What is a Belief?

What is a belief?

Where do your beliefs come from? What is so important about our beliefs? Are they better than anyone else’s beliefs?

It is interesting how seriously we take some beliefs without really questioning where they come from.

Let’s try and break this down. ‘What is a belief’? There are many levels of belief and many different reasons why we have some and not others. Primarily, as a result of being born on this world we are indoctrinated into certain ways of being, all dependant upon where, when and into what circumstances we are born. We have no control over this indoctrination process. So, dependant upon the country we are born into, already we are exposed to the beliefs of our parents, who in turn were exposed to the beliefs of their parents which were then confirmed, over and over again by our growing up in a society that supports certain beliefs.

National identity is a strong belief that can often be background ‘noise’ but is often openly taught on a daily basis.

What about religion? If your parents or the society into which you were born has certain religious views then they are also passed on to you.

The financial position of you family, wealthy? Poor? Middle of the road?

Did you have any control over this programming or did you appear to be a victim to circumstance?

I believe it was the Jesuits who said “Give me a child for their first 6 years and they will belong to the church forever.” So, without our consent we are virtually brainwashed into certain beliefs that become embedded into our very being. This is the basis upon which we build our lives. Rarely questioning these fundamental beliefs, often, for most people, there is no real opportunity to question, so deep is this programming.

Then, based upon whatever conditioning / programming we experienced as a young child, our paths are mapped out.

As we grow older so we begin to discriminate, we judge others based upon what program we believe to be who and what we are. Little realising that the ‘other’ was also programmed, albeit by being born and growing up in a different environment.

When we judge others as being different, lacking in some of the basic beliefs that we, unknowingly, buy into we may try to encourage the other to believe in some of the same things we believe in. If we are a good salesperson then we may sway the other into accepting our belief, if we are too pushy we may create an equal and opposite reaction which may lead to conflict.

It seems to me that the more people believing in a particular belief the more ‘real’ that belief appears to be.

So it seems to me that any fundamental belief that we hold, though no conscious participation of our own, is supported by the number of others holding the same belief, again, through no conscious participation on their part.

A belief then can be seen as an approach to life, of giving energy to certain aspects of life, the goal then being to convince the rest of the world in the ‘rightness’ of our belief.

A belief that we had no control over whatsoever.

Understanding that all beliefs are of a similar nature, all are valid, dependant upon where and when you were born, none better or worse, none right or wrong, to oppose, or support, a belief is to set oneself up for conflict with those who have opposing beliefs.

Is this the name of the game on planet Earth?

I experienced some pretty awful conditioning as a young child and it coloured my life for many years, a sub-conscious belief that I did not even know I had. But many years of life was spent compensating, trying to navigate through life without a reliable map. Bumbling through as best as I could.

I believe that it was only through discovering and following this path, ‘Clearing’ that I began to understand and consequently liberate my self from the prison of the past. A recognition of how our sub-conscious belief patterns have shaped our world view and how isolationist and destructive that conditioning can be.

Ultimately your continued association with such beliefs will continue to keep you a prisoner to the past. A prison that you do not even know you are in.

Recognise that a belief is just that, a belief, having no lasting importance and is just one of many thousands. Before you can help another let go of their addiction to a belief you must first let go of your own addictions. Otherwise you are simply trying to convince the other that you are right.