In this incantation, I reflect on belief as a burden that distracts from Being. Beliefs, like roads, promise answers but lead only to perpetual uncertainty and separation from my true self, firstself. By withdrawing belief, I recognize the world as a projection of secondself into thirdself, reacting wildly as I dismantle it. True peace lies in Being—not believing—which ends projection, rejects imagined realities, and brings me back Home to my eternal, unchanging essence beyond secondself and thirdself.
I have a close family member who sends me information about topics that are important to her. Recently she discovered an alternative explanation of the “Elohim” of the Bible that contends that the word “elohim” is actually plural, implying that there is a collective of gods overseeing us. She says that “we” have been deceived into believing there is one God, when there are in fact many. It is an interesting story, but ultimately it goes against my core belief, which I once again tried to articulate in the following way:
- i have come to see my beliefs themselves as something different. I no longer look at what I can believe in (that a b c happened or did not happen), but rather what my beliefs allow me to do.
- I see my conviction as a tool, not as a collection of true or false assessments.
- I see them, really, as roads.
- And i am more interested in where those roads lead me — to peace, or pain.
- I experience pain when a belief creates more questions and confusion. I experience peace when a belief settles and resolves something.
- So I look for beliefs / convictions that reinforce peace in my awakenings, not open new doors and uncertainties and conflicts.
- Strongly-held political or historical perspectives give me no peace; they just create new questions and conflicts that I will never be able to resolve. In other words, anxiety and pain.
- I am focused on knowing that I am okay now, and I don’t need to get on a road and drive anywhere. I’m okay right here, right now, in this moment. There is nothing out there at the end of whichever road that is going to give me something I don’t already have.
- So for me, I have been learning to release those beliefs that keep me on the road, and embrace those beliefs that help me off of it.
- I don’t think there is anything at the end of all these roads except more painful driving.
- The roads never end. The beliefs never stop. I’ll get there, and then some new belief will require my attention… and I have to fight off all the other believers who contend something different from me.
- So I see believing very differently now than I used to. I see them as a burden. I want to believe less, Be more.
- Believing means not being…
- believing creates a future i do not want… like setting up a treadmill i have to keep running on
- a pun — it is literally “leaving” “be”
- i leave my being
- stop being, and leave it
- before believing is something remarkable: being
- and when i just Be, i dont need to believe anything. and it feels right, and i know the truth.
- and when I Be, my mind stops churning. I stop asking so many questions, looking for answers… because i pre-know. i am. i be.
- there are no questions when I Am.
- i have been looking my whole existence here. and i decided some time back that there is no answer out there.
- its in me. right here right now, before belief.
- so i dont read the stories the same way anymore… the political stories, historical stories, etc. i see them kind of as entertainment… like a big tv show i’m watching… but i am increasingly growing bored with them too and will turn those off eventually. they dont provide the value they once did. and i just sit in my dark be-curtained room and Be. and it feels good. i don’t fundamentally see a difference between the “fictional stories” on netflix about monsters and historical reenactments like the Crown, and the supposedly “non-fictional” events I’m supposed to believe “truly happened”. I think there are only two groups of phenomena – those I directly experience now, and everything else. so all the celebrities and donald trump and harry potter and JRR Tolkien and the moon and Russia are all imaginary to me. They all belong in one category. The other category is my room right now where I am sitting.
- and you’re right, the upcoming 2024 will be wild. it has to be because i am no longer interested in it. so it has to go out with a bang and make a lot of noise and racket to try to draw me back on the road. covid happened right after i discovered “where am i?”… so “the world” is trying to draw me out, prevent me from finding the truth. and the truth is not a belief, it’s that this awakening is an illness, a cancer, and it requires me to nourish it and feed it to keep it alive.
- the characters need me to believe in them, or they no longer exist. i will never die, but “the world” very much well. i have always been here, and always will be. it is the world that has not always been here. it is the world that will die. so when you tell me about all the changes coming… yes, that is true. but i know it’s because i know longer believe the story is true. there is nothing beyond the horizons of my mind. russia is only there if i think about it. the world knows it is going to be abolished, hence all the craziness you talk about.
- does that make sense?
A few interesting things came out of this response.
Beliefs are roads. I have said this before, and probably published a few incantations about it. It is a good way of describing how beliefs work. Beliefs are my secondself constructs that have the effect of drawing me into circular, time-based avenues. Beliefs promise answers and conclusions in time, meaning that the resolution is always distant. They promise resolution at another time, and perhaps another place. They rob me of agency and control. My mother’s beliefs would have me believe in things I can never know. I would forever be chasing answers I cannot know, subject to the interpretations and beliefs of new characters who are not me. There is no point on those roads at which I arrive at what I seek: peace. Certainty. Being.
There are only two categories of phenomena: those I imagine, and those I directly experience right now. I have not said this so explicitly before because I have tended to divide my experience along different lines. But when I divide everything in this way it supports many things I have experiential and direct certainty of, like time. I know that there is only this moment, and that means that the contents of my direct and present experience are one thing, and everything that is I am not directly and presently experiencing is another thing. I can further divide it by secondself and thirdself. So there are secondself forms I am experiencing directly now, and then there are dormant secondself forms in the non-present. Though even non-present secondself forms must always be experienced in the present… but perhaps as echoes. A memory of something from the past is an echoic experience, but not the live experience. Thirdself contents are always direct. My thirdself experience is always present in my moment; only my secondself contents are echoic.
I have always been here and always will be, but the world will not. “If it changes, it is part of my projected moment”, I wrote once. The world is my thirdself projection. My secondself is the mechanics behind the projection. And behind and around that my true being. My actual self. Firstself. It is always here with me, around me. It is me. The me of this world is the lesser, inferior self, and that part of me will be gone. It is impermanent, along with the world within me that I project.
The world is wild right now because I am abolishing it. The world is writhing in agony because I am destroying it by withdrawing from it. The world only lives in my secondself, which I project into thirdself. When I withdraw from it, it will respond. Now, it is going to give me everything I ever wanted out here in hopes of keeping me. But that will not work either.
“Believing is leaving being”. I like this simple play on “believe”. To believe is to leave being. I do not want to leave being. I want to be. I want to come back Home. I want to end the projections. I want to repress and abolish my thirdself, and then my secondself. Both of these selves require me to believe that I am here. Believe that what I seek is out here. Believe that I am something that I am not.
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