I’ve been thinking about this lately and would like to present this to the board for discussion.

Traditionally consciousness is defined as having the full knowledge of what is in one’s own mind.  Belief is defined as having an intellectual acceptance of anything as true.  The human brain has been described as being like a computer taking in and processing all information it comes in contact with.  As we live our life inputting and processing more and more information our beliefs change and we seem to carry these beliefs with us into the afterlife when we leave this physical plane.

Where does belief end?  Or does it?  Is everything simply an ever-changing belief system based on the experiences we have both HERE and THERE for eternity?   

Love and peace,
Kathy

Wonderful questions and answers, Kathy and Bruce.  I may have something to add later when I have more time.

Namasté,
Glen

Wow, what an interesting posting! I can see this thread running along nicely.

As a quick interjection can I throw into the debate the situation with a new born baby. What beliefs can it have at that stage and yet it does exist? Ergo, surely the end of beliefs (as a new baby doesn`t have any) therefore cannot mean that we cease to exist. Or does it?

roger   

The notion of belief and identity here seems to be mostly pointed at everyday world situations. The newborn baby, programmed with instincts and laden with karma, is sort of a borderline case. On the far side of the fence is the yogi who sits immersed in nirrvastarka samadhi - no definitions, no dualities, just awareness. As another example, past life regressions often find people floating in an interlife state characterized by undifferentiated light. When prodded one person said, "I feel like a drop of water in a bucket. I'm the drop, yet I'm also all the water in the bucket." Otherwise, there seems to be neither belief nor specifically unique identity, in the sense of a definition contingent upon other stuff, but just awareness of an existence typified by joyful energy, in totally blissed out contentment. - I like terms "one with the One" as a descrition. - In terms of Kathy's topic question, it seems that such a person neither exists nor do they not exist.

But do we even have a handle on what a "belief" is?  Consider the research on cognitive dissonance.
Cognitive dissonance refers to the anxiety created by a psychological inconsistency: e.g. "Smoking causes cancer, but I smoke."  Leon Festinger identified 2 circumstances under which the devout believer would be driven in an attempt to reduce dissonance to hold a religious belief even more strongly.  (1) The believer must make a public commitment to a firm conviction.  (2) An unequivocal disconfirmation of that belief must occur in a context of social support for the believer.

Dan Batson (1975) examined the reactions of 50 female high school students to belief-disconfirming evidence.  These girls were separated into believing and nonbelieving groups depending on how they answered the question, "Do you believe Jesus is the Son of God?"  This separation forced the girls to make a visible public commitment and provided some sense of group identity with others holding similar beliefs.  They were then given a questionaire consisting of 3 parts.  The first part contained 10 items designed to measure orthodoxy of religious beliefs.  The 2nd part contained an article "denied publication in the New York Times...because of the obvious crushing effect it would have on the entire Christian world."  The article described an indisputably authentic first century papyrus recently discovered near caves by the Dead Sea.  In this papyrus Jesus' disciples admit that they stole His body from the tomb.  They realized that He was not the Son of God, but nevertheless invented the story of His resurrection to keep His teaching alive.  The 3rd part of the questionaire was designed to assess the girls' reaction to the article and the present intensity of their religious beliefs. 

Results?  (1) The unbelievers who thought the papyrus was genuine became significantly more skeptical both about Jesus' divinity and about biblical infallibility.  (2) The believers who dismissed the papyrus as a hoax nonetheless now seemed slightly more skeptical about  their faith.  (3) But most importantly, the believers who thought the papyrus was genuine now demonstrated that they held their Christian beliefs even more strongly than before!   In my view, the 3rd group were no longer believers; they seemed to believe even more strongly only because of the pain of denial combined with wishful thinking. 

Why do I say this?   Well, all these girls were of course later advised of the experimental ruse.   But consider this real life case of cognitive dissonance.
Many followers of William Miller declared that the 2nd Coming of Christ would occur on April 23, 1843.  When that date came and went, they were intially disappointed, but then recalculated the date as Dec. 31, 1843.  When that date proved false, Miller again recalculated and identified Oct. 22, 1844 as the new momentous date.  Excitement increased and many new converts were made.
Only when this date also passed uneventfully did the Millerite movement finally began to wither and die.  It had taken a series of disconfirmations over a period of 18 months to shake their beliefs.
But in my view, many of the" true believers" actually became unbelievers after the first or 2nd disconfirmation.  They created more converts not as an expression of belief, but as a combination of denial combined with wishful thinking. 

Most Christians insist that prayer works miracles, but can't be bothered to show up for special prayer meetings.  In my view, if they really believed in the power of prayer, many more of them would show up.  There is such a thing as suppressed unbelief or being deluded about one's beliefs. 

P.S. Technically, the Bible asks no one to embrace its belief system.  In both Hebrew and Greek, the word translated "faith" really means "faithfulness."
In other words, there is room for skepticism as long as one remains true to the values of biblical tradition. 

Berserk

I would like to thank each of you for your very thoughtful replies.

Bruce, thank you for mentioning your definition of a “Belief System Crash”.  This is something that I’m sure everyone can identify with having gone through at sometime or another.  

In answer to my questions:
Where does belief end?  Or does it?   Is everything simply an ever-changing belief system based on the experiences we have both HERE and THERE for eternity?  I agree with what you say here.  

“Were we to somehow eliminate all the beliefs we hold (end beliefs) I would say that we as an individual identity, and the reality we observe/create would cease to exist.”  

Without beliefs, I don’t see how we could know our self or anything else to exist.  It seems like we will always need to create beliefs in order to consciously know of our existence and be able to define our self-individualized nature.  It also seems like we would always want to do that as well… like an ever-evolving ever-changing existence.    
----------------  

Glen, please do jump right in when you have some time.  I always enjoy reading your posts.
----------------  

Tim you mentioned that the “real world doesn’t vanish” and for me this brings up another age-old subject.  Who or what is our creator?  Who or what are we, really?  Based on my experiences, I think we can define ourselves in terms of eternal energy or essence.  Science has proven that energy can neither be created, nor can it be destroyed, only changed in form.  Something that appears solid isn’t really solid at all.  But that’s like an elusive illusion as we live in a world that appears to be solid.  Yet many people experience things that cause them to change their beliefs about the solidity of existence, so what is real?  Isn’t the “real world” a system of beliefs?  How far do beliefs go?  Do they go so far as to create a real solid world?  Is it even possible for us to not exist?  Wouldn’t another question be… how many forms is it possible for us to exist in?
----------------  

Roger, you mentioned a newborn baby.  Are we born without beliefs?  I guess I’d have to say no because I do think we carry our past experiences and knowledge with us when we’re born, but perhaps in a limited or narrowed capacity.  I know a child who learned to play classical music on the piano at the age of 5 and another 8-year-old child whose math ability astounds university professors.  If they weren’t born with this knowledge, how else can a young child’s “natural talents” be explained?  
----------------  

Welcome to the board, Pax.  You mentioned an experience of remembering vivid memories as a baby.  Thank you for sharing this and I hope you will continue to share your experiences with us.
----------------  

Dave, I like what you say here.  I guess since we all live in this world, we do tend to focus most of our beliefs within the confines of it.  I’m glad you mentioned “…the yogi who sits immersed in nirrvastarka samadhi - no definitions, no dualities, just awareness” as I have been thinking about this subject as well as reviewing some of the Tibetan beliefs and teachings.  Couldn’t “no definitions, no dualities, just awareness” be classified as belief?  

Many years ago I experienced the very powerful and very physical kundalini energy race up through my spine and when it reached my crown I became immersed in white light.  At that moment I was still “me” as a belief system identity.  I didn’t have many preconceived ideas about the experience, as I didn’t know much about it.  At the time, the sheer powerfulness of the energy startled me and of course that’s a reaction to the belief in fear of the unknown.  I hadn’t expected to be immersed in bright, white light either, so that too was also an unknown.  Did it feel blissful?  Kind of… not really as I hadn’t developed that belief yet.  It was more like total silence than anything else.  Afterwards though I felt a peacefulness that I can’t even begin to describe and a feeling of happiness and oneness, too, but this was afterwards… when I started filtering the experience through my belief system and incorporating it into my belief system.
----------------  

Don, you mentioned a question about whether or not beliefs can be replaced with knowledge.  Which comes first, belief or knowledge?  One of my favorite sayings is… “To know is to experience.”  Wouldn’t knowledge or experiencing an event have to have come first, followed by analysis of the experience and then incorporating a belief to describe the experience?

You also talked about and gave some good examples of cognitive dissonance and said, “But do we even have a handle on what a "belief" is? Consider the research on cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance refers to the anxiety created by a psychological inconsistency: e.g. "Smoking causes cancer, but I smoke."  

Doesn’t this boil down to a person having two or more conflicting beliefs about an event?  And aren’t these conflicting beliefs what presents a stumbling block to us when we are not able to create what we want to create?  You also mention having curiosity as a prime motivator.  Doesn’t curiosity want to know and experience everything there is to experience?  Could curiosity be the main reason we create conflicting beliefs?  I guess that would lead into the beliefs of duality and non-duality.              
----------------  

Welcome to the board San.  It looks like you have a lot of questions about the afterlife.  I think you’ve come to the right place.  Bruce Moen, the owner of this website and forum has written 5 books.  There are several links at the top of this page if you care to explore further.
----------------  

Again, thank you all for your participation in this discussion.

Love and peace,
Kathy

Tim I know exactly what you are saying here.  It boils down to that one question for me, too.

I have a feeling that I'm on the verge of a belief system crash... hmmm... maybe I better start laughing, too, the implications could be astounding but as you say... it's a wonderful unknown.

Love, Kathy

    What a deep thread!  Is making my head spin reading it  .   I essentially hold the belief that Tim talked about, we are One but individual in our Oneness.   I've always wondered if duality and non-duality can co-exist in "rest of creation", and maybe it can but it doesn't seem to be able to exist simultaneously in an individual awareness/consciousness.   The only energy which washes out the awareness of duality seems to be pure love energy.   What is love energy though?  Is it an awareness of the Oneness of All Consciousness, or is it an energetic energy like heat, light etc.?   Or is it both or neither?  Is it the vibrationless vibration of energy, or the fastest vibration which appears to be motionless because it faster than any other expression of energy or consciousness?

As interesting as these questions are, they don't seem to lead us anywhere really.  They just lead us to more questions, which of course in a non-dualistic awareness is perfectly fine!    But,  they seem to hem us in in the purely mental realm which seems to be where a lot of "channeled" information comes from.   It becomes a passive or negatively charged awareness, which seems to still keep us in the illusion of separation.  Or it becomes what i like to call Mental Masturbation
   Many of us have this mental awareness of Oneness, but what changes a person who dips in an out of Oneness awareness to that person who has "gone" beyond (so to speak) and only experiences this awareness?  Even many advanced Yogis seem to be in the category of see-sawing between the two states of awareness.  I definitely see-saw, but like i said its all good  .  Kinda like there are no Ultimate right or wrongs, but there rights and wrongs depending on what consciousness you hold within self.  Or like Monroe expressed in his poem, "There is no good.  there is no bad.  there is only expression". 

Now actively living the principle (a positively charged energetic awareness) of Oneness seems to be the only way to actually achieve this full remembrance as many immortal Masters have shown us--like the 1800 year old He/She in Monroe's "Ultimate Journey".   I've always wondered if this awareness is possible without practicing some form of turning within to the All (meditation), some form of Self quieting to listen to the not Self which is really the full Self? 

  But how do we actively live this principle?  The only thing i can come up with is, "forgetting Self" in your daily life.   I don't think we can completely forget self, or we might not exist, but with the spirit or attitude of always being of benefit to others, regardless of how it affects you.  This principle of seeming self-sacrifice doesn't suit too many too well does it though?  But, looking at it from that All is One awareness, there ACTUALLY IS NO SELF SACRIFICE involved, since they are you and you are they in a very literal sense!   And when you are helping another you're just helping yourself, but the intent or spirit in which you approach it is all important.  If you begin with, "Well if i help them, it will really benefit me..." you've already put self ahead and lost the awareness of Oneness...?

So i would say, instead of thinking it why don't we just try getting to doing it?   I don't consider myself religious in any sense (Actually started off, like a few here, somewhat antagonistic towards religion), i've never had any orthodox mainstream viewpoints on anything, but i give credit where credit is due.     Am a very pragmatic Capricorn who uses what seems to work.   
   There is no better example that i can possibly think of, of someone LIVING these principles every minute, every nanosecond of their life, for almost their entire in-physical existence (and many other lives), than Yeshua who became the Christ.  I would advise anyone along whatever path, of whatever consciousness you are functioning from, to take as objective look at this personalitie's life.   Ever did he say within himself, "others Lord, others.."   You can learn from this pattern no matter what path, or consciousness you are functioning from,  from the slowest overall vibratory personalities, up to the fastest vibrating Initiatic personalities.   The truth of this pattern is no less because we are 2 thousand years seemingly away from this example.  Believe me, i'm not pushing Christianity since i'm not a "Christian", but like i said i give credit where credit is due.
 
  Getting kicked of the puter so talk to you all later.

Ahhhhhhh....i've been sucked back into the illusion!!!!