Belief is the result of our intelligence. As children we gather information to form beliefs so as to have an understanding of how the world works. Using our past experiences to form these beliefs, we can then take action based upon them to affect the world around us.
This means that all our beliefs about how we see the world are based on our skewed perceptions of how we perceive it – they’re not real, i.e. truth. This is difficult for people to grasp because they want to believe that we have an innate sense of morals, are intrinsically good, and have collective definitions of shared things, such as love, that are just universal truths for us all to live by. But love, like the constructs of good and bad, are also beliefs. By this I mean it’s subjective – the definition changes from person to person, from thing to thing. The universe doesn’t exist in a state of good or bad, it just is. As we’re a part of the universe, or even the universe given consciousness, why would we be any different?
Morals are also beliefs – a social conditioning. We have the capacity to be equally moral as we do amoral, it just depends on the environment we develop in and the experiences we’re exposed to. We’re born a blank slate, and as we develop we become socially conditioned by our culture/environment.
Our beliefs are the cornerstone upon which we have built not just our understanding of the world, but ourselves, and how we’re ‘supposed’ to operate within it. If someone challenges a person’s beliefs they fight very hard to defend them, as to deconstruct the belief is to deconstruct that person and their identity.
People are born into obligation, but that’s because they don’t take the time to question their beliefs. However, if you’re able to understand and appreciate this concept, then you can start to witness your own narrative – the story you’ve constructed to make sense of the world and subsequently live by. As those constructs are a choice, we can then choose to question them, to challenge them.
We are examples of Newton’s First Law – an object will remain in its current state unless acted upon by an external force. Our default existence is a state of contentment (I’d argue contentment as opposed to happiness). As we’re bombarded by external stimuli from the physical world and shifted into experiencing emotions such as happiness and sadness, both of which are temporary, unsustainable states of being, we continue to dance around our default state of contentedness, but never actually (or very briefly) in it. But in my opinion this is where we truly exist, in a state of just being. But we become so distracted by doing that we forget this. Meditation is the path back to equilibrium, to self-awareness, to union.
Once existing in a place of awareness, you’re in a position to challenge your beliefs – to lean into the fears that contradict them. When we realise that the reality in which we live is actually one we’ve built ourselves then we cease to be a slave to those beliefs. We can then become truly powerful as we begin to play with and redefine our reality, choosing what you value and what you don’t from a place of consciousness. It’s important to learn to act from an informed state of mind, not obligation; if you can operate from a place of consciousness then you’re empowered to accomplish whatever you choose to.