I recently came upon this site, Calm Down Mind, by Sen.
It so clearly expressed my life long self-discovery journey up until now.
From an early age, I sensed that I did not see the world the same as others.
I wanted to fit-in, but there was a difference that I couldn’t pinpoint. I tended to
question the structures and beliefs that most took for granted as reality.
When my child was born, I didn’t want her to use family labels to address her relatives.
I wanted her to experience them as human beings, where she could find her identity as part of the whole. I didn’t want her to miss seeing and being with them, and herself.
I didn’t realize then, that labels were made-up by beliefs.
I didn’t connect then, that beliefs create expectations.
And, unfulfilled expectations are the cause of our self-suffering.
What I learned was that it’s easier to accept (forgive) humanness, than it is to forgive someone that cannot to fit into my idealized notion of “brother”, “father”, “mother”, etc.
But more importantly, I learned that beliefs are not real.
They are used as filters to create our life. We can choose our beliefs. We can choose how we see our life.
However, the slippery slope is when we start discovering the unconscious beliefs we
were conditioned with as children. Those beliefs are hard to separate from what we think is reality. Only the greater power within us can lead us out of that illusionary prison.
Whether it’s a label, a word, a belief – anything that creates some sort of meaning or story or rationale (positive or negative), keeps us from seeing what’s really there.
My life urge has been seeking Freedom. I discovered with time that Freedom was the same as Love, Peace, wholeness, God, Truth, Joy ~ Aliveness. What I discovered was that dissolving labels, beliefs, concepts (words), and meaning, opens up freedom. To the world, it may appear that I’m losing my mind (LOL).
Dropping the Baggage of Beliefs by Sen
You don’t have to hold any “beliefs”, you don’t need to hold on to any concepts, you don’t have to hold any blind faith in any teaching – this is what true freedom is, when you don’t have to carry a baggage of beliefs in your mind all the time. Everything that you need, to have a good life, is already within you. If you just follow your own joy, follow your heart and let go of being driven by negativity, you will always have a positive experience of life – there is no need or necessity to find any belief systems. The beauty of letting go of holding onto beliefs is that the required knowing arises for you whenever you need it – whatever knowing you need to handle your present circumstance will come to you effortlessly (either from inside or outside) when you are living in this open manner of not carrying the baggage of concepts, techniques or beliefs.
A pointer is just a pointer, it’s not meant to be taken as a “belief system”. If a pointer resonates for you, in that moment, it can help bring some clarity – after that you don’t have to keep holding on to that pointer by making it into a belief system. The only reason you will try to hold onto to “beliefs” is when you are afraid of being open to life. Anything you hold on to as a form of belief, becomes a resistance of some form, it curbs on your freeness – it keeps you in fear of losing it. A belief is something you need to keep reinforcing in yourself, and it’s a waste of energy and brain power. If you can live free of belief, you save so much energy (especially in your brain) which can be channeled into producing quality expression.
All beliefs are inherently laden with fear, if you were not fearful you wouldn’t really care to hold a belief – there will be things that resonate with you and some things that don’t resonate with you, but you don’t need to carry anything as a belief system. There is a difference between having a perspective and having a belief system, because a perspective comes from a place of what resonates for you in your present moment (so you are always open to anything new), while a belief system comes from a place of wanting to hold on to a perspective from a place of fear that you will be lost without it (hence it becomes a baggage). If you can drop all your belief systems and still feel “confident” in your well-being, that shows that you are not using any beliefs as a crutch in your life.
Your guidance should always come from within
It’s okay to listen to different perspectives with an open mind, but the only criteria for you to accept a perspective is to see if it resonates within you – if it touches your heart. If it doesn’t, then it’s not for you, at-least not at this moment, may be at a later time, with a deeper maturity, the same perspective may resonate for you, but right now you are better off without it. To try to believe a perspective by putting blind faith on someone, or some teaching, is just a “powerless” way to live where you are not standing on your own two shoes and expecting someone else to herd you around.
At any point in your life, you can only understand through your personal capacity for understanding, at that moment. If you simply follow your inner guidance you will always move in the right direction. Life is a constant learning, it’s a constant growth, and you need to just keep following your inner guidance on a consistent basis to allow this growth to take place, to allow learning to keep coming in. If you try to hold on to some belief systems that means you are no longer flexible enough to be open to your own inner guidance in that moment. Be open to learn and receive information from the outside, but always use your own inner guidance to let you know what feels right to you. This is what it means to take full responsibility for your life – this way you know you are not blindly dependent on someone, or some belief-system, to tell you the right way to live.
Your only criteria for accepting a perspective, or teaching, should be your inner resonance with it – if it doesn’t resonate for you don’t try to make yourself force believe it. If someone is asking you to believe in them, or believe in their teaching, rather than asking you to check within yourself to see if it resonates for you, it shows that they are not willing to allow you the freedom to connect with your own inner guidance – it’s best to walk the other way if you meet such people. Whether it be to choose the right job, the right diet, the right relationships – your guiding factor should always be your own inner guidance.
Clearing up the fog of negativity to connect with inner guidance
Of course, when you are lost in the mind’s momentum of negativity, there is very little awareness in you to be connected with your inner guidance, and the more disconnected you are with your inner guidance the more likely you are to live an incongruent life and hence attract more negativity, thus creating a vicious cycle. To break this cycle you need to let go of fueling the mind’s momentum by no longer anchoring your awareness in it, rather just rest in your being allowing the mind to slow down its momentum. The more you rest in your being the more connected you are with your inner guidance. To “rest in the being” is just a pointer to help you recognize the silent space of being that’s present outside the noisy space of the mind.
The more you rest in your being the more the mind’s momentum reduces, until it’s no longer a potent force pulling you around. In this place you have open access to your inner guidance because it’s no longer blurred by the noise of the mind’s momentum. We all have equal access to this space of inner guidance, it’s just that a lot of us are too lost in the mind’s pull to connect to this space of intelligence. When you get a sense of this space of dynamic wisdom within you, it becomes obvious that you don’t have to carry any rigid belief systems, neither do you have to be dependent on some outside source for guidance – this is how you become “self sustained”.
A teacher name Osho made this very clear when he said – “be a light onto yourself”, what he meant is – don’t be a follower be willing to connect with your own inner guidance. A true teacher is not someone who creates followers, but someone who helps the seekers towards their own inner guidance so that they can become self-sustained. A true leader is not someone who makes others trust in him/her, but rather the one who makes them trust in themselves. When you trust in your inner guidance you don’t have to carry belief systems, neither do you have to be a “follower”, you feel totally self-sustained and are always open to life guiding you as per the requirement of the moment.
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Passing Through the Eye of the Needle 