Maggie wrote,
“I appreciate your "challenge" question. It's really important. I certainly must be a Believer more than I even know and I might be very unable to see my own refusal to set aside belief at any moment. This matter of beliefs is the very hardest aspect of operating in the thought realm. Thanks!

The biggest belief I'd like to set aside (for me) is actually based on a fear... of pain. Pain is very challenging and my belief about it is that pain REALLY HURTS and is to be avoided. This belief keeps me tentative and disliking stretching beyond the limits where pain sets in for me. I am a wuss about pain.I'd like to stop believing pain is "deadly" and in pain being a limit for me.

Like Anders I would really like to set aside the idea of aging and death. Alongside that, illness which needs a "cure" and also set aside the belief in time having a direction from past to future. I'd like to set aside the belief that suffering is the way to be triggered into growth as a person. I'd like to set aside the need to eat food. I'd like to set aside the belief that.... anything is IMPOSSIBLE.[/quote]


Okay, I would like to set aside what seems to be so deeply ingrained is the belief of this world and all the sick and sad shit that is perpetuated by Governments, (a belief system within the belief system of humanity). I do find myself in denial of the reality of this world and more or less believe it is an illusion and find that some days I can turn it off so to speak and live in a peace. The sickness forces itself on me and I would suppose so many others on a 24 hour basis. The sadness is a pain within itself. I am consumed with that pain. I cannot give up my belief that this world is changing for the better and all of this death and destruction that surrounds each individual life will soon be better. My belief that the hundredth monkey syndrome will finally take affect and all human beings that are not psychopaths and sociopaths will rise and put a stop to the disease that is destroying this earth we live on. That in itself is a belief that rests within the thought realm.

You speak of fear... of pain; Physical pain in the human body is an integral part of our existence to let our brain/mind know that something is wrong. I suppose that if we could not feel pain in that sense we would never know what may be coming or if something needs tending to. However, not feeling pain or in the deeper sense never having to experience pain could fit into setting aside the idea of aging and death. I have thought in the imaginary sense of my thoughts that I could live forever. In another belief of mine, we do live forever, our spirits never die, and the corporeal body is the only thing that is temporary. I would say that I do have some belief in reincarnation and the idea that we could step off and not have to or even elect to come back to this existence.

Now back to pain. I see two types, one is physical and one is emotional, not to say that there is plenty of other pains. The emotional pain can coexist with the physical and vise a versa I think. Emotional pain can be caused by traumas from birth on and can be shut down within the mind so that one does not feel the experience of what caused it. This then does connect to the physical self in ways of pain. To shut off emotional pain has led to obesity and other diseases according to the medical professional belief systems. In the late 60's and through the 70's there was a man that wrote a number of books on treatment to cure somewhat the emotional pains of childhood and even beyond. His name was Arthur Janov and his books or at least the first one was called the "Primal Scream". Well some of the first ones to enter his clinic and follow his treatment were John Lennon and Yoko Ono, there were quite a few celebrities doing this at the time and unfortunately it was quite expensive, imagine that. I read the books and was so hot to go through the process but where in the hell was I going to get 10 to 20 thousand dollars? I finally figured out that I really did not need to go through that business.

Pain can also cause an individual to spew their sickness and anger out on others around them. Psychopaths and sociopaths are perfect examples of this. A good way to not feel pain is to push it out and away onto others. So to say you would like to set aside the belief of pain is to possibly give it to someone else so you then never have to feel or deal with it. Been my experience in this life to feel and experience what is causing or has caused the pain whether it is physical or emotional. Once I do experience it then it does go away in the emotional realm and the Physical but it does take time. I cannot say that I always do this because there are still emotional pains that reside in me from the Vietnam War but I am learning more each day on how to deal with them in my own self and it really does hurt.

I actually shot myself when I was 25 years old, what a stupid thing that was. Just happened to be a couple miles from my Grandfathers ranch house and was rabbit hunting. The pistol went off in the holster and put a bullet in my leg. Had to walk those two miles with that bullet burning something fierce but managed. I will never forget how much that hurt but at least I knew the cause and that made it easier to handle believe it or not. That same year I became a type 1 diabetic and I have learned to deal with the pain of puncturing myself with a needle 4 times a day. Talk about changing belief systems overnight. I would really like to set aside the belief of that.

I too would like to set aside many of those beliefs you speak of. The "anything is Impossible" can be changed to "anything is possible” by your own perception and sure it can be hard. I guess this would be changing the Negative belief to the positive belief or a possibility of setting aside the Negative belief and filling that void with a Positive belief.

Thank you for your response, I find that the open ended discussion or communication breaks barriers and allows the forward movement. I have so much more in beliefs that can be talked about and perhaps getting to setting aside the ones that are entrenched that may be causing me pain in a sense.

Steven

Well, I wrote this a while back and then just couldn't keep up with the flow of things here. Sometimes life speeds up so much I just have to hang on until things slow down again. But I'll share it anyway, just for the heck of it.

For me, when I think about belief systems, I first think about religious belief systems. Of course, there are many other kinds of belief systems. In fact, it can get a little ridiculous. It reminds me when I tried to read A Course In Miracles and I didn't get very far. I remember vaguely this exercise where you were supposed to question and observe how we name and label everything. Like, a chair is not a "chair", for the word itself only means what we agree it means, but it is not the thing itself.

To me, a belief is something that we, for various reasons, choose to accept as true without direct experience. Mostly we believe something is true because we are taught it is so, often by our parents, the public education system, everything shapes our beliefs, both consciously and unconsciously. And then of course social media is now a big influence, even far more than it used to be in the days of just newspapers, radio, and television.

Having early memories of going to the Catholic Church with my biological mother, the the Kingdom Hall with my catholic turned Jehovah's Witnesses adoptive parents, I was pretty well programmed with a ready made system to answer all of life's questions (and outright discouraged from questioning the party line). I have often wondered what it is in me that couldn't help question the narrative anyway, even though it took me quite a while to really unfetter myself. I just knew there was something more than what I was being told. What is it that makes the majority just go along, totally content to accept without direct proof most everything religions and various other authorities (who somehow garner our belief in them) claim is true. How can they all be right? I studied many belief systems over the years. I am finally content to just keep my church, my temple, my whatever, within. And see the divine in all life.

Now I realize my religion, if I have any at all, is to question all beliefs as I become aware of them. It seems to never end. I don't know for sure much about the way things are, but I can definitely identify a continuous flow of what we have been conditioned to believe that is looking more and more untrue in almost every area of life. Kind of bizarre, really, to find everything almost is suspect and needs to be reconsidered. It certainly keeps one humble. I can't tell you how many times I have had to take a new look at what I thought I knew, only to find it just didn't hold up upon closer scrutiny. That's when I realized how programmed I was to look outside of myself. That's when I realized that questioning "the way things are" is not welcomed by most.

In a way, it's like being turned inside out. And then back in again.

Belief in fear, pain, and death are indeed biggies here I would have to add. Even just preconceived "beliefs" about aging, and my ideas about how I would define something as simple as what is "reality". It's getting harder and harder to set firm boundaries on a lot of things as of late. It helps me keep an open mind though, and realize there is still so much to learn. If I ever get the chance I want to go to the Monroe Institute and take some of their workshops so I can remember how easy it is to travel out of body. That way the fear of death will mostly disappear. And some of it is so subconscious that you can't just say "I won't be afraid". I was with an elderly woman just minutes before she passed from this world, as her heart was giving out, and she was indeed terrified as she struggled for breath. For some reason I think about death of the physical probably more than is normal. I would like to be able to pass from this reality to the next without fear and tremendous anxiety. Just intellectually knowing something, or believing something, is not at all the same as experiencing.

I have recently been thinking about how Bruce Lipton's Biology of Belief is true but that it stops at the level of physical reality. And I have an idea that our world has a limited physical reality. And Rupert Sheldrake has talked about how our physical laws may be more like habits than fixed principles.

So I came up with the idea of Reality of Belief. It's basically the same as Biology of Belief but it takes the idea to a deeper level. Reality of Belief is about how we can change even the laws of physics with our minds. If I come up with more ideas about it I may start a separate thread about that.

Thanks for your post Anders as it sure makes much sense to me or should I say my beliefs.

Anders wrote:

LostNFound wrote:
I have to ask, what belief is it you want set aside.

Maybe that question was for Maggie but I wanted to mention a huge one I have: the belief in aging and death.

One possibility is to examine the transhumanist path. There are already scientists working on solving the problem of aging such as Aubrey de Grey and Google's company Calico. My hope however is that the problem can be solved with spirituality/consciousness. Bruce Lipton for example has said that aging is just a belief. The reason for why it is so hard to change certain beliefs is that we live in a collective field of beliefs he said (something like that), and it's very difficult for the individual to change those beliefs.

Something I have discovered when changing beliefs is to recognize and embrace the confusion and uncertainty that arise when changing beliefs. The human mind hates confusion. And for a good reason. Fear is actually more desirable for the mind than confusion. With fear it's at least possible to come up with a solution whereas confusion totally immobilizes the mind. With mindfulness practice however it's possible to accept the confusion consciously to allow the mind to reprogram itself. That's a constructive use of confusion.

What a great thread you started Steven.

I once took a course called Avatar and it basically was on identifying limiting beliefs and discreating them and in their place creating the beliefs that you preferred instead. I had a hard time believing that the technique worked..... hahahhaha and thus spent many days experiencing difficulties in getting passed this limiting belief....sure had to discreate a few that were creating the limiting belief to begin with....(trusting others issues ).

It really is a never ending self awareness process with each passing day, thought, feeling, and or experience and we could spend much "cave time" and never get to the end....awwwww to be HUMAN and BEING.

Anders your idea about Reality of Belief is neat and really does relate to Biology of Belief. I "believe" we do attract through the telemeres the things that come to us in all forms and ways. In other words mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually.

We are powerful Beings and with each passing day I believe this more and more with confirmations of such in synchronicities and manifestations of my intentions from beliefs. Life is GOOD in ALL ways, including the sorrow and the pain.