Fully conscious belief systems

[coLLege kid07]

I have a question about belief systems when it comes to being fully conscious. When you come up with a belief system do you leave open ends in it to leave room for other possibilities or is that totally defeating the purpose of a belief system. My problem is how do I integrete everything I learned into a belief system or don't I? Am I somehow supposed to still remain detached when creating a belief system or am I just supposed to realise that they are just beliefs and ultimately don't matter. However, looking at this more indepthly I realise that this is in fact a belief lol This is all kind of confusing...I guess by living and learning you have the ability to easily change a belief system when it's warranted. Any thoughts

[Matthew Shea]

Belief systems are a way of explaining to ourselves that which we cannot or do not have concrete knowledge of. Loose ends are therefore inevitable. There's no way to prove a belief except in the context of other beliefs.

For yourself personally, I suggest starting with an existing system that you're somewhat comfortable with and figuring out how to incorporate that into your life. If that doesn't work for you, start with your core beliefs (for example: it is wrong to steal, it is good to be truthful, etc) and work outwards. Don't expect an overnight answer, either. Most of us spend an entire lifetime trying to figure these things out and I'm confident that no mere mortal has gone to their grave knowing all there is to know about this sort of thing.

[pianoperformer]

I've studied many different religions probably for 8 years or so. I'm still tying up loose ends in my belief system. But I just saw what I liked and what made sense from various systems, and adopted those, maybe modifying them to my needs.

You're never going to know everything. It is the exploration that is the fun, though.

[wolfgang]

Originally Posted by coLLege kid07

I have a question about belief systems when it comes to being fully conscious. When you come up with a belief system do you leave open ends in it to leave room for other possibilities or is that totally defeating the purpose of a belief system. My problem is how do I integrete everything I learned into a belief system or don't I? Am I somehow supposed to still remain detached when creating a belief system or am I just supposed to realise that they are just beliefs and ultimately don't matter. However, looking at this more indepthly I realise that this is in fact a belief lol This is all kind of confusing...I guess by living and learning you have the ability to easily change a belief system when it's warranted. Any thoughts

Always leave room for possibilities with beliefs that you are thinking about.

What does it mean to have a belief anyway? You can't just know what that belief is supposed to make you feel like and act as if you believe it. That would be just acting. To have a belief work you do need to bring into you reality to a level that makes you see or behave because of the belief.

In other words, I don't see how a belief does anything for you if you remain detached from it.

I general, I think we try to believe way more than we need to.

interesting topic!

[mercuryrising]

Originally Posted by coLLege kid07

I have a question about belief systems when it comes to being fully conscious. When you come up with a belief system do you leave open ends in it to leave room for other possibilities or is that totally defeating the purpose of a belief system. My problem is how do I integrete everything I learned into a belief system or don't I? Am I somehow supposed to still remain detached when creating a belief system or am I just supposed to realise that they are just beliefs and ultimately don't matter. However, looking at this more indepthly I realise that this is in fact a belief lol This is all kind of confusing...I guess by living and learning you have the ability to easily change a belief system when it's warranted. Any thoughts

This made a lot more sense to me when I changed the word "belief" to "perception".

Keep in mind that, yea, the map is not the territory; but maps are useful. The key is remembering it's a map... being aware that you are dealing with a model of reality and not reality itself. And that is a belief: a perception about perceptions that I've found useful.

The CYOR concept is basically saying that maps create territories. To parrot What the Bleep Do We Know, we exist in a field of infinite potentialities that become concrete when we perceive them.

[Rhythman]

What I find is that when I am purely witnessing sense perceptions with no thoughts, whatever beliefs or concepts the mind may have had are irrevelavant as there is no mind. If my intention is to stabalize in this state, the only beliefs or concepts worth having are those that are used to remove other beliefs and concepts. Eventually, the concepts used to remove concepts will need to be discarded.

I guess all depends on what your ultimate goal is.

Rhythman

[Mato Kinze]

Beliefs are nothing more than an agreement you make with yourself that you know you know something.

In what we call "existance" there's three "types" of Knowledge: What we know we know, what we know we don't know and what we don't know we don't know.

Beliefs are those things that we tell ourselves we know we know. For every belief (aka what we know we know) there's easily 100 times more that we [should] recognize we don't know. All that together; what we know we know and what we know we don't know is only the most infintessimal part of all that "is" which makes up what we don't know we don't know.

Since you cannot possibly know everything (or even a very small part of everything), and since every belief you have should cause you to have even more questions than answers, you will always have "loose ends."

"A smart man knows some things. A brilliant man knows most things. An enlightened man knows nothing."

[NightSpirit]

The biggest danger to trying to solidify a belief system is that it doesn't leave room for growth and it hurts sometimes when we bust out of it.

There is a humbleness and acceptance of ourselves when we realize that we may not know everything. In that, we begin to be grateful for those loose ends and even further, start to look forward to this process in the same way we look forward to unwrapping gifts at Christmas.

[jawillie]

Everytime I think I know something I am quickly proven wrong. So, I am learning to tell myself, "I know nothing." This pretty much leaves me open for my views to change. However, I still get totally irrate when people try to tell me what I "believe" and judge me as if I believe that way.... as if they have me figured out. So many still cling to labels.