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Goodbye Jesus

Belief


integral

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Belief

If you believe, you will never know. If you really want to know, don´t believe. That does not mean to disbelieve, because disbelief is another kind of belief. Don´t believe, but experiment. Go into it yourself, and if you can see, if you can feel, only then believe. But then it is no more belief; then it is trust. That is the difference between trust and belief: trust comes out of experience; belief is just a prejudice without any experience to support it.

 

Don´t believe because scriptures say so, and don´t believe because respectable people say so, because they may be saying it only because by saying it they become respectable. Don´t believe because priests say so, because priests are just doing a kind of business. They have to say so; they are salesmen. They are selling some invisible commodity, which you cannot see but you have to believe.

 

Experiment, go into the existential experience of it all. Become a lab - your own lab. And unless it has become your own understanding, don´t believe. Unless it has become your own understanding, don´t believe, and then only can you come to trust. Truth believed is a lie. Truth experienced is a totally different phenomenon. This is the approach of a scientific mind.

 

-Osho

 

 

"Truth believed is a lie."

ROFL, that's a good one.

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I'm not sure I agree with your implied definitions of the words "trust", "belief", "truth", and "know".

 

Trust and knowledge are both particular types of belief. Knowledge is belief that is based on experience. Trust is belief that has potential consequences. Truth is a priori belief that is later confirmed by experience.

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He taught a form of Monism, that God was in everything and everyone. There is no division between "God" and "not-God". People, even at their worse, are divine. He recognized Jesus Christ as having attained enlightenment, and believed that he survived his crucifixion and moved to India where he died at the age of 112. Osho was noted for reading very offensive jokes; some were anti-Semitic; others were anti-Roman Catholicism; others insulted just about every ethnic and religious group in the world. He explained that the purpose of these jokes was to shock people and to encourage them to examine their identification with and attachment to their ethnic or religious beliefs. His contention was that national, religious, gender and racial divisions are destructive.

 

http://www.religioustolerance.org/rajneesh.htm

 

Monism?

 

Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (1931-1990) was born Rajneesh Chandra Mohan in Kuchwara, a town in central India. Various sources state that "Bhagwan" means either "The Blessed One" or "God" and that "Shree" means "Master". At the end of his life, he changed his name to Osho.

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"Don't let your doubt die. That is the most precious thing you have got, because it is doubt that one day is going to help you discover the truth. And all these people say, "Believe!" Their first effort is to destroy your doubt." -Osho

 

 

Prayer

I will not say "pray" because there is no God to pray to. I cannot say, like all the religions, that prayer will make you religious; it will give you a bogus religiousness. So in my religion the word prayer has to be completely dropped. God is not there, hence talking to the empty sky is utterly foolish. The danger is, you may start hearing voices from the sky; then you have gone beyond the limit of normality. Then you are abnormal. Then you are no more capable of doing something, you will need psychiatric treatment. So before that happens -- before God answers you -- please don't ask. That is within your power, not to ask, not to pray. God cannot force you to pray and to ask. If you pray and ask and you insist, he may answer -- that is the danger. And once you hear the answer, then you are not going to listen to anybody. Then you have to be forced to go for psychiatric treatment, otherwise you are going insane.

 

My word for prayer is love. Forget the word prayer, replace it with love. Love is not for some invisible God. Love is for the visible -- human beings, animals, trees, oceans, mountains. Spread your wings of love as far and wide as you can. And remember, love needs no belief system. Even the atheist loves. Even the communist loves. Even the materialist loves. So love is something intrinsic to you -- nothing imposed from outside, that only a Christian can love, or a Hindu can love -- it is your human potential. And I would like you to depend on your human potential rather than these bogus conditionings of Christian, Jewish, Hindu.... You don't bring them with you, but love you bring with you; it is part and parcel of your being. Love without any inhibition, without any taboos.

 

All these religions have tabooed love. You can understand their strategy. The strategy is that if your love is tabooed, then your energy of love will start moving towards prayer. That's a simple way: you block the passage of love, it will find some other way. Now you have blocked it from reaching to the real, it will try to reach to the unreal. You have blocked the human possibility; now it will try something imaginary, hallucinatory. All the religions are against love because that is the danger: if a man moves into love he may not bother about the church and the temple and the mosque and the priest. Why should he bother? He may not think at all of prayer because he knows something more substantial, something more nourishing.

- Osho

 

 

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Very insightful integral, especially about the ability to doubt.

Religion aggressively tries to purge any form of doubt out of their followers lives.

Religious people are a very fearful lot.

 

I was chatting with a xtian at work the other day. He's known me for 10 years or so, I rarely see him and a few months ago I told him of my deconversion.

I could see back then that he could not comprehend my decision.

This time he's telling me that I am still a xtian and I'm just sowing my wild oats etc.

 

It is not in his thought life to consider any alternatives other than what he has programmed himself to believe what the bible has told him concerning issues of life.

 

I told him I am not a prodigal xtian, I am an apostate !

"What's an apostate ?" he asks.

I explain it to him, especially the part where it is impossible for me to return.

He says that's silly and he doesn't believe it. I tell him to look in his bible it's right there as plain as day so it can't be misinterpreted.

 

LOL He refuses to accept my explanation and goes off into typical religious denial of facts mode and keeps insisting I am just a hurt rebellious xtian who will return one day.

 

Not only do people refuse to look at alternatives, they refuse to listen to what a person is saying to them. All they choose to do is categorise within their belief framework, even when what is being examined cannot be categorised within their belief framework.

 

It was both funny and scary to see this person think like that, especially when he refused to acknowledge what the bible says about apostacy.

 

The more I interact with xtians in the real world the more I am convinced that fear and ignorance are the founding attributes of their religion.

 

And you are so correct in reminding us to cherise our doubts, because it's the only thing that will permanently free us from religion or the entrapment of thinking we have finally arrived at absolute truth.

 

I finally explored my many doubts with all my heart and xtianity came up well short of being the absolute truth.

 

This is something a xtian will not do for fear of separation from god, going to hell, hated by their xtian peers etc.

Yet if one truely looks at their beliefs without fear and bias, then they will truely discover if their beliefs are what they claim to be.

What better way to strengthen one's belief than to thoroughly test them.

 

I cannot see this guy doing this in the foreseeable future as he refused to believe the biblical explanation of apostacy and even declared that seeking knowledge on the subject was a move away from god.

He says this because his mind reminds him of a scripture that states knowledge puffs up and draw you away from god.

 

I tell him he might as well remove Proverbs out of the bible as that book passionately speaks of seeking knowledge.

He then begins to see contradiction of the bible forming in his mind and he becomes more vocal and interruptive in our conversation so he can avoid dealing with something that may prove his belief to be not perfect truth.

 

He uses this tactic of being very loud and interupting my words so he may keep his belief. He was too frightened to venture out into the unknown and explore this new information.

 

Next time I see him I will confront him about his behaviour and put to him that if his belief is absolutely correct then why fear putting it to the test, wont it come up victorious ?

 

Doubt is the key I suspect. He doubts that it might and he doesn't want to go down that path, just as I didn't want to for all those years I was a xtian.

 

PS I wouldn't be concerned with anyone's comments that they don't agree with your usage of words, they're just missing the whole point of your post or are too stuck in their own perceptions to see things in another way. We do it all the time as we journey.

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knowmad: Thanks for sharing your story. Have fun shattering your pal's beliefs :wicked: I always get a kick of questioning people's illusions.

 

And by the way, it wasn't me who wrote that. It was from a philosopher named Osho.

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Ah I see, never saw that lol, still miss the obvious that's right in front of me. Snaps to Osho. I wonder if he's or she is related to Odo ?

Then one would wonder if Odo is related to Froddo and then from that we once again find ourselves in that time consuming dilemma of figuring out if Chocolate theory surpasses String theory.

 

I'm not one to desire fun whilst shattering anyone's beliefs.

Having your foundational beliefs crumble around you is quite a traumatic experience, why should I or anyone else add to that trauma.

I'll leave trauma inducing interactions to Gumby, Barney and morning tv program hosts and my work insurance broker who just won't shut the fuck up whenever I have to interact with him.

 

I prefer to show the start of paths and then let the person decide on their own if they want to walk that path or not. There's nothing more pointless and life draining than trying to change the mind of someone that doesn't or can't or is too afraid to change.

 

As for illusions, do we confront ourselves about our own current illusions or do we as people subconsciously always fall back into the same old pattern of thinking that our beliefs are correct and everyone else's are wrong and it's our job to enlighten them ?

 

For example, I 've been chatting with animals lately yet I find it incomprehensible that I can communicate with insects. This got me thinking that I have a predefined perception of what new information I will take onboard as fact and what I will reject.

 

Already I have closed my mind to possibilities. What causes this to happen, fear, logical conclusions, memories , a fat ass ?

 

LOL , Osho...that's a great name for a philosopher.

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I'm not one to desire fun whilst shattering anyone's beliefs.

Having your foundational beliefs crumble around you is quite a traumatic experience, why should I or anyone else add to that trauma.

 

It can be quite traumatic in the short term--but in the long term it is well worth it because it helps one become more mature.

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Ah I see, wait...do you mean for the victim or attacker ?

If it's beneficial (and I do believe it is) for the victim to go through trauma, who is responsible for this trauma ?

 

The person confronting the victim or the victim inflicting trauma on themselves from the overdose of new and frightening information regarding their belief ?

 

Of course it's the victim who inflicts trauma on themselves but to suggest that I might as well get some enjoyment out of watching another person go through trauma or that I can add to that trauma is not an attribute I desire to have in my life.

 

Also it's not so much beneficial , more like humanly unavoidable.

 

When someone's foundational belief is falling apart, trauma will result and I state it again, why should I add to that or enjoy someone's suffering. Oh yer I will enjoy the freedom with them after they have gone through it but there's no way in hell or the non existance of it that I will relish another's pain whislt they are experiencing it.

 

True, I know that only through the pain will they eventually receive peace, but have I carried them on their painful journey or have I sat on the side of the path and laughed, "Haha suffer, you deserve it because you're stupid enough to believe in your religion" or something to that effect ?

 

I notice in the CF GA section that some believers and nons regard each other as some kind of enemy, and that this enemy must be attacked and hopefully some form of pain inflicted upon them.

Self gratification I suppose, revenge, who knows, I just don't see the productive and positive benefit of viewing others as enemies just because they have differing perceptions.

 

But maybe that's why humanity in general is so fucked up at constant war with each other on a broad range of levels.

 

 

 

 

 

I'm not sure I agree with your implied definitions of the words "trust", "belief", "truth", and "know".

 

Ah this is what threw me before in thinking you had written the OP.

You never mentioned to spamandham that you didn't write it.

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