The word belief is deeply linked to religion. However, in reality it is a much broader concept that concerns us all, religious and atheist, agnostic and scientific. Because we all wholeheartedly believe in a certain system of beliefs and values, which determine our behavior and decisions and, therefore, our lives.
We believe that some things should be done in a certain way and that some ideas are true while others are false. However, filling our lives with beliefs means limiting our potential. And the more we cling to them, the more restricted our vision will be, not only our image of the world but even our self-concept. When we start believing, we set ourselves a deadly trap, and the worst of all is that we are not even aware of it.
The path marked by the Gnostics
Gnosticism was a set of philosophical and religious currents. It emerged long before Christianity, but during the first years of this religion, it even drew on Catholic precepts. However, very soon the Gnostic teachings were classified as heretical, which is not strange since the central axis of its philosophy was based on knowledge.
The Gnostics believed that religions should not teach people to believe blindly, but to know, to actively seek knowledge. They did not promote irrational faith but encouraged people to find gnosis, knowledge. They did not refer to divine knowledge or even to earthly laws, but rather encouraged human autonomy and believed in the capacity of each person to save themselves, they believed in our capacity to find our own truths.
Obviously, this perspective was not only dangerous for nascent Christianity and any other religion that advocated blind faith, but even today, it may be too uncomfortable for many governments or power lobbies. However, it is the only way to find inner freedom.
What does it really mean to believe?
Believing can be very dangerous, especially for ourselves. In fact, one of the main risks of believing is that the person wants to be right. It’s not that we are stubborn, but that our brain hates inconsistencies. That’s why, once we have developed a certain belief, we have the tendency to look for all the data that confirms it. In this way, we avoid cognitive dissonance.
Of course, focusing only on information that confirms what we believe and ignoring data that proves the opposite is equivalent to wearing blinders, to closing our minds. In order to avoid making mistakes, we close ourselves off to evidence, which means that instead of following the path of development, we refuse to change.
In fact, it is curious that when we believe in something, we always find the same answers, answers that we then apply to all the questions, even if they are not pertinent. In this way, we end up having too narrow a view of things, we end up going around in circles.
There is a little fable that illustrates how certain beliefs not only limit our vision of the world but also make us act in completely inappropriate ways.
“A lady bought a packet of biscuits, put them on a bench next to her, along with her bag, and sat down to wait for the train. After a while, a young man sat down next to her, looked at her, put his hand in the packet of biscuits and began to eat.
The young man smiled, and even had the audacity to offer him a cookie, from his own package!
The lady was visibly uncomfortable and was about to reprimand the young man for his impudence, when he got up and left, still smiling.
When the train arrived and the lady got up to collect her things, she saw that next to her bag, her package of cookies was untouched.”
It is obvious that this woman believed that the younger generations were disrespectful. If she had not thought that, she would have taken the trouble to check whether the young man was really eating her cookies or not. However, instead of checking the reality, her beliefs led her to take a fact for granted.
Just like the lady in this story, our beliefs often block us, prevent us from growing, and make us give wrong meanings to certain facts. Because when we believe in something, we remain the same person, we do not change, we do not give the opportunity to something new.
Why do we believe?
1. Beliefs create a sense of security
Most beliefs come from previous concepts, from other people’s experiences, from other people’s experiences, ideas or assumptions. In fact, this happens to us all the time in everyday life. A banal but very common example is when someone points out to us the image of an animal in a spot on the wall or in a cloud. From that moment on, we are only able to distinguish the figure of that animal. Another person’s belief has become ours and becomes our truth.
This transmission of beliefs happens on much deeper levels. And because we have grown up with them, we associate them with security. Beliefs are something stable, rigid and practically unshakable, so they give us security, or at least a sense of false security, which we cling to as if it were a lifeline.
2. We need to confirm our self-concept
In other cases, beliefs do not simply come from habit but from the need we have to confirm our image. For example, if we believe that others are lazy, or unreliable, or arrogant, it is because we need to place ourselves at the opposite extreme; we need to reaffirm our self-concept. Thus, on many occasions, our most firmly held beliefs only hide a very deep fear, or they may even be the projection of our own characteristics that we do not want to accept because they would conflict with the idealized image we have of our “self.”
3. We are too comfortable and do not want to change
When we believe in something, we adopt a position that is very comfortable for us because we are not forced to change or to continue searching. It does not matter if you believe in the existence of a universal creator or in the Big Bang theory, once you believe it is true, your search is over. When we assume a belief, the path ends abruptly, we do not have to continue searching but we can sit quietly in our comfort zone. Therefore, believing is much more comfortable than searching. But that does not mean that it is better.
The path: Search without clinging to truths
When we are willing to search, a world of possibilities opens up before us. In fact, it is not just an intellectual exercise; exchanging the certainty of beliefs for the uncertainty of searching also brings enormous emotional benefits. Why?
When we are willing to engage in a search, we get rid of the fear of making mistakes, which is one of the main obstacles to our development. The fear of failure appears only when we have deeply rooted beliefs, when we believe that some things are right and others wrong. When we believe that we are right, we move within a very restricted circle from which we are terrified of leaving.
However, when we are willing to search, there is no room for error because each new discovery surpasses the previous one. In fact, if one of those discoveries was wrong, even better! Because it means we have learned something and grown.
And perhaps the most interesting thing is that we will not arrive at any immutable truths, which means that our whole life will be an exciting journey, a search that will keep us alive, curious and active. Searching is always worth it.
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