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CHANGING BELIEFS, 2021

Change verb /tʃeɪndʒ/

  • To exchange one thing for another thing, especially of a similar type. ‘She's just changed jobs.’

  • To make or become different. ‘I almost didn't recognize her - she'd changed so much.’

  • To take something you have bought back to a shop and exchange it for something else. ‘I had to change those trousers I bought for (= take them back to the shop in order to get) a bigger pair.’

  • To form a new opinion or make a new decision about something that is different from your old one. ‘If you change your mind about coming tonight, just give me a call.’

Belief adjective /bɪˈliːf/

  • The feeling of being certain that something exists or is true. ‘His belief in God gave him hope.’

  • Something that you believe. ‘All religious and political beliefs should be respected equally.’

 

Much was written in the world about beliefs and the way we work with them, and for good reason since we create our entire life experience through our beliefs about ourselves, about nature, about religion, about other people, pretty much about everything. We take our beliefs as truths, as certainties, most of the time without even questioning them, and we do not recognise them as beliefs about the world but rather as features or aspects of reality itself.

Just as there are many geometric shapes and almost all of them can be broken down or split into a few basic shapes (circle, square or rectangle and triangle) so there are many beliefs and almost all of them can be reduced to few core or basic ones like love, value, power, limit and deservability (around which beliefs structures are usually formed), even if each person experiences his or hers own unique reality, his “private life”, different from any other individual's.

From the moment the child is born, he is handed down information from his parents, relatives, and the people around him through examples, telepathic reinforcement, and constant verbal communications. He receives ideas about the world in general, his relationship to it, and concepts about what or who he is; later on, he raises them and forms his own reality. Part of this information is utterly important to his physical survival, according to the specific conditions in which one lives, and must be taught. The acquiescence of beliefs protects the child from what the parents consider to be dangerous and also serves as a framework within which the child can grow until the conscious mind is able to reason for itself and provide its own value conclusions and decisions. However, through this learning process, the child may also receive deformed information and concepts about the world, about nature, about his capabilities, and most importantly, about his so-called “own limits.”

Once the child is transformed into an adolescent or further into a grown adult, one may start examining his own beliefs, finding out that some of them are still “true” and applicable, perhaps some that make him laugh that he ever believed in them, and furthermore, some that he may want to change.

In my quest to better understand what beliefs are and how one can change a belief, I have many times heard that one must get rid of an old belief, or eliminate, or purge it, or integrate it. Also, I have read that one cannot really escape a belief since it will always be there, uncontrollable bouncing back from time to time, perhaps when one least expects. All these actions seemed rather difficult to accomplish; apparently, they required a constant great deal of effort. I must admit that at some point I hoped there was a button to push to shut down the system and restart it or reload it. Perhaps some of us may find such a button, but I am not sure it really exists.

I harbour no intention to talk here about core beliefs, false beliefs, limiting beliefs, structured beliefs, joyful beliefs, or any possible classification. However, all beliefs, regardless of their attached attributes as being just thoughts, have something in common: they can be changed. And as one changes his beliefs, there will be a change in one’s comportment, and points of stress, and creativity, and understanding and eventually experience.

 

In this “reality” we live in, we have created the idea of polar opposites and paradoxes. We have permitted this idea for us to create darkness and light, up and down, positive and negative, black and white. We are continuously creating a physical reality to be a divided reality experience where the two polarised opposites are always entwined in one reality. Thus, every manifestation of consciousness will always have the idea of a opposite aspect because physical reality symbolically functions as a mirror, and therefore, any information, any communication will always have a reverse aspect or contrast. In short, we contain the whole of the contradiction of the polarity of the apparent contraries and opposites, We Contain All.

As long as we contain all, we also contain all beliefs, every belief that we can possibly remark on or think of, but what is very important is that we also contain the opposite belief. We always contain the belief and its opposite; we contain the thought but also the opposite thought (otherwise we would not be able to make the distinction). And we always, but always trust; we trust in something; we trust in one thought or his opposite.

The moment we understand that we already contain all, then there is nothing to get rid of or process through, and there is nothing to gain, or achieve, nothing to integrate since All is already within us, there is, simply the decision, the choice we are making. What determines the response, the reaction, and the creation in our lives is which belief we choose to act on in every single moment. Were we to analyse the one belief we act on in that given moment, it would tell us that out of all the beliefs that we contained, we are expressing this particular one; our action being a direct reflection of our strongest belief in the moment we are performing that particular action.

Belief is powerful, indeed. The thoughts we hold are mighty, and illusions are as strong in their effects as the truth. However, salvation is easy to achieve because everyone is free to change their mind, and all their thoughts change with it. Once we decide that a certain belief is no longer representative of who we choose to be, for who we truly are, we can decide to change it. Now the source of the thought has changed, because to change our mind means we have changed the source of all the ideas we think, have ever thought, or will ever think. We release the past from what we once believed, and we free the future from all ancient thoughts.

There are various methods of altering or changing a belief by substituting its opposite for a perfect opposite, which will always be available. We can generate the emotion opposite the one that arises from the belief we want to change, and we can turn our imagination in the opposite direction from the one dictated by the old belief. We allow ourselves to feel that new preferred belief; we allow ourselves to see how we would think with the new belief; we allow ourselves to see how we would act with the new belief, and eventually we act as a person with the new belief would act. At the same time, we consciously assure ourselves that the old, unsatisfactory belief is just an idea about reality and not an irrefutable aspect of reality itself.

In addition, utterly intentionally, we use our conscious mind playfully, creating games as children do, in which, for a time, we entirely ignore what seems to be in physical terms and "pretend" that what we really want is real. Now, this may sound a bit unfeasible, but nonetheless, in our daily lives, we use our imagination, and our emotions, and our feelings often at the service of less worthy beliefs. There are no new skills to learn, there is nothing to unlearn, we simply transform our reality through the same mechanism that we have already made and created our entire life based on.

It is not pride that tells us that we made the world we see and that it changes as we change our minds. There is no world apart from what we desire, and once we change our minds about what we want to see, the whole world must change accordingly. For this to happen, we must release the world of all we thought it was from all things we ever thought it was by merely changing all the thoughts that gave it these appearances and choosing our own reality instead. Here is the world we do not want brought to the one we do, and here the one we do is given to us because we want it.

We are all artists, we are all creators, and we have been given the gift of creating our experiences; hence, we are all creating our lives. As a painter puts part of himself into each canvas, we are putting parts of ourselves in each encounter, in each scene, we project in our minds, and eventually we live and experience it. The painter chooses from his palette the colours he wants to use in his artwork, just as we choose from the multitude of beliefs available on our mind’s palette those we want to use, those we consciously chose to trust in, with which we choose to paint the physical picture of our thoughts, with which we choose to create our lives.

NOTES

Giclée Printed on Hahnemühle Torchon Paper

Matt Coating · 285 gsm · 100% α-cellulose

Cotton Museum Board (Rising)

Mount Size: 110 W x 140 H cm

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