Belief
Belief is attachment to some past conclusion, attachment to memory.
Belief is demanding that “the world” confirm its storyline. This is the "me" trying to confirm the "me." Do not believe a word that is being said here. Just look.
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? The repetition of beliefs will not reveal what is. Belief is memory, occurring and recurring in some attempt to grasp ‘This’—to provide comfort that covers up primal fear.
Liberation cannot be grasped. It has nothing to do with belief.
If you look closely, every belief carries with it an underlying unconscious doubt and fear.
Belief, if made fully conscious, could be stated in simple terms: “I do not know and I am afraid, therefore I will tell a story (hold onto a belief) so that I can pretend to know and cover up my fear so that I don’t have to feel it.”
This fear is essentially a fear of death. Fear arises as it is seen that the story of “me” will come to an end in the form of physical 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). In looking honestly, past and future are nothing more than presently arising thoughts. You do not have a past or future except as thought arising now. In staying locked in thoughts of past and future, this radiant, unknowable mystery of life is reduced to a set of ideas or beliefs. “You” are merely one of those ideas. Put more simply, the “me” is just a measurement in time (it is found only in thoughts of past, present, and future). The “me” energy is trying to make itself permanent and invincible. But the “me” is Oneness pretending to be a separate person. There is nothing to fear once it is seen that separation is a story completely believed through attachment to habitual thinking that constantly references a fictional “me.” The whole body contracts physically around this belief, creating the real sense of being totally separate. When the “me” is seen to be this constant measuring of past, present, and future, and the physical contraction around that measuring, a natural relaxation happens. When that happens, fear of death dies. Fear of living dies also as it is seen that death isn’t real. Oneness doesn’t die. Only the “me” dies at this event we call physical death. Liberation is seeing that the “me” was always an illusion. In that seeing, there is total freedom.
This “me” (attachment to belief, which is attachment to past) 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 liberation.
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 beliefs. The most central and stubborn belief is the idea that there is a self separate from the rest of life. All other beliefs work to keep that belief in place (e.g., belief in the afterlife, and other spiritual and religious beliefs). 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, this is the experiencing of embedded fear and doubt (ego) defending itself. In this attack and defend mode, all the fear, doubt, and insecurity that remains unseen comes up to defend the belief system. The “me” energy is coming up to defend itself. An illusion is defending an illusion.
The person who argues with you about how your belief system is wrong is not an idiot. He is your greatest spiritual teacher. See that you are not ‘doing’ the defending and attacking. It is an involuntary movement, coming from the false sense of being a totally separate self that must survive at all costs. In noticing that, the possibility of seeing that you have no control arises.
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 “me” could die at any moment and that would be it. Poof. Gone. Liberation is the death of that false “me” 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 see that the story of separation is simply not true, nor do you have any control over it. Somehow, that seeing allows an energetic shift to happen. Without beliefs behind which the illusory self can take cover from the threat of total annihilation, all that is left is not knowing, not being in control, and not resisting. All that is left is the full vulnerability, sensitivity, intimacy, and openness to whatever is arising now. That will sound scary to a “me” that is locked in belief and stories, attempting to cover up the fear. But that openness to what is arising now is the door to seeing that fear is a phantom. Therefore the belief being held together by that fear is also a phantom. What is ultimately being seen here is that the separate self is a phantom.