The Anatomy of Belief

December 29, 2011 0 Comments

The word belief originates with the Old English word leof, which means “to hold dear.” The Encarta World English Dictionary defines it as “acceptance by the mind that something is true or real, often underpinned by an emotional or spiritual sense of certainty.”

But we only develop beliefs about certain things. There are many aspects of our experience we never question. For example, we may have a belief about life on other planets, but not about the existence of the moon. We may have beliefs about our ability to earn a million dollars in ten years, but not about our ability to brush our teeth. We may believe in past lives, but we don’t need to believe in yesterday. In other words, we hold beliefs about things that we don’t know about from direct experience. Why? Because we are unwilling to stay in not knowing. We take for granted that it is normal to come to fixed conclusions. But it seems we are the only species that clings to concepts in this way. The very idea of a fundamentalist penguin, or of an atheist cat, is absurd, the stuff of Gary Larson’s “Far Side.” What dog sits around the house postulating whether or not the universe is expanding?

No, only the human mind in the grip of ego comes to conclusions, independent of direct experience.

“Everyone wants to find a way to happiness. And the way to happiness is waking up to what really is true. Until we question what we believe, we’re blind to it.”
— Byron Katie, “Inspired Certainty”

We need belief because we feel cut off from a deep connection to what is real. Animals, small children, and translucent people do not need to believe anything, because they are loyal to what is. Sometimes people ask, “Do you believe in God?” But what difference does a mental conclusion make? Either we feel God all around us and within us, and our heart is open to the Great Spirit creating and connecting all things — or we don’t. Believing in what we do not feel creates a plastic, mental world with no nourishment or depth to it. We only need faith when we insist on closing our hearts.

Animals do, of course, learn from their environment. Our cat has learned how to use the cat door, an entirely conditioned response based on direct experience. And small children are the same. But ego-hypnotized human beings develop many beliefs despite their learning, beliefs that may even contradict their direct experience.

Jean Piaget, the French developmental psychologist, discovered that newborns do not experience themselves and their environment as separate. Piaget confirmed this through close observation of how infants move. He saw that when a newborn grabs a rattle, for example, and pulls it toward her body, she is surprised when the rattle meets a solid form. He concluded that very young babies experience themselves as space. After six months or so, this changes, and their body movement anticipates that they have a form. It takes a few years for a child to lock into the idea of “me” as a separate identity from the environment and to begin to negotiate exchange. Many people retain this feeling of being space, later in their life, as a “cellular memory.”

Human beings, then, come into the world with a sense of wholeness, a sense of oneness, of non-separation. Small children don’t have any beliefs about anything. Is your two-year-old a Christian or a Buddhist or a Hare Krishna? Only if you decide to call her one. Does your three-year-old discuss the presidential debates or side with political parties? Many different mechanisms cause us to adopt positions. We may imitate the beliefs of our immediate family or culture, or we may develop a belief system as a reaction against them. But the beliefs that run deepest in us, and that are most hardwired into our bodies, we have assimilated by learning to cut off different movements of energy within our psyches.

“When one is still in a very fundamental way absorbed in and deluded by the fears and desires of their own ego, there is a vague sense of the larger context out there, but mainly individuals are absorbed in this very subjective experience.“
— Andrew Cohen

Here is an exercise you can do to free up your own beliefs. You can practice this alone or with a translucent ally:
Think of a sticky issue in your life, one that requires taking action. Ideally, find a situation in which you truly don’t know what to do, but one in which not doing seems to invite catastrophe. If you are alone, write down all the thoughts you have about your impending decision, and list them as one-line points of view. If you have a friend, you can go a little deeper. You can kick back, close your eyes, talk about your issue, and ask your friend to make a note whenever she or he hears you express a belief.