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HOW ABANDONING BELIEF ROCKED MY WORLD

2/19/2011

17 Comments

 
Beliefs separate us like barbed wire. Are they even necessary?

What I believe isn’t important.  

The fact that I can put order to my thoughts, sort them into opinions and fan them into beliefs is hardly impressive.  In fact, such thinking is unavoidable.  

It’s what our highly evolved human brains do.  They compare and contrast and judge in an endless attempt to make sense of the world around us.  

Believing is as automatic as walking or talking or sneezing, and about as noteworthy.

There was a time when I considered my beliefs to be something more than just an assemblage of thoughts.  I mistook them for something much more important.  I thought they were me.

At various times in my life I believed I was a Catholic, a Unitarian, an agnostic and a secular humanist.  I was a liberal, a feminist, an environmentalist and a pacifist.  I took on new identities in search of a higher self and, down deep, I think, to distance myself from certain vulgarities that characterize the human condition - qualities like greed and aggression.  By connecting certain thoughts, by cobbling together new identities, I convinced myself and others that those unwholesome human traits couldn’t possibly define me.  They defined thieves and rapists and murderers.  I was above all that, and had a portfolio of beliefs to prove it. 

I was not alone in my quest adopt a new identity.  Everyone in the world was doing it right along with me.  Hindus, Muslims and Buddhists.  Socialists, Communists and Greens.  Progressive Unionists, Christian Democrats – some crafting identities the way college freshmen craft double majors.  We were all attempting to rise above our inherited animal nature, but rising above it didn’t make it go away.  We were still greedy and aggressive despite our deeply held beliefs.  We were walking contradictions, projecting our inner conflicts onto the world; in fact, we were the world, and that’s why it was such a bloody mess.

Having wandered from one belief system to another, I thought I had explored life’s biggest questions, but I was only asking questions for which my beliefs had provided me pat answers.  I had yet to ask myself the most radical questions, the ones that would eventually smash my beliefs to bits.  They were questions no one seemed to be asking, questions like:

If a clash of beliefs can be found at the root of all the violence in the world, then shouldn’t we question their validity – not the validity of any particular belief, but belief itself? 

Separated from our beliefs, would we lose our moral bearing?  Would we fall prey to our baser instincts and rock the world with depraved acts of violence?  Or is this precisely the behavior we exhibit under the hypnotic spell our beliefs? 

Imagine a city whose buildings have been leveled by an earthquake.  That’s the image I had of my mind after my beliefs had been toppled.  I felt like I could see forever in every direction.  The towering thought structures that stood as my beliefs no longer blocked my view of the world.  I felt a disorienting sense of freedom.  Liberated from the beliefs that had conferred my identity, I felt blissfully anonymous.  I was a person without a suffix, without an –ist to affirm my existence.  I had unwittingly joined the only club that matters.  It numbers in the billions, doesn’t charge dues and welcomes career criminals.  It’s called the human race. 

It’s been years since I disposed of my beliefs, and I have yet to turn into a sociopathic killer. On the contrary, I’ve developed a deep affection for my planet mates now that I’m not measuring them by the yardstick of my beliefs.  Gone are the walls of thought that prevented me from seeing who they really are.  Gone are the lectures I’d give in an attempt to raise their consciousness.  And gone, mercifully, is my compulsion to cast them as evil so that I can appear virtuous.

However sacred or profound, a belief is nothing more than a thought, and thought is never the thing it describes.  It can only hint at the wonders it attempts to touch.  Sermons about love garble love’s ineffable beauty.  Speeches about unity clank after the first syllable.  Courting belief is a prescription for a virtual, not a virtuous life. 


John Ptacek

17 Comments
Samuel
2/20/2011 07:53:44 pm

But surely belief defines you? You believe in God or the lack of God, the point of your life and the point of life itself. You believe in people or in science or in yourself or a combination?

Without belief in something or searching for the truth which you will believe, what is there to live for? Even though, as you say, belief can not begin to explain the wonders that are out there, surely it's worth trying?

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John Ptacek link
2/20/2011 09:11:42 pm

Hi Samuel,
Thanks for taking the time to comment. I get that question a lot.
Beliefs are only thoughts and thoughts are not real. Thought is merely our interpretation of reality. Big difference. Whether I believe in God or the Easter Bunny or the virtues of an anchovy pizza, I'm just registering an opinion. I'm just interpreting reality.

Is thought a prerequisite for action? Do we need to believe in love to love? Do we need to believe in compassion to be compassionate? Do we need to believe in a religion to experience God? I say no. I say thought turns love and compassion and God into concepts and prevents us for experiencing love and compassion and God directly.

Is it important to explain the wonders of the world? I don't think they can be explained intellectually. Jiddu Krishnamurti, a renowned spiritual teacher, once said that acknowledging the limits of our intellect is a first step toward intelligence. Powerful stuff.

Thank you again for your comments, Samuel.

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Samuel
2/21/2011 12:41:42 am

I understand your view, but for me, belief - or more like faith perhaps - is far more than thought, it is a knowledge and surety in things unseen. There is a point where something turns from a thought or a question into a belief, and it's very important that you don't allow them to overlap to prevent a lot of confusion.

What I think and what I believe are two distinctly different things. For example, in my heart I believe that God exists, whereas I can only think that I'll live a long happy life, as I don't know what will happen tommorow, let alone 20 years down the line.

That is a very good quote about the limit of our intellect, but I believe that we have so much more to understand about ourselves, while we waste our energy on grasping for what is out of our reach such as the wonders of the universe and trying to explain humanity as a pre-defined system which just gives people excuses for the way they choose to be.

People choose to first look at things that they won't ever be able to understand so that they can indefinately postpone the hard questions which come from looking at yourself, and things such as the possibility that you could be wasting the one chance of life which you will be able to live on this Earth.

Just my thoughts :)

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Debra
5/9/2011 01:07:59 am

Thank you for this article on belief. It is great and thought provoking. I have never commented like this in a computer, but really liked your article. A lot of people would probably agree with Samuel who talks about belief as a form of faith...or the same thing as faith ..."belief in things unseen, a knowing." My mother always said that faith is a gift and that works for her.
I work as a hospital chaplain and people are afraid, sometimes, to tell me they don't hope (another article topic of yours) or believe...and some do. What I think happens is that these concepts or realities begin to become mechanisms of constraint rather than freedom...though they sense what they are holding on to as freedom.
I just read a great book called "The Wisdom of Insecurity" by Alan W Watts copyright 1951! He talks about the whole idea of belief is being a result of the separate "I." When the "I" wants to get away from an unpleasant experience it hides in the world of belief in which this is part of a "plan of God's." But this very guarantee of a plan makes it "impossible to realize the love of God which requires the giving up of "I." Also, the spiritual teachers I enjoy (Adyashanti and Mukti) teach about this same idea. But, it is scary to a lot of people!
Thank you for your writing and sharing.

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John Ptacek
5/9/2011 09:17:24 am

Debra,

I hope you got half as much out of my essay as I got from your response. Thank you so much for for sharing your story. Alan Watts is a pretty smart guy. He's got the whole imaginary "I" thing nailed. His wisdom is an inspiration to all of us. Please stop by again.

John

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Arz Sra link
10/11/2011 12:07:11 am

You express yourself beautifully. Did not know you had a blog also ( we met on FB. Discussion on Free Will )

It felt like you were narrating my story. Its been years since you've disposed the beliefs , for me its been just a few. It seems like the funniest joke how I tried to cultivate love, compassion and all such goody goody 'stuff' not realizing that I was blocking the whole thing. Nothing was an experience and everything was a belief. Love was a belief, compassion was a system,... everything mechanical and cultivated. But as the beliefs dropped something started to come in.

The toughest part was to go through the pain of illusions breaking. There was no shortcut but to bear the whole misery that I was carrying. I am still carrying this misery of certain 'ways of thinking' and I still find myself escaping in the most subtle way. But the reinforcement is not there and I see them withering away. Its really funny how mind seeks understand 'what is' through its concepts. One can compare it to dissection of a joke. When it is dissected, its joke no more.

Thanks.

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Sha'Tara link
11/11/2011 12:18:48 pm

I began life in a sea of staunch beliefs, both religious and patriotic --and that in France, right after the second world war. Lots of baggage that got roughed up in moving to Canada and relocating among people who held similar yet totally alien beliefs! Shocking to the parents, but not to me as a kid. Then as time went, I reasserted some beliefs, changed some, but remained solidly "safe" within my chosen beliefs, translating as loves and hates.

Then the shocker: during a "near death" experience, some kind of powerful vision, I encountered those I would later call "the Teachers." Long story short, it was the Teachers who explained this concept to me: "Believe all things, believe in nothing." And that was my freeing experience. I learned (taught myself) to accept another's beliefs as proper and normal--for that other, but without having to apply to me.

PS: saw your essay and got your name from the e-zine, "Threshold Revelations" which Laurie Corzett forwarded to me.
Sha'Tara

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Wendy Johnston
12/15/2011 01:17:53 pm

"I think, to distance myself from certain vulgarities that characterize the human condition - qualities like greed and aggression." I love this statement...don't we all just do that...trying to rise above and disown the distasteful around us. I, not always successfully, when I see something less than pleasant around me - at home, at work, at large - try to stop and ask myself, "where am I in all of this". It's humbling to recognise that some of my attitudes, actions and judgements are part of the problem. We are the mess we are creating.

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Robin
2/8/2012 09:00:47 pm

Victor Frankl wrote that we can endure suffering, if there was a reason or purpose for it. You say you want to experience the "now" of your life, without beliefs, but what are you living for? Having faith that your life is worth living, faith in a future, is also worth having. I don't know if I could have survived the horrors of the concentration camps without a purpose or faith in a future, or faith in a reason for all the suffering I was experiencing. Frankl wrote that those men who gave up on faith, on the future, gave up on life.

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Ryan in Cambridge, UK
2/21/2012 07:19:42 pm

Ha I love it. Isn't it somehow ironic though about holding to this view, of not having a view? For example I cherish this opinion from the Hsin-hsin Ming -

Do not seek for the truth;
Only cease to cherish opinions.

Also from that text...

If you wish to know the truth,
then hold to no opinions for or against anything.

Awesome. Reminds me of Byron Katie too - "Who would you be without your story?". It would seem to people who have a 'story' that it would be tragic and pointless, but actually it's the opposite.
Of course though, that's my story and I'm sticking to it!

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John Ptacek link
2/21/2012 07:28:56 pm

Ryan, I am familiar with both of the quotes you shared with me. Thank you. They are great reminders. To wriggle out of our stories and experience life without the burden of ego is liberation.

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Paula
7/27/2012 09:28:31 am

I've always been an atheist and yet have lived a life valuing family, friendship, and most of the other things everyone else does. I'm no more or less "moral" than the average believer. I've made mistakes same as they do, etc. I am fine with living for now and the time I have left without focusing on "eternal life."

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John Ptacek
7/30/2012 09:25:48 am

Moral is one of those words that make me wince. It implies right and wrong and so it is a non-starter for me. In my view, we are all doing the best we can with what we've been given, regardless of what we may wish to call ourselves. It seems like simply being human is a lower caste. It's a club no one wants to join.

Thanks for posting here, Paula. When you say the "time you have left", are you just being metaphorical?

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3/14/2013 10:59:37 pm

Someone's beliefs could ruin the other! It's like a totalitarian system or something like that. The post is very interesting. I've read it with pleasure! Thanks John.

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Cate link
11/4/2014 03:21:56 am

Hi John - I am so happy to have discovered your site today, courtesy of your post in High Existence. Wow-wee, your writing is sublime and the gentleness with which you respond to us readers is palpable. Thank you for sharing your gift for expression and insight.

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John Ptacek
11/4/2014 06:54:46 am

Thanks for taking a minute to share your impressions with me, Cate. Means a lot.

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