OshoZen Knight of Water (Cups)

Briar Rose

OshoZen Knight of Water (Cups) :TKNC
TRUST

Person flying in mid air


Yup, I have done this a lot and things have worked out perfectly for me. Trust in yourself and the universe to take care of the rest.

Like, "The Secret" movie said, Out of nothing and no way a way will be made.
That's trust!
 

squeakmo9

You know I have yet to have a flying dream. I think the closest I've come to one...I was trying to take off, running on the tarmac and just kept stalling on my belly, lol!
Never got off the ground, I'll never forget that dream.
I love how the person on this card is flying toward a pink hue of light, there is a sense that things will get better and to trust the Universe to deliver.
Trust has been yet another issue I have had to contend with. At an early age I trusted no one, if anything I always thought that people were intrinsically bad. Not a good way to live, but there you have it.
I find it interesting how this figure is flying to the left of the card. I've always been taught that the left of a tarot card is significant of the past...yet there he is, flying straight for it. Makes me think that all that I have gone through, good and bad, have made me who I am, and for that I regret nothing. It is only now, in this time of my life when I can truly sense the good that surrounds me, and so, am looking forward to the next chapter.
 

Alan Ross

I am not one of those who feel that if you think the right thoughts or do the right rituals, that the Universe will provide you with whatever you want. There is no guarantee that you will get the nice car, the diamond necklace, the fancy job, or the popularity that you may be seeking. For those of us who have been fortunate enough to have our needs and most of our wishes met, it is good to remember that the world is full of people who haven't been so fortunate.

Is the message of this card (as intended by the author) that if you leap into the unknown, the Universe will provide us with a soft place to land? I believe the answer is yes, but perhaps not in the way some may think. I don't think this card implies that if you fall on hard times, that somehow, someway, someone or something will always come to the rescue. Or that if you take a chance and then trust that things will work out the way you want them to, they will.

I think a close reading of the text for this card indicates the true significance. The opening statement on page 61 is "Don't waste your life for that which is going to be taken away." Surely that diamond necklace, that nice car, or that fancy job are things that can be taken away from you. Even popularity or fame is something that can be snatched away. The text implies that there is a greater prize, something that cannot be taken away from you: "That which can be taken away from you is not worth keeping, and that which cannot be taken away from you, why should one be afraid of its being taken away? - it cannot be taken away, there is no possibility. You cannot lose your real treasure."

What is this real treasure? I think we all know what it is. It is the pure, innocent heart that lies within us, our pathway to the divine. That is our safe place to land. We can take that leap into the unknown with perfect trust. Because our true valuables are within us, and there is nothing else we need to worry about losing.
 

Grizabella

OK I see both sides of this card.

I drove out of a wilderness area in a broken down car on gas fumes with a leaking radiator in the kind of August heat Redding, California offers (hot!) with my 10-year-old daughter and 20 cents hidden in my pocket, leaving a psychopath behind in a wilderness area where I'd spent a month facing a sawed-off shotgun and other "entertainments"----and that taught me trust. In those days, battered women were a new concept I'd only seen on talk shows and I didn't know I was one of them (go figure :rolleyes: ) but I called a refuge anyway, thinking maybe they could take us in for at least a little while---in California back then pay phones only required 20 cents, much to my amazement. In Oregon they were 25 cents but I thought I could find a beer bottle to get the other 5 cents to make a phone call. The refuge took us in and through that, I got counselling that totally changed my life. We had everything then----our lives. As long as we could hang onto that, we were ahead.

After that experience, I never again worried about trusting the Universe to meet my needs. To this day, I could lose everything and still not be afraid. That was the epitome of trust to me and is what this card brings to mind first.

But it also brings to mind the fact that you have to be vulnerable to have relationships or jobs or anything else in life. You can't second-guess and make sure you're going to always have a successful outcome and that you're not going to be hurt. You have to trust that whatever comes, you're going to survive it and come through to the other side. If you don't venture, you can't gain.

But I see what Alan Ross is saying---that it's folly to think the Universe will provide you with whatever you want. It won't. It absolutely will provide you with whatever you need, though. Always.
 

Alan Ross

Lyric said:
But I see what Alan Ross is saying---that it's folly to think the Universe will provide you with whatever you want. It won't. It absolutely will provide you with whatever you need, though. Always.
Sadly, I can't even agree with that statement. At least if by "need" is meant what is needed for survival. Here are a few statistics I pulled up:

* Every day, almost 16,000 children die from hunger-related causes--one child every five seconds.

* 820 million people in the developing world are undernourished. They consume less than the minimum amount of calories essential for sound health and growth.

* Worldwide, more than 1 billion people currently live below the international poverty line, earning less than $1 per day.

Just the other day, I was reading in the local paper about a couple of young girls, I believe around 4 or 5 years old, who were shot dead in a drive-by shooting while playing outside. They were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. What I'm saying should be obvious; personal survival is not guaranteed. Anything the Universe provides, the Universe can take away, including our very lives.

Everyday, I'm grateful that I have a job; there are many who have no job. Everyday I'm grateful for the roof over my head; there are many who have no roof. Everyday, I'm grateful for the food in my belly; there are many who have no food. Everyday, I'm grateful to be alive.

I'm sorry if what I'm saying seems to be a downer. But the most valuable thing I possess is not my life. Sooner or later, I will have to give that back anyway. If I die at fifty or if I die at a hundred, it doesn't make much difference. The past no longer exists and the future hasn't come yet. The only thing we can truly lose is the present moment.

The most valuable thing I possess is my beautiful and sacred inner being, which I'm bound and determined to protect from any corruption. I would rather live a short, difficult life as a good, decent, and loving person than a long, easy life as a selfish, uncaring, unfeeling brute. I don't expect the Universe to be kind. I don't expect the Universe to be generous. I don't expect the Universe to be fair. I prefer to let go of all expectations and simply "trust life. ...Then this life is no longer ordinary life, it becomes full of God, overflowing. When the heart is innocent and the walls have disappeared, you are bridged with infinity."
 

Judith D

I find it incredibly difficult to put my feelings on this card into words -written or otherwise. It seems that whatever you think - there is a corollary which contradicts it.
I love the card - the expression of freedom, of trust, of kindness and love waiting for you at the landingplace (the pink of the heart chakra). I would love to have that much trust that I could make that leap.
I think it is about the universe always providing what we need (not what we want, necessarily), but Alan's list of nasties is very true. The belief in karma can explain it, but I would hate to think that all those poor (literally, usually) beings have to go through that agony to provide spiritual lessons that they need to learn. I feel very blessed to be in a position where I can receive these teachings, these ideas, to expand my spirit.
I think this card in a reading will indicate that in that particular case absolute trust is the way to go.
 

Grizabella

I think we have to remember that, no matter what the book gives us to reflect on, we're going to use these cards in readings, too. And Ma Deva based the deck on RWS, so giving some of those meanings to the cards is also appropriate. This card is a Knight, and the Knights are impetuous and headstrong sometimes, being adolescent. So we could also say that sometimes our trust can be misplaced, causing us to fling ourselves out into space with trust mistakenly.

All these cards are teaching us certain beliefs, but if we're going to use them in readings, they have to be seen from all different angles, too, so that thought struck me.
 

Judith D

That thought struck me, Lyric, last night as I was thinking about these again. Whatever our personal take on a particular card, each reading will have a focus of its own, and we need to fit ourselves to that. I was considering also the RWS positions, particularly in regard to the King, so will go back to him to consider.
 

Grizabella

In response to Alan, I can only speak for myself but that horrible experience I went through was something I needed desperately in my life to wake me up to certain facts that I was then open to seeing I needed counselling for. I won't go so far as to say that the horrible suffering in the world that children, especially, go through is necessary for them. But on the other hand, we don't know what their life plan was before they came to this life. We don't know the great plan for the Universe that an intelligence much greater than ours has devised. All we know is that everyone and everything is necessary to that great plan, so we have to trust it and do the best we can, even when we see the horrible-ness. I still believe we can trust that what we need will be supplied. And I said need not want.

When I was younger, I used to wonder why, if there were a loving God, He would allow people to suffer. And when I worked in a state institution for the profoundly retarded, I wondered why people so handicapped that they couldn't think (so it seemed), see, hear, eat on their own, walk, talk, or even breathe without a table that tilted back and forth to keep respiration and circulation going could go on living. The only answer I could come up with was that it was part of the greater plan that connects us all and maybe it was to see how the rest of us were going to react and whether or not we were going to compassionately care for them. Of course, the fact that heroic measures were taken on the tilt table so that that person went on living was a decision their family made to care for them and keep them alive, but there were many, many others nearly as bad who went on living without those measures.

I don't think we should stop trusting just because of all the world's suffering. I think we should trust more because of it and that that should spur us to greater efforts to do whatever we can to alleviate the suffering.
 

Alan Ross

Solitaire* said:
In response to Alan, I can only speak for myself but that horrible experience I went through was something I needed desperately in my life to wake me up to certain facts that I was then open to seeing I needed counselling for.
For me, the issue is how to define "need." It's clear to me that the Universe doesn't always provide us with physical needs. It doesn't always provide us with what we need for physical survival. But if by "need," you are referring to what we need in order to grow as loving, compassionate, and wise human beings, then I agree with you 100%. Those "needs" the Universe will indeed always provide, sometimes over and over again until we finally learn. We can trust that anything the universe throws at us can be used for our ultimate betterment. And we can certainly trust that we can live a good life, regardless of our outer circumstances.

Solitaire* said:
I don't think we should stop trusting just because of all the world's suffering. I think we should trust more because of it and that that should spur us to greater efforts to do whatever we can to alleviate the suffering.
I think we should trust in our ability to make a difference in the world, to bring benefit to other living beings and the Universe. That is what I feel should spur us to do whatever we can to alleviate suffering.