The Nature Of Beliefs
The task now is to imbibe the five fundamental truths into your mental system as core beliefs that are not in conflict with any other beliefs you hold.
Understanding a concept is just the first step in the process of integrating that concept at a functional level. This is notably true of concepts that deal with thinking in probabilities. Our minds are not inherently wired to be “objective” or in the moment. This means that you need to conscientiously train your mind to think from such a perspective.
In addition to training there may be a number of conflicting beliefs to work upon.
As you may recall memories, beliefs and distinctions exist in the form of structured energy. These three mental components have been bunched together to illustrate: They do not exist as physical matter; the cause and effect relationship that exists between ourselves and the external environment brings these components into existence.
To illustrate the difference between memories and beliefs we will have to unbundle these components to get at the origins of our beliefs. Imagine yourself as an infant. At the beginning of your life the memories of your experiences exist there in the most abstract form. The memories of what you have seen, heard, smell, touched or tasted reside in your mind as pure sensory information, detached to any specific words, or concepts. This is pure memory as sensory information in its raw form.
A belief on the other hand, is a concept about the disposition of the external environment. A concept blends pure sensory information with a symbol system we call language. When positive or negative energy from our memories/experiences become synonymous to a set of words we call a concept, the concept becomes energized and is molded into a belief about the nature of reality (life is wonderful, life isn’t fair). If you consider that concepts are structured by the framework of language and energized by our experiences, it becomes evident why belief can be referred to as “structured energy”.
What does a belief do, once it is merged with reality? One of the prominent characteristics of beliefs is that they make what we experience seem self-evident and beyond doubt. Even though beliefs are an exquisite part of our identity, you do not have to take the drill of self-analysis too personally.
None of us were born with any of our beliefs. They were assimilated in a number of ways. Many of our beliefs that persist to have profound impacts on our life were acquired without an act of free will. They were instilled into our DNA by other people or by society at large. Many beliefs that may be causing us extreme adversities may have been acquired without our conscious consent. It might have happened that we were too young and uninformed to realize the negative implications of what we were being taught.
Irrespective of the source of our beliefs, once adopted they all basically function in the same way. Beliefs have certain characteristic ways in which they manifest themselves likewise our body parts. If you contrast the eyes or hands or blood of two people they are not exactly the same but have identical characteristics that cause them to function in similar ways. By the same token, the belief that “life is awful” shall perform its function in the same ways as “life is wonderful''. The beliefs are different and the effect that each has on the quality of the holder’s life shall be vastly different, but both of them will function in exactly the same manner.
In the broadest sense, our beliefs mold the way we experience our lives. As beliefs are acquired and accumulated, we live our lives in a way that reflects what we have learned to believe. Take for example, how different your life would be if you were born into a different culture, religion or political system that has particularly little in common with the one you were born into. What you eventually learn to believe about the nature of life and how the world works may not be remotely similar to your current ideologies. However, you would stand by these beliefs with the same degree of certainty as your current ones.
