An individual Hindu is never so bad as a Hindu crowd. An individual Mohammedan is never so bad as a Mohammedan crowd. What happens? Individuals are not bad, crowds are simply mad – because, in a crowd, nobody feels responsible. You can commit murders in a crowd easily, because you know the crowd is doing it and you are just a wave in it, you are not the deciding factor, so you are not responsible. Individual, alone, you feel a responsibility. You will feel guilty if you commit something. It is my observation that sin exists through crowds, no individual is ever a sinner. And individuals, even if they commit something wrong, can be taken out of it very easily; but crowds are impossible, because crowds have no souls no centers. To whom to appeal?

And in all that goes on in the world – the devil, the evil forces – the crowd is in fact responsible. Nations are the devil; religious communities are the evil forces. Belief makes you a part of a bigger crowd than you, and there is a feeling of elation when you are a part of something bigger, a nation – India, or America, or England. Then you are not a tiny human being. A great energy comes to you and you feel elated. A euphoria is felt. That’s why, whenever a country is at war, people feel very euphoric, ecstatic. Suddenly their life has a meaning – they exist for the country, for the religion, for the civilization; now they have a certain goal to be achieved, and a certain treasure to be protected. Now they are no longer ordinary people, they have a great mission. Belief is the bridge from the individual to the crowd.

Trust is totally different. Trust is not an intellectual concept. Trust is a quality of the heart, not of the head. Belief is a bridge between the individual and the crowd and trust is a bridge between the individual and the cosmos. Trust is always in God, and when I say “God,” I don’t mean any belief in God. When I say God, I simply mean the whole.

Trust is a deep understanding that you are simply a part, a note in a great symphony, just a small wave in the ocean. Trust means you have to follow the whole, flow with the whole, be in accord with the whole. Trust means: I am not here as an enemy, I am not here to fight; I am here to enjoy the opportunity that has been given to me; I am here to be grateful and celebrating. Trust is not in a doctrine: you need not be a Hindu, you need not be a Mohammedan, you need not be a Jain or a Sikh. Trust is a commitment between the individual and the whole. Trust makes you religious – not Hindu, not Mohammedan, not Christian – simply religious. Trust has no name. Belief makes you a Hindu, Mohammedan, Christian. Belief has names, millions of names; there are thousands of beliefs – you can choose. Trust has only one quality: the quality of surrender into the whole; the quality of moving in accord with the whole; the quality of not forcing the whole to follow you, but simply allowing yourself to move with the whole. Trust is a transformation; trust has to be attained; belief is given by birth. Nobody is born in trust, everybody is born in belief: you are born a Hindu, or a Jain, or a Buddhist. Belief is given by society, because belief is the bridge between you and society.