BELIEF
-v- KNOWING
[Broadcast
on 16th December, 2012]
Welcome to Pause a Moment. Tonight is about Belief.
And I'll begin with a sentimental song straight out of the '50s....
[I
Believe – Johnny O'Keefe (A) – 2:30]
The human world seems to run largely (though not very
efficiently or happily) on Beliefs. One problem with Beliefs is that they’re not
very nourishing. Belief is a bit like
dry hay in a drought. You can get by on it for a while, but it's dry and tasteless,
leaves you thirsty, and – over a long time – leaves you undernourished, dissatisfied and impoverished.
[La
Raya]
When you're feeling thirsty or dissatisfied........
Pause a moment.........
Try another way of looking at it.........
Beliefs have their uses. They were invented ‘way back
before the dawn of consciousness to “make sense” of a world we knew next to
nothing about. In the sense that they stood-in for experiences we had not yet
had and helped us get along, they were bridges of ignorance.
Belief is an artifice of the mind designed to bridge
over what the mind doesn't know and attempt to make sense of scattered patches
of experience. Problems arises with them because they are constructs of the
mind. Once we adopt a belief (and most of our core beliefs are adopted – umpteenth
hand from other “believers”), our mind identifies itself with that belief as
carved-in-stone truth, and will not let it go. Even in the face of later
experience that disproves the belief, our minds cannot let it go. We’re trapped
in mistakes made when our human awareness was too primitive to know better.
Beliefs satisfy the mind, but leave the heart and soul
craving for what's missing – direct experience. Real, fresh, raw experience.
Beliefs actually block direct experience. They prevent us from getting to truth,
by persuading us that the belief itself IS The Truth.
Any and every belief is a partial delusion, and
eclipse of truth by preconceptions and
prejudices. Belief is the lowest form of not-knowing. Believing is like going
out on a dinner date to a swanky restaurant, listening to the waiter describe
what's on the menu and what it tastes like, then being sent home – unfed.
I decided decades ago that I would prefer to
experience love and life for myself, rather than hear about someone else's
version of it and then go home having to make do with believing in its
existence and hoping for a better deal, maybe when I get to heaven??
I also decided that if I needed a belief to get me
over a gap in my experience, I’d remember It’s
only a belief, and discard it as soon as it’s of now further use to my
growth. I still do that to this day, and it has served me well. I store my
temporary beliefs in my “Maybe” file.
You’ve probably guessed by now that I’m not a big fan
of beliefs. Too often I’ve allowed myself to be led astray by them, and found
myself way off track.
How can you tell whether something you think you know
is a truth, or a belief about something. It can be quite tricky sometimes
because one of the traps inherent in beliefs is that they are self-proving.
Whatever you or I believe, we get to certain that we’re right.
Why? Why such a lousy trick?
Initially, beliefs helped us to survive – to get past
obstacles raised by our lack of experience. They are primitive tools for
survival. We get trapped in this primitive state because most of us are raised
by parents who, themselves, hadn’t yet discovered they were still running on
the mental and spiritual equivalent of tinned baby food. For a lot of us, it’s
not until our life comes to some kind of trainwreck that we begin to seriously
question our assumptions about everything, and go searching for another way of
seeing and doing life. Some people never make that leap, and die at odds with
existence and unsatisfied.
.
Belief is based on no direct experience. A
Belief connects up islands of experience in order to try and make some sense of
our world. Beliefs act like bridges over vast oceans of what we don't
know. Belief exists anywhere there is no direct knowing. In fact, belief itself
is the lowest form of not-knowing.
[Believe
– Sebastian (A) – 3:25]
Beliefs are like walking aids. Since you finally
learned to stand on your own two feet and walk and run, beliefs (both those you
adopted from others and those you made up yourself) have been holding you back.
Beliefs are no longer your best friends. Let ‘em go.
So I mean it when I say - please don't believe
anything I say – I don't. Oh, I mean what I say, and I say what I mean,
but I don't believe it – I don't have to because what I say is known from my
experiences.
Wherever there is knowing from direct personal
experience, belief is no longer needed. Let me take the example of learning to
ride a bike. When I started, I knew nothing of “balance”, other than the
evidence that other people who rode bikes “had” it. And I believed that maybe I
could have it, too. But that belief wasn’t enough. I fell off – often.
So please don't believe me. Don't disbelieve me
either; just open yourself up to possibility, stand in the question “What's the
difference between Believing and Knowing?”, and find out for yourself.
I mean what I say, but I'm not attached to it.
I don't have to be “right” about it. Nothing of what I say here is either right
or wrong: it exists as possibilities that I have experienced and that still
work for me. If something ever stops working for me, I’ll drop it like a hot
cake and try something different. I’m not going to make the mistake of saying
to myself This used to work for me. I’m
not going to let it go. I’ll keep doing it this way and one day it will work
again. I see too many people tied to loyalty to a principle that’s no
longer valid, stumbling into oblivion. Living in loyalty to anything outdated
or no longer valid is the ultimate disloyalty to oneself. Yet I still come across
people who choose to die for a principle. And some of them get medals for it; and
others keep looking for their names in the Honours List.
I simply invite you to engage with me with an open
mind. Suspend your judgements and opinions for a while, take what you get, and
become aware of your own experiences in the moments, days and weeks that follow.
A word of warning about strange little quirky bits
you'll come across from time to time called “paradoxes”. You have probably
noticed that life is peppered with paradoxes – mysterious bits of experience
that contradict one another. Don't you just hate that? Well, I'm sorry to have
to tell you – that's just the way it is. I find Paradoxes fun, and useful –
they uncover and challenge opinions and beliefs I didn't know I had, and remind
me that a greater reality exists that encompasses everything we know so far,
and what we don't yet know. I love paradox. It's a sign that I'm sitting on a
limited point of view, and prodding me to embrace both sides as “possible”, and
move on.
Rather than agree or disagree with me, I invite you to
simply be willing to take anything that piques your interest and stand in it
for a few days as a possibility. Stand on it like a step ladder and look
at your world from that different place. Watch what shows up. Notice the
differences from your former position. Embrace both views. Get a wider
perspective.
The Truth isn't ever / either this or that; it's both
this truth AND that truth.
If you are willing to stand on a few new ladders, take
in a few new lookouts, a few new points of view and simply observe how you see
your life differing as a result, then spaces of realistation -- “A-hahs!” --
will open up for you. Then I invite you to relax your positions and inhabit your
“A-hahs!” for yourself. They are your realisations. You “got” them, and
that is as it should be.
If I give you something, I can take it
away from you again.
If you give something to yourself, it is
yours
And no-one can ever take it away from you
--
Not without your permission.
Colin
Hayes
Now this next is important, and it comes back to the
problem with Beliefs ---- When you have gotten your insights from a new point
of view, let go of them, otherwise they will harden into more beliefs and
opinions. That's right. Let 'em go. You got your “got-it”. Discard the
scaffolding and move on....next....and next.... and next..... do anything that
will neutralise any temptation to hang on – I’ve
got The Answer!!” LET GO.
Whatever you got, enjoy the burst of light, then give
it away, pass it on, and move on.
[I
Believe – Mark Vincent & Greta Bradman (A) – 4:25]
Beliefs are traps, promising enlightenment and
delivering ignorance, promising freedom and delivering captivity. Whatever we
believe in runs our world – superstition, religion and romance (as distinct
from spirituality and love) couldn't survive without beliefs. And whatever we
believe about anything absolutely ensures that we will experience it as if this
IS the way it is. Our beliefs about the world and ourselves control the ways we
perceive and react to it.
Conversely, if our life is not working, there's a
better than even chance that we have a belief or two about something (including
our self) that we have to be right about, but that are no longer serving us
well.
Belief is supposed to relieve you of the torment of
uncertainty, but it instead traps you inside ignorance – lack of experience. Believing
is the lowest form of Not-Knowing, the bottom rung of Uncertainty. In fact, I
suggest we only believe in something because we're uncertain about it
and, for whatever reasons, are unwilling to explore further and – horror of
horrors – change our mind!. We take the
easy option and become certain about our beliefs instead. When we don't
know something, we settle for thinking we know, and fight to be right
about that. When we truly KNOW something, there is no need to believe. And when
we know it thoroughly and naturally, the experience is next to impossible to put
into words. Maybe that’s why we listen to music, sing songs and read poetry.
Close.
How do we tell the difference between what we know
/ and what we think we know?
I don't know.
But here are a couple of clues -- one's in the heart
and the other's in the head. If it's something I feel right about, or feel I
have to stand up for, then I suspect I'm in the realm of thinking I
know/believing I know. Alternatively, if there's there's no urge to prove,
defend or do anything about it, that's a good sign. Bottom line – I just assume
that, whatever I think I know, there's always more to get to know. That keeps
me humble and available to change my mind.
MEDITATION
[Gesture
of Silence – Kamal & Gyuto Monks of Tibet]
Hold
under.......>>>>>
Relax.
Thinking
is always about something;
it is never direct. Whenever you think about anything, you have moved your attention
to something that’s passed, away from now and away from directly experiencing
the thing itself. Whenever you try to describe or comment on anything, you have
lost immediate contact with it. You are experiencing “Thinking about”.
You
are immediately liberated from the confinement of “thinking and feeling about”
when you become a detached Witness to your thinking and feeling. Just become
aware of what your mind is up to. Don't think about that; don’t try to change
it; just be aware now… aware now…. aware now…….
Become
the Watcher Within now. Take your awareness to the inside of your right
forearm. When you are ready, gently raise your right forearm, keeping your
awareness there inside of it. Watch what it feels like to move your arm -- from
the inside.
Good.
Let your arm return, and remain the Watcher Within – alert, looking, seeing,
hearing, smelling, touching, tasting with detached interest. Alert, sensitive
and available.
A
feel-about-er is absent from this moment --- she's in her head.
Never
available directly; always somewhere else, sometime else, out to lunch, out and
about....
Leave
a message after the tone…..
What
is so for you right now?
What
are you thinking? Just notice it, and let it go on through.
What
are you feeling? Just notice it, and let it go on through.
Be
with that. Just watch; don't get involved.
Watch
it aware-fully...................
Everything
will reveal itself to you in its own good time
If
you are willing and patient.
The
doors will open.
When you eat – eat.
When you drink – drink.
When you sleep – sleep.
When you can't sleep, stop trying to.
When you listen – listen.
When you do – do.
When you don't do – don't do......
Don't think about it.
Your mind is dual. It can never, ever comprehend
Wholeness; that is the province of the heart. The best the mind can handle is
an Idea about Wholeness – dry, tasteless and devoid of nourishment, The menu,
not the meal.
Your mind is an instrument for thinking; mind cannot
KNOW anything; it can only think it knows, and it does a lot of that!
When we THINK we know something, all that has happened
is that the mind has placed a boundary around what it thinks it can contain,
crammed it into a pre-existing pigeonhole and is saying to you “That's it! I
know!”
Gently remind your mind there is more mystery yet to
be explored through the doorway of Not-Knowing. That doorway your mind will not
enter: you have to go first. It is only by surrendering yourself to a sense of
uncomfortable incompleteness and not-knowing that you will find the Natural
Knowing you seek.
Knowing lives the other side of Not-Knowing -- the one
place you haven't looked yet. No wonder it has eluded you!
Natural Knowing is hidden behind feelings of
Insecurity. This insecure-feeling of Not-Knowing brings us to the immediacy of
this moment, the only space where natural knowing and true security will ever
show up.
While ever you think you know something, your mind
wants to hang onto it and be right about it. You severely limit the
possibilities for anything else to show up. Certainty of Not-Knowing opens up
infinite possibilities.
Surrender to not-knowing. Surrender to uncertainty.
They are creative forces waiting for you to say “Yes” to them.
Dismantle the fortress of beliefs and opinions you've
built around yourself for protection, and open yourself to the vastness of
Natural Knowing..........
[I'll
Know – Barbra Streisand – 2:48]
You've been listening to Pause a Moment. I'm Barrie
Barkla. Thank you for taking part......
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