Belief

[Mike MacLeod]

For a good long time I have struggled with the concepts of belief, disbelief, skepticism, knowledge, understanding, and others that orbit around what we call epistemology.

My main interest is in belief. I have passionate feelings about it, dating back to the rabid atheist days of my youth, and I have somehow managed to preserve my dislike for the concept through many intellectual twists and turns.

A comprehensive essay on its interrelationships with human psychology is beyond the scope of a blog posting - this one, anyway - but I wanted to note what an extraordinarily murky concept belief is.

In short, belief means pretty much what people want it to mean - believe it to mean. See where we are headed?

But to plant a stick in the sand to mark where we are, in the social setting I swim in belief pretty much means a big sticky blob of hope, fear, received wisdom, fantasy, ambition, id, and self-delusion. Belief is often conflated with faith, but the two are as different as humour and wit, or intelligence and cleverness.

To come to a point, I beli...heh heh, almost got me... in my opinion, what makes belief such a problem (on a superficial level) is that it is an obstruction.

You may be familiar with the lock-and-key metaphors that describe how various biochemical processes work. There are various receptor sites that sit waiting for a very specific chemical "key" to bump into them, at which time some biochemical process is initiated or ended. In normal operation, the lock is cleared afterward and reset for the next triggering.

It turns out that the most deadly poisons are chemicals that either elbow the "right" keys out of the way, bind to the receptors and prevent them from doing their work, or bond to the "lock" mechanism in such a way that it is jammed and permanently disabled. Cyanide compounds interfere with oxygen metabolism in this way, triggering cellular suffocation.

My contention is that the kind of "belief" described above "fits" into what we could crudely call a "spiritual receptor" in such a way as to render it either inoperable or operating in a faulty way - perhaps causing effects analogous to intoxication with alcohol or cannabis or indole alkaloids, if this is not pushing the analogy too far.

This assumes, as I bel... hmm... suppose to be the case, that there is such a lock-and-key function that has a specific spiritual "key" that needs to be supplied to operate correctly.

This particular thought experiment has no conclusion - from me, at least. Where would you like to take it?

[Michael Larkin]

Hi Pedro,

I think I caught your drift earlier. In the end, there is no such thing as "teaching" if one thinks of that as something that is "doled out" by a teacher. All there is, is learning, and no one can do that for us. However, a teacher can, maybe, arrange matters so that we have a better opportunity to learn if we are prepared to put in the effort to do so. I think this applies to all kinds of education, conventional or spiritual.

[Michael Larkin]

Hi Mike,

Well, all of us who have read Idries Shah know that he says that groups that don't work under the direction of a teacher are doomed to failure. But a number of us are in a school or group and have a teacher, and I don't think we are here in an attempt to create an online school.

I don't know how my teacher teaches. Come to that, I don't even know if he teaches, but I hypothesise that he does in some way I can't fathom. Seeing as we have so little physical contact, and people seem to agree he does what he does heart-to-heart in no language the head can understand, it seems reasonable to me to posit that the world is meant to be my school, and part of my world is HR. It's part of your world, too, and all's fair in love and war, as they say.

HR is what it currently is, and as I've already intimated, I have no intention to be head honcho around here. As soon as there's a head honcho, and I never considered James to be such (and I don't think he did either, though he did have a certain "outstanding presence"), then it's attempting to be something it can never be.

The only thing I intend to be head-honcho-ish about is keeping an eye out for trolls; if any of them demonstrates a propensity to don teaching robes, I’ll politely show them the exit. In my opinion, that’s the kind of behaviour that tends to “shake apart” certain forums.

It all boils down to honesty, really. If we’re honest, we’ll admit we know very little and won’t be looking to score any points. And something useful might arise from that... or not, but at least gladiatorial combat won’t be the order of the day.

[Mike MacLeod]

Hi Michael,

I am sure of some things and unsure of others and puzzled about more and clueless about vast areas, but I also remember how acutely infuriating it was when I encountered what I interpreted as smugness or elitism or whatever from others.

My experiences with forums like this has been that they tear themselves apart eventually. In my estimation takes a Shaykh to work with groups and to keep personal interactions under control. It could hardly be otherwise, since we are all dealing with our deepest desires and the betrayal that egoic development presents.

That does not mean it's not worth trying. Last year I had my own blog, but I only put up about one entry a month. My feeling was that there were perhaps a dozen or so things that, years ago, puzzled and discouraged me about the Path. Just a few sentences could have saved me years of frustration and looking under rocks. So it was almost as if by blogging I wanted to send my thoughts back in time to an earlier version of me who was despondent and desperate. Or anybody else in that state.

James ran into my blog and invited me to HR. I told him what I explained above and he said he understood and wanted to do the same thing. And here we are. But it's always worth reaching out.

[Michael Larkin]

And as to humility, Kareana, well, it's a pity the word comes with so much baggage. To me, it simply means knowing what one doesn't know, and one knows so very little. It's a liberating quality, one that opens up new possibilities, and obviates the need for blind belief.

Put it this way: lack of humility makes our environment seem solid and detailed. Humility, on the other hand, fills it with mist; we never know what the next few steps on our path will reveal to us. It's a paradox that blind belief seems so crystal clear: every brick, every barred window, every prison guard is etched in minute detail.

[Michael Larkin]

I actually asked James at one stage if HR might have been given to him as a task. My recollection is that he said that wasn't the case, and I don't have any reason to doubt that.

Kareana, I think I know what you mean. We all miss James and he's welcome here any time, but... well, he always seemed so sure, and that's something I don't feel. Maybe he seemed sure because he was sure.

Without that presence of sureness, it's a different kind of group with a different kind of dynamic. We don't know where, if anywhere, it is going. Personally, I'm okay with that, because I can say the same about myself.

[Kareana Kee]

and as it happens i just read " Even though we appear to be acting and making choices in our lives, we may come to the realization that something else is operating in this whole process. Even the dance between the opposing sides of our being, between ego an spirit, is arranged for the benefit of our self-realisation. And Mevlana conveys the truth of this when he tells the story of the your dervish who was chanting, "Allah, Allah, Allah," along the side of the road, and a certain cynic passed by and said, "Well, we hear you calling Allah, but we do not hear Allah's answer, do we? And the poor man, who thought he was doing it all himself, that he was making the call and that hiscall was answered, fell into depression and self doubt. Eventually, God sent an angel with a message: "your Lord wants you to know that your calling Him is His response to you; your calling Him is His call being made through you." This is the annihilation, the fana of actions." The knowing Heart

[Kareana Kee]

Im not sure i have any left or rightfield insights to add to this topic, only to say that it has been a very lovely conservation. I sense a certain vulnerability and humbleness that i for one appreciate very much. Actually it has been a little eye opener for me. I know I mentioned on HR the first version about being told I had no humilty...or at least that's how I took it, and as it turns out wasnt exactly what was meant.....but it has certainly given me cause to think on humility and all the different ways it can be understood....and im discovering there are many! This conversation reminded me that it is ok not to have all the answers....and I recognise in myself this huge fear of admitting to not to knowing something. This is no small thing, beliefs and our convictions to them make up such a huge part of our identities and help hold much of our self dellusions in place, so much so we take them for granted most of the time as 'reality' or how things are. Im constantly amazed how topics being discussed here pick up so directly on things that are current in my 'reality' also...I was only this week speaking with my teacher on having had certain experiences when sitting in meditation that were quit profound, but then followed by nothing, just me and my flesh and blood. He didnt seem concerned :) Im assured this is all part of it. I suspect the more i expect something to happen the less likely it will...which is perhaps the Divine's way of reminding: Inshallah

I also miss James and others, but Im glad you guys are all here :)

[Mike MacLeod]

I feel as though I failed James somehow, in that I could not provide a stream of fresh observations and ideas here, or anything at all in the quality or quantity he did. Like all of us here, I have many sides, black and white, red and green, and they all want to grab for the microphone.

In my line of work we have a saying, "They don't know what they want until they don't see it." I often wonder just what it was that James wanted so much and left him bereft when he didn't see it.

There's also the possibility that it was a project given him by his teacher with a specific goal to reach or a time limit.

[Michael Larkin]

Hi Pedro,

Peace - yes, I suppose so. An end to: the incessant noise and chatter - the puzzled and puzzling buzz of the brain; the dissatisfaction I was seemingly born with; the apparent meaninglessness of it all that even my four or five-year old self felt; widespread human nastiness; the silly false masks people wear; the way we as a species constantly f*** things up and yet think we are the best thing since sliced bread... on and on.

Being in some place, having some perspective from which it all makes sense, being safe and secure in that place, being accompanied by others who share that perspective, who know this to be true. An end to all the falsity, where people are what they really are, value what is truly valuable, would no more harm or think ill of another than they would eat stones.

The fact that one can conceive of this as a mere human being, I agree, raises the question of where it arose. If the origin is an Absolute, then it makes no sense to think of It having less humanity than we ourselves, at our best, are capable of. “Humanity” = a degree of godliness.

Sometimes, all on my own, I have had this sense of connection with all humanity, this knowledge that that’s how things actually are. My longest experience of it lasted maybe a couple of weeks. But it fades out and the buzz fades back in. Back to faith, back to reliance on a memory of fleeting knowledge. Why doesn’t knowledge remain permanent? Where did it come from and where did it go?

You are right – who can judge the worth of our lives? Death isn’t so bad. If there is something remaining to regret we didn’t achieve more, then there’s all the proof we need that there is more to us than the immediately apparent. And if there is nothing that regrets, or rejoices in a life well lived, what’s the big deal? That’s just peace of a different kind – obliteration.

[Mike MacLeod]

Well said, Pedro.

Some time ago I said to my Shaykh, in a moment of anguish, that I could not keep the Five Pillars of Islam, nor could I stay mindful or self-observant, but I could love my wife. He just said, "Loving is enough."

If your heart is broken, can you do anything with all of it?

My sense is that there are benefits to many things, and if you can't keep this observance or perform that act of charity, you simply don't get the effect that comes from engaging that part of yourself. I don't think it's a black and white issue where you miss doing something and you head for Gehenna. But I could be wrong.

What I am seeking is a way back to what I remember as an earlier state of being that is much more satisfying than driving a sack of warm mud around all day.