If I already trust life, what role does Īśvara play?

In my previous articles article From isolation to belonging: Seeing life as an intelligent whole and Do we really need Īśvara? A dialogue with a secular humanist, we explored the idea of Īśvara as the grand Order of life, and examined whether ethical and psychological maturity require invoking such a vision at all.

Yet there is a subtler position that remains unaddressed, which is held by many thoughtful people who are neither anxious nor alienated, and who already feel a basic trust in life as it unfolds. If life is already trusted, what role, if any, does Īśvara play? The following dialogue explores this question, not as a debate, but as a refinement.

G (Grounded Interlocutor): I appreciate the care with which you’ve explained Īśvara as order. But I still don’t feel the need for it. I trust life. I trust the universe and how it works. I’m not anxious about uncertainty, and I don’t feel alienated from existence. So why should I bring in this concept of Īśvara at all?

V (Vedāntic Interlocutor): Let me begin by saying that what you’re describing is not a problem from the standpoint of Advaita Vedānta. A person who trusts life, who is not in chronic resistance to reality, already lives with a degree of inner harmony. This trust itself reflects the maturity of mind (pakva antaḥkaraṇa).

G: That’s important to me. I don’t want this to turn into a conversation where trust is dismissed as naïve.

V: It won’t. Traditional Advaita Vedānta does not regard trust in life as naïveté. In fact, it sees such trust as a necessary soil for deeper understanding. The question it raises is not whether trust is good, but whether trust is articulated or unarticulated.

G: What do you mean by that?

V: When you say, “I trust life,” is that trust primarily a felt orientation, a way of relating, or is it also an understood structure? In other words, do you trust life because it has generally worked out for you, or because you understand something about how the universe itself functions?

G: I would say it’s more experiential. I’ve seen that resisting reality only creates suffering. Trust feels more aligned.

V: That is already a significant insight. But notice that this trust remains largely pre-reflective. It works as long as life remains broadly intelligible to you. Advaita Vedānta asks a quiet follow-up question: What exactly are you trusting? Is life merely acceptable, or is it fundamentally intelligible?

G: I don’t feel the need to answer that metaphysically. I’m comfortable with not knowing everything.

V: And Vedānta fully agrees that not knowing everything is inevitable. The issue is not omniscience. The issue is whether the universe itself is assumed to be ultimately lawful or ultimately opaque. Your trust already presupposes the former, even if you haven’t named it.

G: That sounds like you’re saying I already believe in Īśvara without knowing it.

V: Not believe, presuppose. To consistently trust the universe is already to assume it is not fundamentally chaotic or absurd. Īśvara is simply the name Advaita gives to that assumption when it is made explicit and examined.

G: But my trust doesn’t need that examination to function.

V: True. Īśvara is not required for trust to function. It becomes relevant when trust seeks stability under conditions where explanation fails. For example, when suffering is prolonged, when outcomes seem radically disproportionate, or when moral effort does not appear to align with results.

G: In those moments, I still say, “I don’t understand, but I trust.”

V: That is admirable. Īśvara-buddhi says something slightly different: “I don’t understand the particular connections, but I understand the nature of the whole.” The difference is subtle. One rests in temperament, the other rests in understanding.

G: Are you suggesting my trust could collapse?

V: Not necessarily. But trust that is purely experiential can fluctuate under sustained pressure. Īśvara-buddhi does not prevent pain, but it stabilises trust by rooting it in a vision of order rather than in personal resilience alone.

G: So Īśvara adds explanation, not comfort?

V: Exactly. Īśvara is not meant to console you. It is meant to clarify what kind of universe you are trusting. It turns trust into prasāda-buddhi, the understanding that results are outcomes of an impersonal, intelligent order (karma-phala-niyama), not messages addressed to you personally.

G: I can see how that depersonalises events.

V: And that depersonalisation is psychologically significant. Events no longer silently evaluate you. They simply happen within an order you participate in. Trust becomes less about endurance and more about belonging.

G: So the difference is not between distrust and trust, but between trust without explanation and trust with explanation?

V: Precisely. Advaita Vedānta does not replace trust. It completes it cognitively. When trust seeks understanding, it naturally discovers Īśvara, not as an added belief, but as the intelligibility it was already leaning on.

G: So I don’t need to adopt the language of Īśvara unless my trust wants clarity.

V: That is a very fair way to put it. Vedānta would say: when trust matures into inquiry, Īśvara ceases to be optional language and becomes an explanatory recognition. Until then, your trust is not opposed to Vedānta; it is already in harmony with it.

G: That reframes the whole question for me.

V: And that, from the Vedāntic standpoint, is exactly where the conversation is meant to arrive: not at agreement, but at clarity.