Faith and Tao

[Everything]

How does Tao Te Ching go beyond believes... I want to discuss this so that we might understand it. Perhaps just point eachother into the right direction, giving clues towards the path.

I do not care about wasting my time, even if I have to share all my wisdom with all of you. As long as we can speak about this on these forums. I believe that believes are at a deep core in all of our lives.

 

Mastering the right believe will give us great power and influence in the world, but it will also cause alot of conflict when not flexible with your perceptions and you must be willing to accept that when you try to change realities. Believes alter and filter your perceptions greatly, leading to alot of misunderstandings between people of diffrent backgrounds and believes.

To understand this, try the following: If you believe in god, try telling yourself that god does not exist. If you do not believe in god, try telling yourself that god does exist. Feel the conflict arise in your chest. This is a sample of a conflicting believe and every battle rises from this core. The battle between realities. The reality that is relative to each person. Sure, religion and culture bring people together by unifying believes, but then cause wars aswell because the believe is worth fighting for.

 

Perhaps our entire life is an ongoing battle towards creating the best reality, and take as many people with us as possible. I believe that this human nature can not or should not be changed anytime soon, rather we must change the methods of waging our wars into more peaceful and subtle battles. Football is a great way to fight out conflicts and to bring together people from all around the world. Personally I think that olympics is superior to football and should be the replacement for war in the future, but thats another story I just wished to share with you.

 

Back to believes... Someone who believes that he is intelligent will unconsciously act that way, or certainly move towards becoming intelligent if he is not so. The conflict arises when another person tries to convince him that he is infact stupid. Some people have little faith, give up on their believe and become stupid, therefor loosing the battle. Others stand and fight, becoming extremely angry whenever they sense a threat to their believe, this is a sign of fragile faith aswell. One with strong faith will simply deny the fact that he is stupid and continue believing that he is intelligent, even though he/she is stupid. To outsiders these people might seem extremely annoying or very stubborn.

 

So being faithful and looking "dumb" and "stubborn" seems like the way to go for these people. Letting go of faith in order to open your mind and become all intelligent seems like the way for other people. These two extremes don't go well with eachother, and if it is one thing I've learned in Tao Te Ching: it is ballance. In that case we must be faithful, yet still be open to new realities. How is that possible without loosing your faith? Living beyond abstractions of judgements of the mind. Alot of things feel like a threat, but don't have to. Master the alchemy of the mind. You will see the reality in each moment, so that you may find the suitable believe in every moment and situation to apply your faith onto, yet still practice the strength of your faith.

 

Perhaps I've already said all that came to your mind, perhaps you want to discuss a thought that was not yet mentioned. Leave a comment.

[devoid]

Hi Everything,

 

Nice post. If you'll allow, I would like to try to say what you said in a more compact form:

 

Whatever beliefs and perceptions one may have, it is healthy to question these in order to understand the true nature of things.

 

The funny thing is that after enough pondering in this manner on any topic one will inevitably reach the conclusion that things are the way they are. Yet at the same time, one cannot know this till one has pondered either view.

[Marblehead]

Yep. Our beliefs will determine how open-minded we are to others' opinions and beliefs.

 

I think we do need a core belief system in order to have some stability in our life. But we should not hold so tightly to these core beliefs that they cause us to not question and consider other possibilities.

[Otis]

My personal credo is: believe as little as possible, and make sure that what I do believe makes as much sense as possible.

[Otis]

The skeptic is the one who doubts everyone's belief system but his own.

[manitou]

I'm going to sound so arrogant here that I'm reluctant to say this, but I will. At a certain point the beliefs change instead to a Knowing, one that is self evident and the heart resounds with the knowledge that this is the Truth. It is my experience that the Truths are common to all, and it's within the realm of each to find it. The journey is an inward one, not an outward one.

 

I really don't know much about the Taoist way, other than loving the Tao Te Ching. I don't know if there is a type of Taoist structure that provides a pathway to Sageness - the inner path. The Sage is certainly a self-realized fellow, but I'm wondering if there is an instruction manual for how to get there. I'm suspecting that in Buddhism, for example, the meditations on non-attachment, if applied to everything in one's life, would ultimately lead to a foray through one's personality problems, if one were persistent. How persistent would you have to be? Pretty persistent, I'm thinking. I'm guessing it's quite possible to be a knowledgeable Buddhist who has walked this path, but who ends up with head knowledge only, because he hasn't purged his innards. My guess is that Buddhists, like the rest of us, have different levels of self-honesty. Some deep, some shallow.

 

Or even look at Christianity, my alma mater. Maybe things are a lot different today in churches - I haven't been in one in 30 years - but I don't recall any sort of awareness classes or even personality inventory classes that helped anybody cut through all the dross that mucks up our insides.

 

I am thrilled that I am a recovering alkie, because it provided a vehicle for the above process (12 steps). It merely takes you IN. I wouldn't have any depth of understanding about any of this were it not for the inner work. It wouldn't have mattered how many times I studied the Tao.

 

Does anybody know if there is a Taoist answer to the going-in process?

[Everything]

The following verse in Tao Te Ching shows us how the "stubborn" believers create rituals that last for generations and cause blindness to the truth. Why? Because one should not seek for the one truth. Even the first one and only truth in the beginning of time is ever changing. That is what TTC teaches us. Everything changes, always, into infinity. Nothing stays the same. Everything is possible. Everything can even be nothing and nothing can be everything. So we have to accept all on earth, for it to become our home.(Unless you're reading this from Mars right now)

 

38.

Well established hierarchies are not easily uprooted;

Closely held beliefs are not easily released;

So ritual enthralls generation after generation.

 

Harmony does not care for harmony, and so is naturally attained;

But ritual is intent upon harmony, and so can not attain it.

 

Harmony neither acts nor reasons;

Love acts, but without reason;

Justice acts to serve reason;

But ritual acts to enforce reason.

 

When the Way is lost, there remains harmony;

When harmony is lost, there remains love;

When love is lost, there remains justice;

But when justice is lost, there remains ritual.

 

Ritual is the end of compassion and honesty,

The beginning of confusion;

Belief is a colourful hope or fear,

The beginning of folly.

 

The sage goes by harmony, not by hope;

He dwells in the fruit, not the flower;

He accepts substance, and ignores abstraction.

Belief is a colourful hope or fear, the beginning of folly. So for a strong faith, one must know and not believe. Know that you are happy, know that everything is perfect so that it may be so. Accept the perfection and harmony in everything that happens and you will see without abstraction.

This is how Tao Te Ching goes beyond believes. The way is to be conscious of how your mind believes and find freedom within that.

Edited February 13, 2011 by Everything

[manitou]

The following verse in Tao Te Ching shows us how the "stubborn" believers create rituals that last for generations and cause blindness to the truth. Why? Because one should not seek for the one truth. Even the first one and only truth in the beginning of time is ever changing. That is what TTC teaches us. Everything changes, always, into infinity. Nothing stays the same. Everything is possible. Everything can even be nothing and nothing can be everything. So we have to accept all on earth, for it to become our home.(Unless you're reading this from Mars right now)

 

 

And the further down the line the rituals go, the further from source the participants would find themselves. Rituals rob 'religion' (or crystallized habits) of the Here and Nowness of where Is Is, as Bill would say. It raises to an art form the delusion of Time, for example. Here and Now is constant within us, and yet crystallizing beliefs at any moment in time merely serves to rob us of real time awareness from that moment on.

[Marblehead]

And the further down the line the rituals go, the further from source the participants would find themselves. Rituals rob 'religion' (or crystallized habits) of the Here and Nowness of where Is Is, as Bill would say. It raises to an art form the delusion of Time, for example. Here and Now is constant within us, and yet crystallizing beliefs at any moment in time merely serves to rob us of real time awareness from that moment on.

 

I read that last night but couldn't comment. Read it this morning. Impressive.

 

I very much agree. Rituals rob us of some of our freedom and often is a blockage against being able to live our life in the most natural manner. But I think that this should be stated as only a generalization because rituals are important in some people's life.

[Everything]

So, I think we all pretty much have a clue of what this means. Now for a little motivation and more scientific approach to proof this concept, so that you may apply it to your own life, or share this wisdom with other:

 

 

I must say again how important this concept is. If you become aware of how your mind "believes" and become conscious of this process, you will have found freedom. The truth of what is, is an seperation of space and time by cognitive disonance. Rather we must find the best believe and practice faith with flexibility. Holding the same believe for too long is not good, changing believes too often doesn't work either. There are certain believes that are better for the entire world, and will consruct a good world naturally without effort, automaticly even. That is how powerful our believes are.

 

Stay on top of your believes.

Edited February 13, 2011 by Everything

[manitou]

Thanks for the link to that wonderful video, Everything. I watched about half of it. What a fabulously understandable film that is, the graphics are great - did you throw that together??

 

I don't know how the film ends, and I don't know what it infers, if anything. But I would like to share an 'Aha!' I had today while driving home from Giant Eagle with groceries.

 

Everything, we are Everything. This means we are God, or however we want to look at it - the supreme intelligence that underlies everything.

 

The tumbler that fell into place for me today was that the perfect analogy is the brain itself. The fact that so much of it is subconscious, so little of it is conscious. (Isn't it 80/20, or something like that?) The flash I got this afternoon was that the conscious part of our brain runs us, individually (as does some of the unconscious, obviously).

 

But the rest of it, the unconscious part, runs the world. My subconscious is communal with your subconscious, and ad infinitum. We manifest all of this from the inside out; before people were here, the evolving Brain manifested through apes, before that lizards, before that fish, before that worms, all the way back to stardust. The molten center of the earth - that piece of the sun that we inhabit.

 

The piece of sun is inside all of us; we come from stardust. It really is all One, and we are apparently the Manifester, at least in this dimension.

[Everything]

Thanks for the link to that wonderful video, Everything. I watched about half of it. What a fabulously understandable film that is, the graphics are great - did you throw that together??

 

I don't know how the film ends, and I don't know what it infers, if anything. But I would like to share an 'Aha!' I had today while driving home from Giant Eagle with groceries.

 

Everything, we are Everything. This means we are God, or however we want to look at it - the supreme intelligence that underlies everything.

 

The tumbler that fell into place for me today was that the perfect analogy is the brain itself. The fact that so much of it is subconscious, so little of it is conscious. (Isn't it 80/20, or something like that?) The flash I got this afternoon was that the conscious part of our brain runs us, individually (as does some of the unconscious, obviously).

 

But the rest of it, the unconscious part, runs the world. My subconscious is communal with your subconscious, and ad infinitum. We manifest all of this from the inside out; before people were here, the evolving Brain manifested through apes, before that lizards, before that fish, before that worms, all the way back to stardust. The molten center of the earth - that piece of the sun that we inhabit.

 

The piece of sun is inside all of us; we come from stardust. It really is all One, and we are apparently the Manifester, at least in this dimension.

I'm glad you understand this nature of the subconscious mind. I'm not sure about the precentage, I just know that the subconscious has about a milion times more processing power then the conscious mind.

 

The video documentary is not from me! The concepts I've had in my mind years, just feels like a coincidence to me though. I know that these ideas are trying to be communicated all the time, by many people. Especially these days. This video does it pretty well. The research is done by Reese Leysen, to my amazement. He is the director/camera man of Athene, Wrath of the 1337 king and Furious. My friend gave a link to this documentary to me, knowing that I have a passion for any physics related documentary or neuro-science related topics.

 

Don't even mention it manitou, I know its complex. For me it has been very difficult to fully comprehend the physics parts. Enjoy the clarifications of it

Edited February 14, 2011 by Everything

[Everything]

To add, about my name and the relation to the video being a coincidence. I got it back years ago from Theory of Everything by Einstein. It was his lifework. The theory kinda feels like "finding the beginning of time, to find the equation of god or everything." Time turned out to be so much more then a creation of memories tho be traced back to the first moment, but it still fascinates me how all the past events translate into the present moment. This brings forth the thought of finding the first moment ever to unveil the ultimate "one" truth of everything... And that is nothing... Nothing is everything, everything comes from nothing.

 

So we must keep this in mind to understand how the nature of the mind works. It perceives and acts accordingly, and we can only choose to change our perception in order to brake trough the chains of fate. The ability to perceive our perception is strongly related to the symbol of everything/nothing, in my mind. I tend to move toward believing in "everything" since that translates into love and care for me. While believing in "nothing" brings me wisdom and courage.

Edited February 14, 2011 by Everything

[Marblehead]

And that is nothing... Nothing is everything, everything comes from nothing.

 

 

I love this concept. I doubt the answers will ever be totally defined, just as Tao cannot ever be fully defined.

 

Nothing is really not the total absence of all essence, it is really infinate potential that has not yet come to fruit. So, in a way, yes, nothing is everything, or rather, everything was once nothing.

[Everything]

I love this concept. I doubt the answers will ever be totally defined, just as Tao cannot ever be fully defined.

 

Nothing is really not the total absence of all essence, it is really infinate potential that has not yet come to fruit. So, in a way, yes, nothing is everything, or rather, everything was once nothing.

Well, actually... Everything IS nothing. Without bringing the notion of time in it. It is a quantum state where time and space cannot be seperated and become 0. Infinite potential is a great way of describing it. We can never understand "everything/nothing" because our human evolution required of us to grow intuitions based on the expressions of these quantum mechanics, and not the quantum mechanics themselves.

 

To actually explain how this understanding affects us as human beings we must take a closer look are our perceptions. Understand that everything is possible, but don't have the same probability. Becoming better at recognizing probabilities by seeing patterns in our lifes, unbiased by the narrow mindedness that our believe system causes. That is the key. Because then we can understand which future to believe in. Since we can never fully predict the future, we must choose to believe in one emotionally. And if we understand that, the last key to freedom is within our own ability to "believe" in these constructive ideas, with emotion. Will attaching emotion to the idea benefit us is the question that we must ask or wether an idea is "probable" or not. Not wether the idea is true or false, because everything is possible in the direct sense.

 

Surely, we can believe in something. But the believe will be hard to hold on to, and it will also be hard to feed it emotional energy. I wonder wether anyone has any significant insights in those fields. I mean so far we're just using the power of awareness to focus on certain idea and allow time itself to provide with emotional value for that idea for it to become a believe. Any other way to speed things up?

Edited February 15, 2011 by Everything

[Aaron]

Well, actually... Everything IS nothing. Without bringing the notion of time in it. It is a quantum state where time and space cannot be seperated and become 0. Infinite potential is a great way of describing it. We can never understand "everything/nothing" because our human evolution required of us to grow intuitions based on the expressions of these quantum mechanics, and not the quantum mechanics themselves.

 

To actually explain how this understanding affects us as human beings we must take a closer look are our perceptions. Understand that everything is possible, but don't have the same probability. Becoming better at recognizing probabilities by seeing patterns in our lifes, unbiased by the narrow mindedness that our believe system causes. That is the key. Because then we can understand which future to believe in. Since we can never fully predict the future, we must choose to believe in one emotionally. And if we understand that, the last key to freedom is within our own ability to "believe" in these constructive ideas, with emotion. Will attaching emotion to the idea benefit us is the question that we must ask or wether an idea is "probable" or not. Not wether the idea is true or false, because everything is possible in the direct sense.

 

Surely, we can believe in something. But the believe will be hard to hold on to, and it will also be hard to feed it emotional energy. I wonder wether anyone has any significant insights in those fields. I mean so far we're just using the power of awareness to focus on certain idea and allow time itself to provide with emotional value for that idea for it to become a believe. Any other way to speed things up?

 

 

Hello Everything,

 

What the Tao Teh Ching teaches, isn't that people shouldn't have beliefs or faith, but rather that one should learn to live in a way that is harmonious with others. Wu-Wei, non-interference. The sage says nothing, but rather teaches through his actions. The Sage puts others before himself, and by doing so puts himself first. A Sage never steps on another person, hence his presence is never felt.

 

There's this common idea that humanity, justice, religion, and morality are bad things, but in fact they aren't, rather they are things that arise when Tao is abandoned. The fact is mankind, at least 99.99 percent of mankind, has abandoned Tao. That's the reason these things have arisen. Faith and belief arise because they are necessary to explain our "ego-self" existence. In order to work with a society defined by the "ego-self" that is separate from nature, one must have rules of engagement.

 

To expect or believe that one can drop beliefs and faith, or that one should direct beliefs and faiths towards only good and tolerant beliefs and faiths, is like telling a fish out of the water that all he has to do is learn to breathe differently.

 

A Sage doesn't teach, because he knows he has nothing to teach. What he does can't be learned from books, but rather from not practicing, which is only achieved by practice. So the Sage goes about his life doing what needs to be done, living in harmony with the world around him, understanding that, even if he understands the actual nature of existence, it doesn't change the nature of existence. I can't change anyone's perception of reality, no one can, only they can.

 

I would recommend that if one is truly worried about belief and faith, then they should start to look at their own beliefs and faith, because more often than not, the fear and anger that one has towards another's beliefs is often caused by fear, anger, or guilt that they feel themselves.

 

If one wants to truly live a life without judgement of others, then one must first stop judging himself. If one truly wants to love others, then one must first love himself. If one truly wants to live without beliefs and faith, then one should first understand everything in existence, otherwise it just can't be done.

 

Aaron

Edited February 15, 2011 by Twinner

[Everything]

Hello Everything,

 

What the Tao Teh Ching teaches, isn't that people shouldn't have beliefs or faith, but rather that one should learn to live in a way that is harmonious with others. Wu-Wei, non-interference. The sage says nothing, but rather teaches through his actions. The Sage puts others before himself, and by doing so puts himself first. A Sage never steps on another person, hence his presence is never felt.

 

There's this common idea that humanity, justice, religion, and morality are bad things, but in fact they aren't, rather they are things that arise when Tao is abandoned. The fact is mankind, at least 99.99 percent of mankind, has abandoned Tao. That's the reason these things have arisen. Faith and belief arise because they are necessary to explain our "ego-self" existence. In order to work with a society defined by the "ego-self" that is separate from nature, one must have rules of engagement.

 

To expect or believe that one can drop beliefs and faith, or that one should direct beliefs and faiths towards only good and tolerant beliefs and faiths, is like telling a fish out of the water that all he has to do is learn to breathe differently.

 

A Sage doesn't teach, because he knows he has nothing to teach. What he does can't be learned from books, but rather from not practicing, which is only achieved by practice. So the Sage goes about his life doing what needs to be done, living in harmony with the world around him, understanding that, even if he understands the actual nature of existence, it doesn't change the nature of existence. I can't change anyone's perception of reality, no one can, only they can.

 

I would recommend that if one is truly worried about belief and faith, then they should start to look at their own beliefs and faith, because more often than not, the fear and anger that one has towards another's beliefs is often caused by fear, anger, or guilt that they feel themselves.

 

If one wants to truly live a life without judgement of others, then one must first stop judging himself. If one truly wants to love others, then one must first love himself. If one truly wants to live without beliefs and faith, then one should first understand everything in existence, otherwise it just can't be done.

 

Aaron

Hello to you aswell, Twinner.

 

I want to understand your perspective better.

Are you saying that we should or should not live with believes / faith? Or are you saying that it doesn't matter?

 

How can one live without faith / believe? An idea means nothing to the human mind, since we can have infinite ideas. If we would live without emotional attachment to certain ideas, it would lead to confusion and eventually allow your right hamisphere to create believes. I don't think one can live "without" believes. I do think that one can change their believes, which 99% of earth do not even consider as a daily practice, but rather a contemplation. And it is this changing of believes that I'm talking about. Not the believes itself, not religion either.

Several believes form your reality, but yes, one can learn to live without this reality by constantly being aware of your believes, contemplating the opposite of your believes, living in the present moment, drawing infinitely from experience. But you cannot live without believes I think, because we can never understand everything in existance either. You can just seem like you live without believes, you can seem to be very flexible to change, you can seem to have "mastered" your own perception of your perceptions, so that you may choose to act trough contemplating rational probabilities first.

So woulden't it be better to be in control of your own direction of believes, since you have them anyways?

This would get your narrow mindedness out of the way when experiencing new events, so that you may learn from them fully, rationally, and become wiser quicker, without having to experience the same event 50 time before you finally "understand" it.

Edited February 15, 2011 by Everything

[manitou]

Hello Everything,

 

What the Tao Teh Ching teaches, isn't that people shouldn't have beliefs or faith, but rather that one should learn to live in a way that is harmonious with others. Wu-Wei, non-interference. The sage says nothing, but rather teaches through his actions. The Sage puts others before himself, and by doing so puts himself first. A Sage never steps on another person, hence his presence is never felt.

 

There's this common idea that humanity, justice, religion, and morality are bad things, but in fact they aren't, rather they are things that arise when Tao is abandoned. The fact is mankind, at least 99.99 percent of mankind, has abandoned Tao. That's the reason these things have arisen. Faith and belief arise because they are necessary to explain our "ego-self" existence. In order to work with a society defined by the "ego-self" that is separate from nature, one must have rules of engagement.

 

To expect or believe that one can drop beliefs and faith, or that one should direct beliefs and faiths towards only good and tolerant beliefs and faiths, is like telling a fish out of the water that all he has to do is learn to breathe differently.

 

A Sage doesn't teach, because he knows he has nothing to teach. What he does can't be learned from books, but rather from not practicing, which is only achieved by practice. So the Sage goes about his life doing what needs to be done, living in harmony with the world around him, understanding that, even if he understands the actual nature of existence, it doesn't change the nature of existence. I can't change anyone's perception of reality, no one can, only they can.

 

I would recommend that if one is truly worried about belief and faith, then they should start to look at their own beliefs and faith, because more often than not, the fear and anger that one has towards another's beliefs is often caused by fear, anger, or guilt that they feel themselves.

 

If one wants to truly live a life without judgement of others, then one must first stop judging himself. If one truly wants to love others, then one must first love himself. If one truly wants to live without beliefs and faith, then one should first understand everything in existence, otherwise it just can't be done.

 

Aaron

 

Aaron, this is about the most beautiful thing I've read on this forum.

 

I absolutely agree with you. At some point we come to understand that beliefs are merely constructs of a mindset that we wish to wear. It is necessary to get under the beliefs to the Knowing. I see it as a vibrating golden pool that we all have access to, if only we can get our buckets down the well far enough. The well is symbolic for our inner journey of self-realization. When this point is reached, there is no need to consciously love ourselves because by dipping our scoops into the golden fluid we are infused with love and have no need to artifically create it. But you are absolutely right about self love - we initially have to break through the barrier of self-loathing, if there is any, to get through it. This is the hardest nut to crack of all.

 

Thank you for your thoughtful post.

 

The pool is always there and waiting. I choose when I want to put my scoop in it.

[Marblehead]

He Everything,

 

Great post and I have no arguement to present to it. However, I do want to speak to this:

 

Well, actually... Everything IS nothing. Without bringing the notion of time in it. It is a quantum state where time and space cannot be seperated and become 0.

 

But that instant you speak of existed only for an instant prior to the big bang - the state of singularity. As long as there are 'two' (time and space) you can never have nothing.

 

Infinite potential is a great way of describing it. We can never understand "everything/nothing" because our human evolution required of us to grow intuitions based on the expressions of these quantum mechanics, and not the quantum mechanics themselves.

 

Exactly. However, once matter is created infinite potential no longer exists. All 'things' are limited by 'their' potential. This is why I have said a number of times before that we should periodically test our potential because things change over time.

[manitou]

 

Exactly. However, once matter is created infinite potential no longer exists. All 'things' are limited by 'their' potential. This is why I have said a number of times before that we should periodically test our potential because things change over time.

 

 

I like the analogy of the greatest music in the world is the silence while the conductor raises his baton. The possibilities are endless.

[Marblehead]

I like the analogy of the greatest music in the world is the silence while the conductor raises his baton. The possibilities are endless.

 

 

Yep.

[Everything]

He Everything,

 

Great post and I have no arguement to present to it. However, I do want to speak to this:

 

 

 

But that instant you speak of existed only for an instant prior to the big bang - the state of singularity. As long as there are 'two' (time and space) you can never have nothing.

 

 

 

Exactly. However, once matter is created infinite potential no longer exists. All 'things' are limited by 'their' potential. This is why I have said a number of times before that we should periodically test our potential because things change over time.

Perhaps the concepts are insignificant to us regular humans and just show how our reality is an abstraction of something bigger or smaller then our reality, just like that abstraction might aswell be an abstraction of something else, etc. A determenistic point of view is the way to go then.

[Everything]

I like the analogy of the greatest music in the world is the silence while the conductor raises his baton. The possibilities are endless.

Yeah, becoming aware of this is essential in creating any form of art. When I play the piano I feel exactly the same way. The best music comes from contemplating the silence and potential between the notes. You simply begin touching one key and allow your mind to flow towards the other, depending on what mood you're trying to create. Being aware of all potential in each moment you can also move towards perfect timing.

 

But this is only possible when you have mastered the skill of playing the musics instrument, or "translating" the potential trough your fingers or whatever.

[Everything]

Aaron, this is about the most beautiful thing I've read on this forum.

 

I absolutely agree with you. At some point we come to understand that beliefs are merely constructs of a mindset that we wish to wear. It is necessary to get under the beliefs to the Knowing. I see it as a vibrating golden pool that we all have access to, if only we can get our buckets down the well far enough. The well is symbolic for our inner journey of self-realization. When this point is reached, there is no need to consciously love ourselves because by dipping our scoops into the golden fluid we are infused with love and have no need to artifically create it. But you are absolutely right about self love - we initially have to break through the barrier of self-loathing, if there is any, to get through it. This is the hardest nut to crack of all.

 

Thank you for your thoughtful post.

 

The pool is always there and waiting. I choose when I want to put my scoop in it.

If our awarenes is the key to tap into this golden pool, we could live beyond believes? Its like tapping into the well of experience.

[2netis]

We can come to the direct intuition/knowing of this nothingness or emptiness that is empty of even itself. As it is the nondual state of being-ness, it is not recognizable by the discursive mind. It only recognizes itself as itself. Looking directly for it is like trying to look yourself in the eye or to shake your own right hand with your right hand. Not possible. Not possible because it is already what you are. OK with me to call it God or god...whatever..... Naming it does no good and does not help because naming and believing in it is not ever it.

 

If we find first, in meditation and then eventually in everyday experience consciousness, that all phenomena are empty phenomena, we have begun. As phenomena, they are real phenomenal form - including thinking and other mental stuff. (It is all mind anyway...) However they are empty of anything whatsoever - they have no inherent existence at all. They are exactly the emptiness itself. Impossibly they are both form and emptiness and we can, and cannot, know this. When this is recognized, it is recognized by itself, as Knowing Being. This is the thing called prajna in Buddhist practice. It is the fusion or the synthesis of emptiness and form in everyday life 'right in front of us'. This is why an old Chan master says: "Not knowing is most intimate." When the discursive mind is not knowing something, it is the Knowing Being.

 

The old, now almost extinct, tradition of Christian contemplation is about just this Knowing Being. Also, the Christian Gnostic Gospels are clearly describing Christ as the one consciousness. The Advaita Vedanta taught by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj and by Kashmir Shaivism is close as well. There are some authentic paths today, but any path that requires belief of any kind or any path that does not de-construct itself is not the path to go "all the way."

 

Faith fits in here because it is different from belief. Faith is based in experience - experience gained in meditation and the observation of the phenomenal world which is always referring back to consciousnes but not back or out to anything else. Belief is based on rumor, gossip, myth...on everything that is always subject to change and is always changing. Belief is the barrier that prevents direct experience of what IS at any given moment. Belief is what we are doing when we hit the wall.

 

There is a clear graphic description of this nothingness or void or God that is the source of everything. Besides the Tao symbol as a graphic, the Zen Buddhist Enso - that empty circle that is drawn boldly and intuitively with the inkbrush - expresses the nothing from which come all things, "The Ten Thousand Things" with direct influence from Daoism.

 

Nice topic! Best wishes