On Beliefs: What they REALLY are, why they REALLY matter, and HOW TO CHANGE THEM

Note: All my articles depend on this KEY article on understanding definitions (see:....)

On Beliefs: What they REALLY are, why they REALLY matter, and HOW TO CHANGE THEM

What they really are:

Beliefs are = EMOTIONALLY CHARGED CONSCIOUSNESS

To understand concepts deeply, we can often start at the etymology or origin of what which gives us a clue of it's real life equivalent -> that is the physical or psychological phenomena the word itself is pointing to. Beyond metaphor or analogy, this is the first and easiest way to inner-stand what a particular concept or word is really pointing to.

Etymology: "Belief - "Be" (to live) + Lief(faith, love, trust) from "From Middle English [Term?], from Old English lēafa, from Proto-Germanic *laubô. Compare German Glaube (“faith, belief”). Lief from *leubh - Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to care, desire, love."

• So we here "faith/love/trust" could potentially be synonymous with Belief itself. Where "LEEF" is associated with "GLA-EEB" sound of German evolving into "be-leev" of english. Here we see "what do you believe" is basically "what do you have faith in/place your love in/trust?". Interesting...

-- German: Glaube m (genitive Glaubens, no plural) faith; belief
"Keine Kultur oder Zivilisation ohne Glauben an Götter."
"No culture or civilization without faith in gods."
-- Lief from *leubh - Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to care, desire, love." It forms all or part of: belief; believe; furlough; leave (n.) "permission, liberty granted to do something;" leman; libido; lief; livelong; love; lovely; quodlibet.

• Wow so not only is a belief synonymous to trust/love/faith but has a deep connection to the heart of who we are as a human being. It is a concept & word that speaks our liberty as sentient beings with power. To know my beliefs is know what I love, what I trust as useful and avoidable, what I place my faith in to lead myself AND EVERYONE ELSE to happiness beauty and truth.

Other Languages: It's helpful among etymology research to also look at various words that describe the same thing. This allows us to go even deeper into the context and true meaning of "Belief".

-- Pali/Sanskrit: "Saddha/Sraddha" (Conviction/Faith);
Latin: "Opinionem";
Italian: "Credenza"(faith, credence, credit);
Hawiian: "manaʻoʻiʻo"(credence/covenent);

• Seen here, if we combine the feeling & meanings of the words faith/love/trust/credence/conviction/credit/opine/opinion we get the true meaning of belief. Belief given the above information is inferred to be a given or chosen emotionally charged focus of consciousness that we give our faith, love, care, and mental occupation with; assumedly because we are finding some benefit from it!

In the aboriginal language there is no direct word for belief because the things in the natural world are simply apparent. They have a word for spirit, alive, dead, but not "faith". I think this says something about the different between old thought and new. We are ADDICTED to abstraction and abstract notions. There is a Ngarigo aboriginal word for good or useful, "yeddun", yet it doesn't compare.

So "My belief is..." really means = "My emotionally charged ideal.." = "My thing that I care about and trust in is..." = "My INDIVIDUAL conviction about REALITY is..." etc etc. When we are discussing beliefs, we are discussing our individual emotionally charged thoughts and perceptions about our shared reality - yet not the actual reality itself.

Why they really matter?!

Because beliefs are "a charged interpretation of experience which intensely shapes and affects thought, sensation, and action."

Our beliefs are basically in the background of our mind(unconscious and subconscious) whether expressed or not. They are what shape how we think how we vibrate/our attitude and WHAT WE DO.

Therefore the buddhist word for "Belief" is truly "Ditthi" or "View". Here is what Lord Gautama Buddha ultimately says about beliefs..."If you hold on to and attach to these grounds for views(beliefs) it leads to such and such a destiny in the next life."(!!!) So our views and beliefs are so incredibly powerful that they actually have consequences in this life and even the next.

So here it is from a realized master even chiming in on this belief thing. Beliefs have CONSEQUENCES, whether or not we acknowledge they do, they do! This is the crux of why beliefs are so important and also a clue as to why we need to really think differently about them.

We commonly believe our beliefs do not have consequences, and thus we express our very fickle and changing beliefs about the world all over the place internally and externally. We based so many things in our life on our beliefs, what we trust and love. We want everyone around us to believe, to care and think about and be convicted about the same as we do, to "have" the same reality as we do even though the very phenomena of a belief is coming from an individual ego itself. We want to debate beliefs, our objects of care & attention, by calling them opinions, and we can argue on their basis and all sorts of issues arise from not really understanding what beliefs are is what is their proper function!

Beliefs matters because what we care about and love in this love create the mental conditioning for our thinking/attitudes/actions. Thus if we can FIND or ARRANGE agreed upon beliefs(common values) between people we can think & act together. Basically the PURPOSE of a belief itself is as a tool to get people to work together and co-create in this world. THAT'S IT!!! If you "believe" in a creator god, what a wonderful tool beliefs are when they are used as they were intended!

Purpose of Beliefs: To synchronize our individual mind to a desired paradigm of experience; Synchronize two or more individual minds to think, emote, and do/work together in a shared co-created reality.

How to work with Beliefs for change

Learning, Contemplating, Meditating, and Release

Above we've seen that instead of using beliefs to create a shared reality, we have used them to divide and create even more separate realities. Ultimately we need to re-orient the way we USE beliefs as they are intended. Below are some basic prime examples of the process of learning about, using and releasing beliefs as we go through life. These examples are very basic as you will understand, the real knowledge of how to use beliefs is in simply applying the knowledge of what they are their purpose in our everyday life.

"To know something is to be able to verify it through reality and nature." - Kris Nelson

The first step in working with beliefs is learning about them. This applies to our-self or anyone else. Analogy: learning a new formula to find an answer that we didn't know before. Metaphor: "locking in" to the essence about what it is we believe, the reality and consequences that the belief brings.

The second step is contemplating on that information we've learned about the belief. Where did it come from? What are the implications? What do we need to belief to believe THAT belief? Analogy: Running calculations in our newly learned formula over and over. Metaphor: Having "seen" the essence, using that understanding in real life or running mental scenarios how it would work in reality.

The third step is meditating on the belief now that we surely know what it is and how it works. How can this belief be used? CAN it be used? Is it useful? It is (daresay) evil/destructive?! Analogy: Using the results of the formula in real life and see how useful it is a formula by quickness/efficiency Metaphor: like talking to someone about this belief, acting upon it, and observing how you felt after what you did was done. Was there any benefit at all? Was it destructive?

The fourth step which would seem like the first, is understanding that the belief itself is a concept,idea or belief that can never be proven and cannot be said to be known in truth or fact of reality. It is a conceptual model, a conceptual framework, that provides us with a correspondence to reality to try to provide us with answers or some motivation to act with. Truth itself is OBJECTIVE, meaning it is shared between individuals outside of their subjective experience. Analogy: Finding an answer you CAN'T GET using the newly learned formula: Metaphor: Seeing the "replaceable" nature of a belief after having used one to cooperate with someone and realized the belief itself only functioned because you and others gave it EMOTIONAL CHARGE(hence it's definition).

Examples: Alone and Together

1. I sit down and discover an emotionally charged ideal I am holding in my un/sub/waking consciousness. I discover it and give it words. "I believe that everyone in the world should adore me..." After giving it words, I contemplate on the implications of it. What does it mean to me, to the world, to other people. I use it in mental scenarios continuously and ascertain that if I were keep this belief running I would people adoring me for the wrong reasons and also generate unnecessary pain and suffering from not getting the adoration that I need due to needing such a large amount to fulfill this belief. After discovering it's essence & utility I take time to see it's detrimental affect on my life and why I need to rid myself of it. After having sufficiently gained motivation to be rid of it, I find that the belief itself is NO LONGER CHARGED.

2. I am talking to someone online. I want to do something with them. I discover a related belief that might lead to the desired cooperative action. I bring up the belief with said online convo-partner and dance around it for a while. We both discover the deeper meaning behind the belief and it's utility, in essence amplifying it's charge even greater than before. I attempt to take a course of action aligned with said-belief in parallel with convo-partner online, like listening to a video or music file. We both listen to music/video file. Afterwards we talk about it and realize i've gratified my desire and also the belief is technically no longer necessary.

This is a raw and rudimentary article on the foundation of belief. I have not gone into complexities like the trivium and truly applicable uses. I hope from this article you can see now what a real belief is, how we abuse them, why they're so important, and how we can use beliefs in a more beneficial way!!!

Kinue Gabriel is a buddhist scholar, astrologer, and food forest enthusiast. These and other articles are created with the intention to spread merit and be of use to sentient beings in some form or fashion. If you received value from reading this please show your appreciate by commenting or connecting with any of the 1ov3 networks on facebook, instagram, youtube or others.

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