We can continue to manage our life “with eyes which do not see and ears which do not hear” as long as we may wish. We can remain both blind and ignorant of the effects of the causes we are momentarily setting in motion just as long as we desire. God—the great Universal Law—never steps in and interferes with our doing anything we may desire, no matter whether its effect on us is what we call “good” or “bad.” He always permits us to go on, knowing that “the cure of the thing is in the thing itself,” and that when we have reaped enough of the effects of the destructive causes we have set in motion we will open our eyes to the larger truth and learn that we alone were responsible for the cause.

I told this man the first thing he should do was to begin work upon himself so that his “know how” would better accord with his higher ideals more of the time. He should also quit “trying to regain the friendship, love and confidence” of the other person and regain his own “friendship, love and confidence” and that until he had done this he could not expect to have it from any one else. He should not even be sorry nor regret what he had done, because energy expressed as sorrow or regret was energy used destructively, and it was the destructive use of energy through the thoughts and emotions we allowed to persist which made us destructive instruments in the hands of the Universal Law and so made it possible, in his case, to seem to betray the confidence of his friend.

It would have been impossible, however, for his friend’s confidence to have been betrayed had not such friend himself created the cause through his own inharmonious and destructive use of energy by his thoughts sometime prior to the act. That he was in no way responsible for his friend’s creation and that had he never lived his friend’s confidence would have been betrayed by some one else; his friend would not have escaped the betrayal. He was only responsible for the fact that he was such a destructive instrument that he could be used in this particular case. His work was to make his life so harmonious and constructive from now on that it would be impossible for the Universal Law to ever use him again as a destructive instrument.

This was the only way in which he could ever “forgive” himself and when this was accomplished he would not need to be “forgiven” by any one else for he would only attract to himself harmonious expressions from those with whom he contacted.