The Weight of Belief

[yajvan]

hariḥ oṁ
~~~~~~

namast�

Do you have thoughts or opinions on this matter...

I often hear , ' I don't believe ...', 'we don't believe that ...' ' In our religion we do not believe....' or 'I believe in ____________ ' , 'It's my belief...'.

What of belief ? Does it make it so? Isn't belief just a point of view or an affirmation of what one holds important or true but has not substantiated it for one's self? It ( the belief) may have nothing to do with what Reality really is, what Truth really is.

Let me explain this POV and it's implication as I see it. I get into an elevator. I believe ( without looking at the control board) that the elevator is going to the 10th floor. Lets say is does go to the 10th floor and my 'belief' is confirmed ' See - told ya we arrived at the 10th floor.'
Now I say I believe the elevator is going to the 3rd floor, only this time it arrives on the 5th floor. My belief had no effect on the elevator's position.

Personal belief without a foundation is just a point of view, conjecture, opinion. It carries little weight but is frequently at one's disposal for a conversation. This is neither good or bad, but consider this. What of going though life with one's beliefs that are ungrounded ? Riding in the elevator hoping to arrive on the 5th floor but constantly ending up on the 12th floor.

So now one looks at the control board and without hesitation one can say we will arrive on the 5th floor. It happens. We will arrive on the 14th floor, and it happens. The person is plugged in to the intelligence of the system.
Like that, when it comes to Life and all the diversity, the 'control board' is pure awareness, pure intelligence. The more we contact this field of pure possibility the more we infuse this intelligence into us and are able to 'see' how things work - the Reality of life.

So , if we ask ( to take the idea of the control board analogy a bit further) where is the manual for this elevator, this control board? How to understand the circuitry of how this works? This would be the ved , the āgama-s , the śāstra-s - they are manuals out how the elevator operates.

And when one is in tune with the 'physics' behind the elevator's workings then one is (perfectly) aligned with their dharma and universal dharma. Then 'belief' is no more and personal experience of Reality unfolds . One becomes an exponent, an ambassador of truth.

praṇām

[Eastern Mind]

Yajvan: The analogy has me going up and down. What about the non-named 13th floor? Where would that put us?

I believe ... that someone saying that belief is threefold, or comes from three separate areas.

1) a desire to fit in so you say you believe but you really don't, but still its cool to the ego, or gets you out of being punished

2) from others who are accepted as wiser.. guy says there's a horse ahead around the corner, and there is ... you do this 200 times and eventually you start believing guy is telling truth so you just go with it.. this is backed up by experiential knowledge, but we're not quite there

3) direct experience that rattles the bones with intensity ... only real true reason to believe anything


So a new analogy ...

1) this curry is hot ... Mom and Dad and brother and sister all say so. Guru comes and agrees. So, oh no, I can't disagree with parents, Dear sister or guru, so I have to believe.

2) For the first ten years of your life they told you how something tastes and after you tried it they were correct.. logic dictates the curry is hot

3) you taste it.. you cry, you snort, you grab rice and yoghurt and water, your tongue feels like it is sitting on a candle ... so now you can honestly say .. this curry is hot.. scorching, (all the other synonyms you had in that other thread)

This is my belief on belief, but maybe its just a theory from some cynical senile old fool.

[NayaSurya]

I agree with what you have said Yajvan.

But, sometimes belief can be very subjective, it is based on a souls ability to decypher clues, and things they see...and then do our best to come to an understanding.

I have seen many things over this lifetime. I came from a place of nonbelief. If a ghost was real...only I would believe this if I could catch in a jar and see it for myself.

Over the years...taking care of dying people...I saw many things. The people dying say things, explain things. These things were gifts to me. I serve them selflessly and they inturn showed me a bit of the divine I could not understand.

Belief can only be so for the beholder.

My oldest son (18 in a month) is a staunch atheist. He call Siva the "blue guy". Lately he has been more sensitive to my beliefs...but it only came about when I tell him this.

I can not make you believe...each person must go through a series of things in order to find their own set of beliefs. But I can tell you that in my lifetime I have seen some of the machine working..beyond our vision. I tell him of these things, but this can not change his mind because he did not see it himself. But I am confident...over time, his own set of divine signs will come along.

I think some things are kept out of our reach early on, I think some of the workings are not for us to fully understand. Whenever I get a large chunk of information I become afraid it means I won't be allowed to stay here in this joy I have been allowed to create.

Even with the manual, even with the understanding of the machine. Belief often still comes from seeing and feeling.

Just like when you are told over and over again that something is hot, and you continue to fight it...knowing it's not. Someday you will be forced to reckon with this and accept the truth...even if that means going against many people you respect. Belief that comes from experience is like a soundly tested lab experiment. But it is instantly corrupted when you try to transfer that experience to another...and may even make you look very silly:P