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Hello, i was wondering what came first, a belief or an experience. some people say that we experience first and according to what we experience we form a belief. and other people say, that the belief creates our reality and thus our experience. Some may argue as kids we experience and then we start building beliefs according to what we feel. but other do argue that we come to the world with beliefs, that can be considered Karma inherited from our past life. What do you think, what came first? Can we experience something that we have opposite belief of ? What are the determinants of our reality ? what determines what we experience or situations that arises in our reality?

Believing vs. Knowing There are things that we know and there are things that we believe. The two are not the same. In my observation, we treat believing as knowing in proxy, i.e. if we believe enough then belief becomes like knowledge to us. Belief and knowledge become fungible, interchangeable. This is quite comforting. It soothes pain, gives stability, provides continuity and makes life much better. This is a good thing. But despite its goodness, believing is not he same as knowing. I think this is important to remember.

I came across the 8 legged essay on wikipedia some time back and have been wanting to try my hand at it. My topic is Wu Wei. I'm not exactly some expert on Wu Wei, sometimes struggling greatly to understand the context in which it is oftentimes used, but I thought I'd have a go of putting down some of my ideas on it. The essay, like the thread title suggests, is really kind of 'dirty' (and short!). I could have spent more time trying to understand how the essay is supposed to be composed (and lengthening the thing to provide more entertainment and or depth), but I learnt a lot trying to write it. If I find a better description than wikipedia offers, or come across examples of 8 legged essays elsewhere that show the form how it's supposed to be, i'm sure I'll be looking at them with an eye to improve my understanding. With all of it's various problems intact; here it is. ------ WuWei is the maintenance of what is easy with the understanding that once one should have to disagree with a course of action, it could prove difficult afterwards. Maintenance is also the servicing of what one has --and not anything one doesn't have. "(It is the way of the Tao) to act without (thinking of) acting; to conduct affairs without (feeling the) trouble of them; to taste without discerning any flavour; to consider what is small as great, and a few as many; and to recompense injury with kindness." From <http://sacred-texts.com/tao/taote.htm> Agreeing with the course of another's behaviour seems easy to believe in; that another person's business is their own, and on that account to be considered of little trouble, marks the one who makes light of misgiving. Terror, or the great dread that one day one's own business should prove difficult seems of little account also. Honesty is as an honest person does and so earnestness can be forgotten about just as easily as one is distracted by new gossip or interesting tidbits on buzzfeed. To agree that a given course would always be easy is to fail to inspect it on its merits. To agree that a thing has merit, yet no possibility of demerit, is to fail to be in wonder about how it achieves merit. Disagreeing about the merit or demerit oneself may or may not have might be the clue. Disagreeing that one should always find ease in one's own activity is where earnestness and honesty may meet. Accepting that others also may find difficulty or ease depending on their honesty and earnestness is the chief capacity of wonder. Wonder, however, is not on its own merely wanting to believe. Here is a central question: if I were to gift you something of great worth, could you come about another of its kind without any difficulty? If giving is easy, is great worth always difficult? Would the gift I gave you still be worth anything if you could easily take it for yourself from elsewhere? Honesty in light of what one already has is sure to be easy and bring no discomfort; wonder at another's act of giving to you neither should deprive you of anything. If all I had to be was honest, how would I treat a gift of little worth that was still very much given in earnest? WuWei, is about obeying -- while not pandering and without misgiving -- the value of ease and satisfaction. Wu Wei is how things come from being tiny and insignificant, with their roots in the distant past, to how they yet come easily to be in the present. This is the chief wonder of WuWei, and the foundation upon which we come to accept anything that is hard. Having while not valuing is not having at all. Valuing without acceptance is to not believe in value and thus never preserve it. To act outside WuWei is to place oneself into the burdensome position of not being able to accept anything.

This is something I wanted to share from my blog. The original post is here: http://adifferentpath.blog.com/2014/04/13/apparent-reality-vs-reality/ I am reading Adyashanti’s “Falling Into Grace” and at first this text was really speaking to me. But then the author started talking about “accepting what is” and how some things are “immovable and unchangeable.” I disagree, 100%, with this belief. I can easily demonstrate why. All around me are walls and windows. Someone like Adyashanti may say that the reality is that these objects are solid. You can’t go through a closed window or a wall. That is reality. But this is a false statement. There is another reality, that the windows and the walls are made of particles and space. That these particles vibrate at a certain frequency, and this is the same frequency my physical form vibrates at. As a result my hand won’t go through a wall because of this vibration. But there is also yet another reality, that I can affect my body with my mind, so if I could affect the vibrational rate of my body, then I could, theoretically, walk right through a wall or a closed window. All these “realities” are really only “apparent realities.” Accepting the “reality” of the solidity of closed windows and walls is not really accepting reality. It is accepting a belief about reality. That such things are solid. In truth nothing is immovable or unchangeable, or else it would be perfect. Another author said it best, something along the lines of, “It is only real if it never changes.” I think it is as foolish to accept an unwanted apparent reality as it would be to fight against it. In fighting what appears to be real we are, in essence, giving it power over us. We are making it more real for us. But in accepting it as real we give it the same power. We never challenge it. By letting things be as they are we are essentially saying that is is OK for these things to be the way they are, when maybe it is not OK. If we are going to accept, admit and allow we should accept, admit and allow everything, including when something is not OK. A Buddhist monk who sits there as someone prepares to shoot them or cut them in half with a sword because that is the reality of the situation is foolish. They are not giving value to either their life or the life of the one about to perpetuate the act, as every action has a consequence, and murder has a consequence in the life of someone who commits it. The monk should defend themselves or run off. Because it is only an apparent reality that they are about to be killed. As they aren’t dead yet, it is not real. They have just as much chance to escape, or win their freedom, as they do of being killed. The apparent reality in our American cities is that here are many homeless people. It is foolish for us to simply accept that and say, “Oh well, that’s just how things are.” No, the truth is that this is how you believe things are, and how other people in society believe things are, but this is not the reality, only a collective belief in an apparent reality. Going out there to feed and clothe the homeless also enforces the apparent reality of homelessness. Because the energy of service draws more service to it, so in truth you create more homelessness by serving the homeless. Also fighting against homeless, trying to remove them from the streets, will only give the apparent reality of homelessness more power. I think what we have to do here, in this example, is accept the apparent reality of homeless, but not in any way invests belief energy into this state. We acknowledge it appears to be real, that homeless people have come into our sphere of awareness. Then I think the next step is to look inside ourselves. What is being reflected to us outside is showing us something wrong inside, inside each of us individually and inside society collectively. Addressing whatever it is that is allowing homelessness to appear is how to address the issue of homelessness. Our beliefs about apparent reality that we actually believe are reality, our beliefs about society, our beliefs about the individual’s place in society – these are where the issue of homelessness has been given birth, and until we address this, no matter how much we serve the homeless or throw them off our street homelessness will continue to appear. It points to a flaw in society itself. Exactly as sap coming from a sawn limb points to an injury in the tree, or blood coming form a wound points to an injury in the body. In the case of our Buddhist monk, an even better tactic of non-resistance is to not even resist the bullet or sword blade! Really! The only way a bullet can pierce or a sword blade can cut is because of our beliefs in what bullets and sword blades can do. These beliefs are reflected in our bodies. We believe the bullet can hurt us, we believe the sword blade can hurt us, so these things can hurt us. But remember, this us apparent reality. It seems to be enforced by all we know about the world around us. But it is not true reality. In truth the monk can make his body non-resistant to bullets and blades, so that both would simply pass through, leaving them unaffected. It only requires mental training of the ability to use one’s mind to change the vibrational state of the body. Monks are already most of the way there. They have exceptional mental clarity. In some cases they have exceptional body control. This is just the next step in the natural progress of their training. It is not about defying reality. It is about defying apparent reality. This is done without any kind of seeking, including the seeking of control, and any kind of struggling. You accept what appears to be real, but you also know, with every fiber of your being, that it is only apparently real, that it is not necessarily what is truly real. You become non-resistant to apparent reality, but in this acceptance and non-resistance you still challenge it. You test it. You ask, is this really real, or is it only apparently real? Do I really know for sure that I can’t walk through this wall or allow the blade to go through me? You can’t honestly say you know this for sure. You can’t honestly say that you have learned everything you need to learn to walk through a wall or allow a blade to pass through you. You can’t honestly say you know everything you need to know. You can’t honestly say you have tried everything there is to try. You can’t honestly say you are no longer investing belief energy into apparent reality somewhere. You may still have deeply ingrained beliefs about apparent reality from society, your family or your culture. An example is needed here, and we will use the Bible, which may be a fable, or may be false, but for now we will assume that all accounts are true and that there is hidden ,meaning we may not have uncovered yet. Jesus stepped out of a boat and onto the surface of lake or sea, during a storm. He walked on water! The apparent reality is that water is not solid, that you will sink, and when one of his disciples tried it, they started to sink. For a moment they stood on the water as they forgot apparent reality, seeing Jesus out there, walking around, but then their beliefs about apparent reality, literally, began to sink in! But Jesus invested no energy in apparent reality. He did not fight the water or the waves. He probably did not fight opposing beliefs. He probably accepted everything, allowed everything, but invested no energy at all into apparent reality. So he stepped out and walked on water. If Jesus could walk on water, we can too. We can walk through walls and let blades pass through us. We simply have to invest our belief energy into knowing, having faith, we can, rather than in the apparent reality that we can’t. Everything Jesus did, everything Buddha did, we can do, and more, without exception. We are limited only by our beliefs. Our thoughts do affect reality, but not directly. First we have a thought, then we choose to believe in that thought or not, then if we have chosen to believe in it the thought it affects our perception of reality. Jesus probably had a thought such as, “water is not solid, you can’t walk on that, everyone knows that!” but he chose not to believe in it. He chose another thought, probably something like, “Through my father I can do anything, even walk on water.” He believed that thought and stepped out, knowing that the water was a surface he could walk on, and as a result he was able to walk on water. It was not a miracle. It was just a different thought, belief and perception. A teacher like Adyashanti seems to be saying, unless I am misunderstanding him, that we are powerless. That there are things we can’t change, that we can’t control. I say that is absolute bullshit. I say that seeking to control and change things will lead to suffering, same as any seeking, and in that aspect he is correct. I say that accepting apparent reality (and it is all apparent reality at this stage, because it is always changing, all the time) is as foolish as struggling against it. Both approaches give apparent reality power, and take it away from you. I say that you are not powerless, that you can control and change things. But you don’t do it through seeking or struggle. You change things by seeing them as they appear to be, as they present themselves to you, and then simply choosing not to invest your energy there anymore. Whatever the truth, you have an energy in you that is the same energy in everyone else and the whole of creation. You can interact with that energy using your thoughts, solidify that energy using your beliefs, and through your perception experience that energy in any way you wish. Here is an even simpler, parting example… Someone comes up to you and spits in your face. You have a thought about this experience. From these thoughts you choose what to believe and that determines your response. If in your culture it is an honor to be spat upon, you have a though that this is an honor, and you smile and say thank you. If you are a descendent of Irish settlers in South Bronx you have a thought that this asshole is insulting you, and you punch him into next week. If you smile at all it’s to show all your teeth in a threatening gesture. If you are a Buddhist Monk you will probably have the same thought as the Irishman, but will still smile lovingly at the person who spat on you. In this example, whatever you chose to do, you had a choice of action. Thoughts came, you chose which ones to grab onto and then you choose to invest energy into the corresponding belief. That belief, in turn, had a direct effect on your perception of reality. You chose to be honored, insulted, or to simply accept it as what is. You determine what is real for you, which is in fact only an apparent reality. This is your power,, to choose what beliefs you will put energy into, and this will directly affect your experience of apparent reality through your perception of it.

Here is a link to my latest blog post: http://adifferentpath.blog.com/2014/03/21/thoughts-on-thoughts/ I have just started absorbing this idea, but I am curious to know if you think I am on the right track or not. I appreciate your feedback!

The words that follow are an ongrowing process in me. Understanding comes, I see a little more, more understanding comes, the process continues. What I have learned may be the secret of the universe. But I will make no such claims. I will call this, "The Keys to the Kingdom" and leave it at that. Before we begin there is something you need to accept about yourself. It is a very esoteric, intangible concept that you hear in all the major religions. It is simply this... You create your reality. The world as it is to you at this moment in your life is exactly the way you made it, or where you have not actively been involved in its making you allowed it to change to the way it is or continue the way it was. You either chose to change it to what it is, or you chose not to change it, leaving it as it was. The world will be some combination of these two, mirrored back to you. A personal example, something I just realized tonight, is in order. I was struggling with something on my dad's laptop. This is the computer I use, although it is technically. I got so frustrated I put my head in my hands, signed, and said my life sucks. I felt, in that moment, every other moment I have ever felt frustrated and unhappy in my life. I felt low. While I do not get depressed as I used to, I got pretty close to as low as I can get now. Then I realized something, some more pieces came to me tonight as I was watching Gregg Braden's, "The Silence of Miracles." I highly recommend this video. In any case I realized, felt even, what he had been saying about what he calls, "The 5th modality of prayer." I created, in that moment, the sucky life I have, until now, always felt I had. I basically reinforced a life where I am miserable, where I struggle through things - an unsatisfying life of constant frustration! Now I realize, in order to break this pattern I have to feel as I felt on good days, for me the most recent was during a very long bike ride when I crossed paths with a beautiful girl who gave me the most dazzling smile I have ever in my life received. I felt that smile inside me, it stuck with me, even thinking about it now just makes everything lighter! When I started my whole spiritual journey, away from my faith and towards something, other, well I learned initially about creating mental movies in Maxwell Maltz's, "Psycho-Cybernetics." Then I learned about affirmations in Jack Canfield's work. Then I discovered the root of the power of change as being intention. Intention, guided by mindset, driven by belief, is where it all starts folks. You will read this also in Wayne Dyer and many other books. As I am learning about the path of Magick I am certain I will find that it is the driving force behind that sort of work. In fact I think rituals and all the dressings we apply are not necessary in the end. It ultimately comes down to simple intention. Ritual helps to focus the mind, center on belief, probably more than I intend to look into at this moment. I choose instead to get down to brass tacks and K.I.S.S. = Keep It Simple Stupid. So today what may be the last, but it certainly the next, piece, clicked into place. It's about feeling as if it has already happened. I wrote this, may put it in my signature. I have titled it, "Truth": "If you say you don't want it, Then you will receive it. If you ask for it or demand it, You will never get it. If you choose it, It will come slowly. But if you feel it, As if it already exists, As if it is real and true, Then it will manifest." I was at the stage where I had learned not to state what I don't want, but instead state what I do want. I had moved slightly past this to simply stating what I choose. But I believe this is the next, final and highest level. It goes beyond asking, demanding and even choosing. Now we involve feeling. I'm pretty sure if this is combined with a mental movie, so that you are feeling what you want to accomplish and seeing it accomplished in your mind's eye at the same time, you can do pretty much anything. Of course you have to believe in yourself and the process. I can, in a sense, give you a set of wings here. But you can't use them to fly anywhere unless you believe you can fly. My goal in sharing this is to open up this subject to development, discussion, and experimentation. To fine tune this method, to sharpen it's edge, until it is a surgical and precise instrument of desired change. You may be surprised to know that whatever your faith, you can use this method. For example, for Christians this method is called prayer. This is the true definition and practice of prayer. This may be called magick for a magician. I'm not sure what a Buddhist or Yogi would call it. I don't need a label for it myself, it is simply a tool, built from a variety of sources, which is proving to be more and more valuable, to me, every day. So, the process, simply explained, using, once again, a personal example. This example I am about to share is what I plan to do for myself. I may adjust it and change it, but the goal is the same. I want to gain control of my dreams and astral project. I will probably focus on just one of these. What I am going to do is to write a script for a mental movie, for say astral projection, where I see myself leave the body, go away somewhere, and return. During these stages I will feel, everything I have read others feel, everything I think I would feel, I will inundate this script, coat it, with positive feelings. The driving force behind this script is my desire and intention to astral project. I have had trouble remembering leaving my body and being away in the past. I have, actually, only one memory away from the body, and that was of talking to a man on a park bench. Or that is what I thought I remembered. Most of the time I would just do what Bruce Moen refers to as a "click out." I would usually feel myself slamming into my body (very strange sensation) so I knew I was away, but I would retain no other memory of my experiences. So for me if I went into this thinking about what I want, I would emphasize that I don't, at this moment, have it. This is what Mr. Bradon points out. It's another trap, the first for most being in stating what you don't want, which puts a lot of energy, in this case negative energy, into whatever it is you don't want, causing that to manifest. This is the other side of the coin then. You put all this energy into what you do what, but you are, in the processes, emphasizing your lack of it, which at the very least will delay what you want from happening but may mostly just undermine it. So instead you have to think only positively about what it is you wish to accomplish, feeling as if you already have it, and this leaves no negative energy in the equation to screw things up. Now if you're like me you're probably saying, "but that's lying!" Think about this a moment (I did.) If you create your reality, if you are ultimately responsible for your experience of the world, then how could you be lying? If you chose to create your current experience, then you can choose to create another experience, and in the process of creating an experience you make it true. This is hard to explain, I will try to clarify it later. Essentially it is not about you lying, it is about you creating. You created the current truth, so you can create another. If you are really struggling with this then use a memory of a time when something happened, or do as I intend to do and create a possible future memory when what you want has happened. Make sure whatever you do, that you are not thinking of terms of, "I don't want this" or "I do want that" but instead are simply experiencing the joys of whatever it is you are seeking to manifest. And, to make this harder, do so without attachment to any outcome. Remember there may be other determining forces in what I call the "Mechanisms of the Universe" that, however well you set your intention and pray, decide that whatever it is you are trying to manifest should not be granted to you at this time. That's OK. You can pray as much as you like. The wheels move slowly, but they do move. Understand that you will receive whatever it is you wish to manifest, at the right moment in your life for you to have it. Other forces, some call him God, are in control of that, seeing everything in the big picture. So you have to remember to start by changing your mindset, how you view your life and the world around you. You have to work on yourself inside. There is a lifetime of inner work for us all to do in ourselves. Eventually you will be unattached to the world, its outcomes. When bad things happen you realize that they don't really affect you at all. You are able to forgive, to let go, to free yourself. Then, when you pray, whether or not you get what you prayed for, you will not be discouraged if whatever it is you prayed about does not happen. You will continue to pray, finding a happiness within yourself that does not depend on exterior circumstances. Well there is a lot more to inner work part of this. As I am in that process even now I don't know enough to say more about it. Hopefully I have clearly shown you the bare-bones process of true prayer. How to create something you want in your life or the lives of others. Understand that prayers unselfishly directed towards others probably have more power than prayers directed towards yourself, unless you are praying for needed inner changes to improve yourself. This information is very important. If Bradon is correct, we may have had it twice in the past and lost it. So save this thread. Better yet, if you are more experienced in these matters than I, post here and improve it. Namaste! - DreamBliss