Spirituality is about always telling the truth. No more self-deception. One of the areas that the “me” deceives itself is in the area of belief. This chapter is not about suppressing belief. It is an invitation to see what belief really is. Belief is conditioning. Belief, when there is complete attachment to it, becomes an obstacle to enlightenment–to being fully awake and present. Belief is attachment to some past conclusion. Belief is looking for the world to confirm its storyline. In that way, it cannot see what is really here in this moment. But do not believe a word that is being said. Do beliefs actually see life the way it is right now or are they simply attachment to some story, some conclusion from the past that repeats itself over and over? Repeating ideas and stories is not the truth. It is merely involuntary, repetitious thought.
If you look closely, every belief carries with it an underlying unconscious doubt. Actually, it is more accurate to say that with every belief comes an unconscious bundle of emotions, movements, and perspectives that could be summed up as doubt/fear/insecurity/uncertainty/desire to know, escape, control, and/or resist. But for purposes of this chapter, let’s simplify it. The glue of belief is really fear, isn’t it? Belief, if made fully conscious, could be stated in simple terms: “I am afraid, therefore I will tell a story (belief) to cover up my fear so that I do not have to fully face the fear that arises.”
This fear is essentially a fear of death. You see life and see that this life will come to an end in the form of death. A “me” is created from that fear. That “me” is attachment to a past (who I am) and to a future (who I am going to become). But if you look truthfully, past and future are nothing more than presently arising thoughts. You do not have a past or future except as thought. In staying locked in thoughts of past and future, this radiant, unknowing mystery of life is reduced to a set of ideas or beliefs. “You” are merely one of those ideas. This keeps you locked into the false belief that you are somehow separate from the rest of life and that you are somehow not vulnerable to the fear that is arising. This past and future keep the “me” from having to fully face the fear of death. The “me” is trying to make itself permanent and invincible in the face of knowing that life is really impermanent and vulnerable.
This “me” knows that this moment is its death. It is avoiding this moment desperately. The ego is lost in a trance of storytelling in time (past, future, and resistance to now), avoiding the reality of this moment with all its might. This energy is obscuring the natural state of surrender and wonder called enlightenment.
The ego (which is nothing more than a set of thoughts creating the appearance of a separate person) is not conscious that the movement of ego itself is an attempt to repress or escape the fear and doubt arising now. Without fully facing this fear and doubt, the fear and doubt become embedded into the belief. One way to test whether this is true for you is to watch your own reaction when someone challenges your beliefs. In the moment you feel attacked, and thought and emotion rise up to defend your belief system, you are experiencing this embedded fear and doubt (ego) defending itself. You are experiencing the entire belief bundle and all its hidden components, all the fear, doubt, and insecurity you refused to face when the belief system was formed. In that way, life is always unraveling our illusions. It is always teaching us what it is we refuse to face. This moment is always showing us where our self-deception lies. The person who argues with you about how your belief system is wrong is not an idiot. He is your greatest spiritual teacher. That energy that comes up defend your belief system is not actually defending the belief system. It is the “me” defending itself. You are not ‘doing’ the defending. It is merely an operation of conditioning. An illusion is defending itself. In noticing that, the possibility of seeing that you have no control arises. Liberation is realized to be your natural state under all the energy of defending a self that does not exist except as thought.
Many religions contain a story of the afterlife. The afterlife belief system helps to relieve some of this primal fear of the unknown and the impermanency of life, the fear that the ego could die at any moment and that would be it. Poof. Gone. Enlightenment is the death of the ego now. In the words of Richard Sylvester, “I hope you die soon.” That is not a mean-spirited statement. It is the most loving invitation to allow the story of self to die to that you—who you really are beyond that story—can live. It is an invitation to see that the story is merely conditioning arising beyond your control. Somehow the seeing of that allows a shift in consciousness to happen. This invitation is about the death of self-deception, so it is the beginning of realization of truth. Without beliefs behind which the ego can take cover from this threat of total annihilation, you are left with not knowing, not being in control, and not resisting. You are left with the truth. You are left with the full vulnerability, sensitivity, intimacy, and openness to whatever is arising now. That will sound scary to an ego locked in belief and stories, attempting to cover up the fear. But that openness to what is arising now is the portal to absolute liberation and therefore a portal to the end of fear.
Belief
