"I tried to fence off a bit of infinity for myself. It felt safe, manageable. Then I realised that fences in infinity serve only to fence you in." Swifty Flame-Anderson
What does it mean to believe? Most would agree that it means to take a thought or collection of thoughts and decide to consider them true. Note that there is the inherent implication that you do not know that they are true. If one knows, then belief is completely unnecessary.
In this article I want to make it clear that I am not just discussing religious belief. I am discussing any and all belief. It may be belief in religion. It may be belief in science. It may be belief in a secular philosophy. It may just be a personal belief like ‘I am not good enough’ or ‘I am the greatest’. Any thought or collection of thoughts considered true is a belief.
"All belief is self-deceit. Either you know or you don't. If you know, belief is unnecessary. If you don't, admit it, otherwise you never will." Happy Cow
Occasionally someone tells me that they believe the things that I write. When that happens, I will always try to strongly discourage them from believing what I write. What I write is never true. No thought is ever true. All thought is fictional. It is a made up point of view. Truth is not accessible using thought. Truth is that which is still present when you completely withdraw from thought. It is your own subjectivity, your own existence or being. This is something that cannot be described using words or thought, so the words that I have just used are inadequate and should not be believed. They are only metaphors, indicators of something beyond thought and that is why I do not want anyone to believe them, because when one believes the words, one gets comfortable and safe in their belief and never takes the step beyond them.
At Happy Cow we can often be seen challenging what might be called ‘mainstream’ thought with some alternative thoughts. Our aim is not to get anyone to discard their current beliefs and replace them with belief in our alternative thoughts. Our aim is to encourage people to discard their current beliefs and replace them with nothing at all.
Thought is always a totally free choice every moment of every day. There is no need to believe any of it. One can just choose.
"Today I am choosing to pay attention to this thought. Tomorrow I can pay attention to a different thought. The next morning I choose to pay no attention to thought at all."
All that believing does is unnecessarily restrict one’s choices in the present moment. Each new moment is unique and each ‘person’ is unique in every present moment. An ever changing ‘person’ trying to carry fixed ideas into an ever changing world is bound to lead to difficulty.
By suggesting alternative thought choices, we are not trying to claim ‘those thoughts are wrong and our thoughts are right’. We are simply saying: ‘look, there is totally free choice - choose whatever thoughts you want to choose’.
For every opinion there is a counter-opinion. ‘Right’ and ‘wrong’ do not exist outside thought. ‘Right’ and ‘wrong’ are themselves just arbitrarily made up thoughts.
As Swifty suggests above, engaging in belief is a bit like building a fence around yourself in an infinite universe. It is a bit like voluntarily placing yourself in a prison cell, where you know that everything is going to be safe and predictable, but you completely lose your freedom to explore the infinite possibilities of Existence.
"Belief is a closing of the mind, an eschewing of possibility. It is always born of fear and a need for false security. Take courage and admit you don't know. That way freedom lies." Happy Cow
Why do people do that? I suggest that they do it because it feels safe. If you put yourself in a prison cell, you know what is going to happen. No surprises. Breakfast at this time. Lunch at that time. Tea at another time. Lights out at bed time. What is going to happen tomorrow? Same thing. Safe. Predictable.
That is why people voluntarily choose to put themselves in the prison cell that is belief.
What happens if we discard belief completely? We trade in the security blanket for freedom. We trade in predictability for adventure. We trade in reliance on others’ ideas for reliance on our own intelligence. We stride boldly and courageously into the unknown, trusting our own innate intelligence and intuition, trusting our innate ability to deal with whatever comes along.
It sounds a little scary, doesn’t it? Perhaps that is why most people prefer to hide behind the security blankets, the fences, the prison walls of belief.
"Most of us are sitting in a prison cell whose walls are our beliefs and which is guarded by our ego. The moment we let go of our beliefs, the walls disappear and the guard is out of a job." Happy Cow
We are always pleased to hear that people enjoy the articles and stories posted on Happy Cow. We get a lot of pleasure out of creating it. That level of creation and freedom is only possible because we have no beliefs and no need to worry at all about whether people disagree with our views. We heartily welcome that in fact!
We love to share our creations with anyone who chooses to read them, but we do not want our ideas to be believed.
We recommend that you do not believe anything that you read on this website. We recommend that you do not believe anything that you read or hear anywhere else either.
We recommend breaking free from belief, spontaneously creating your own story or making your own discoveries as you go along.
The Happy Cow website and all articles on it are created entirely voluntarily and free of charge. However, if you feel that anything on the site has been of value to you, you may wish to make a voluntary contribution to the upkeep of the site. Click on the 'Donate' button below.
If you have an inspiring tale or some interesting philosophy to share with us, please feel free to e-mail your ideas to
contributions@happycow.org.uk.
