This makes perfect sense to me. There is a truth here. But what it doesn’t make clear is that without birth, and therefore death, there is no existence between these two things. That is where discomfort arises for the average human.
But the truth I sense here is no more than a belief I hold. I cannot, for a fact, know that this is indeed Truth.
I believe myself to be human – with all the pain, sorrow, joy, knowledge, wisdom, stupidity and much more attached to it. Am I worried about what happens after I die? No. Other than the practicalities of those who have to clean up the mess I leave behind. But once that mess is cleared away, and thoughts of me have moved out of the hearts and minds of my loved ones, there truly is nothing of me left here on Earth unless I have made an impression in some manner that keeps my name and knowledge alive for a little while beyond my physical life. There are many such names, Kings and Queens; leaders good and bad, spiritual and temporal; writers, musicians, mathematicians, scientists, artists, athletes. Some will leave their impression here for a short time beyond their physical life and some will leave lessons for us to study, perhaps for millenia.
Is there a spirit self, an aspect of me that continues? I find myself understanding that however I answer that question – one which has been asked for millenia by poets and sages, kings and paupers – I cannot know the truth from where I currently stand. I am within the question – to gain clarity one needs to step outside of it.
I can choose to believe – or not – anything I want. I can belive that I will next incarnate as a tree on a beautiful planet in some other dimension and live a long and stately life experiencing being a tree; or maybe I believe that I will reincarnate on this planet in another 200 hundred years when the drama that is currently building has turned into a replay of George Orwell’s book ‘1984’. Maybe my experiences here, now, will go with me in some form – these are all things which I can chose, in this current existence, to believe in – or not.
As I’ve mentioned in a previous blog, beliefs are not facts. Beliefs are, from my perspective, something which can give you an anchor in this lifetime. They can frighten you, make you cower in fear. They can be what gives you the strength to continue. They can lift you up or dash you down. They can provide impetus or act as a brake. They are driven by our experiences.
We are human. We hold beliefs. Some are massive and some very minor: “I believe there is an afterlife where……..” or “I believe I am allergic to lactose.” These are both beliefs but where we can choose to challenge/test one of them, prove the validity of the belief so that it becomes fact, the other we cannot. It’s easy to test if you are allergic to something, but how do you test the greater questions which extend beyond this life? The reality is that we can’t. At least, we cannot test these type of beliefs until we step outside of what we are experiencing in this life and look impartially upon the experiences we have had. And the possibility of being able to do that is also only a belief!! But we can challenge what we believe. We can study, learn, and make deeper decisions about these beliefs which drive our lives, but ultimately we do believe that we exist and we are able to prove that to ourselves every time we stub our toe – it hurts, we bleed, we hop around and swear, therefore we must Be. But what if that too is nothing but a belief and that, indeed, we are nothing more than a thought? An illusion? An aspect of some Greater Being’s computer game?
Because we are human, and the hardest thing to believe is that we are alone and that we will cease to be, we will almost always try to find a story which will bring us comfort. And there is nothing wrong with that. Over the years I believed in many things. I believed I was deeply damaged, mentally and emotionally, but I did not show this to the world. I hid it and instead I showed myself, like an actress on the stage, as someone successful and happy; and that did indeed, bring me moments of happiness and comfort. But now I see that by covering up and disguising the deeper beliefs with a mask of a fulfilled life, I was denying myself the opportunity to learn more about who I am. And not knowing who I am drove me to deeper despair.
I have spent the last three years in unwinding many of the beliefs about myself. Looking at the various aspect of this person, Auri’An, and recognising that I am simply a jumble of beliefs and I cannot know what is actual truth. I cannot know because I am not yet ready to step outside this life and look at myself without a critical eye.
And, of course, that too is nothing more than a currently held belief.
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