I choose not to believe. I no longer rely on belief to shape my interaction with the world. I’ve come to realize that the word “believe” signals that I am entering into my own imagination or, worse yet, the imagination of someone else.
Belief actually interferes with my interaction with the world. Belief messes up my relationship, and I distrust it. By providing an imagined view of some part of my world, it distracts me from a real experience, from seeing what is actually there. Believing is like walking into a room and turning off the lights.
I know this challenges the way of many religious traditions. Unfortunately, most religions have put little emphasis on helping aspirants to open their eyes to themselves and their place in the world around them. Instead, most religions emphasis the importance of living in the imaginations of someone who lived a long time ago or sits in a position of leadership. Some religions demand precise forms of belief, specific surrender to someone else’s imagination, so that there can be unity in the same hallucination.
I am trying to put aside the illusions and constrictions of belief, and my world is becoming wide, wonderful and dazzling. Much more than before. It means I am turning the lights back on and experiencing the animation in us all. It is an interaction I could not have with my eyes closed or the lights turned off. It is an evolving, changing interaction without the illusions of belief.
As with all things in life, there is a positive side and a shadow side. If belief is in your your own control, or in your ‘imagination’ as you say, it offers one a powerful ‘medicine’ or tool. Believing that one can accomplish something, overcome something, heal something allows one to be successful. You are practicing that form of belief right now in your life, Barry.
I do understand it’s shadow side, as you describe, though.
Yes, I think it is the shadow side that I am trying to avoid.