Are we really the sum of our beliefs?

This episode looks at how reality is defined in this world through the limited beliefs we choose to entertain and how we deliberately constrain the world around us in order to understand it.

Is the answer to happiness and a better world simply a matter of choosing to believe in another set of ideas?

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Transcript

We are self limiting beliefs.

Good morning, today I want to take a look at the idea that we are defined by our beliefs and constrained by our ideas  and thoughts about things.

How many times have you had a really good idea and thought “I must do that” and then promptly forgotten the idea. The idea itself was an opportunity to create a form of reality in the world around us, and the loss of that idea meant that it never came into existence. In a sense reality springs from ideas and thoughts if they are pursued for long enough,

We exist because we decide we exist. Everything we see, do, interact with, everything we think, imagine or desire is simply an idea, a belief. Without these ideas or beliefs nothing would come into existence. The evidence of this is all around us and has been since we started to talk to each other and write things down. The problem we have is that for some reason we have decided to live within a set of “self”-limiting beliefs. Well that’s, sort of true and not true at the same time. The history of human kind is defined more by our eternal struggle with limiting beliefs and non limiting beliefs and the consequence of these beliefs than anything else.

If you consider that in order to progress in some way, we need to look beyond the constraints of our current beliefs, then we can say that in a limited-way we have to unconstrain our thinking. Alternatively we engage the services of someone who has a wider ability to see, or is less constrained in their thinking in order to imagine something else, hence out preoccupation with guru’s, seers or people who generally hold contradictory views or have a wider level of experience than we do.

Deep down I think we know at some level of our being, that we are at the very least constrained by many of the ideas or thoughts that we have. We spend most of our lives exploring the boundaries of our constraints. Ultimately, constraints are generally what make us unhappy and it is the search for something else which is the key to our happiness. In a nutshell, our contrained lives are defined by the ever present search for something “else” something which lies outside the boundaries we perceive to be our lives. It is why the world is actually dominated by one sort of person -  the guru, the shamen, the priest, the ruler, the inventor, the genius , the coach -  The list goes on and on. But the point i am making here is that since the dawn of time we have needed these people for something that they give us as human kind, they have given us access to beliefs that radically challenge our current beliefs and allow us to move into different possibility space. These individuals have a different set of beliefs or boundaries to the rest of us, and therefor allow us to see new possibilities, and if we can see new possibilities, we can create them.

This is how the world around us changes. You conceive of a new reality, or a reality where the current boundaries of our thinking dictate our reality are moved or changed, enlarged or redefined. If you can persuade other people that this is really possible then everyone starts to act as if these are the new boundaries and through a process of will and belief the new reality enters into existence. That is if it is not opposed.

You see this all of the time in people around us. Perhaps your constrained thinking is founded on the idea that you must stay in a job for life - this was an idea which was prominent in the early part of the twentieth century. Over time we saw people challenge this idea and be successful as a result. They effectively demonstrated that an alternative idea had merit and as a result they moved our attitudes with respect to this constraint that we had and as a result we changed our behaviours and started to look at a working life with more possibilities. Today we would regard a job for life as a prison sentence rather than a secure and stable option. This is an example of how breaking a constraint allows us to explore new possibility space.

Everywhere you look you will find that thinking is defined by constraints, they may be different constraints and they might apply at a different level of understanding, but they nevertheless exist everywhere in the physical world.

You see, self limiting beliefs are also used by these rulers, gurus, priests and so on, because either they cannot conceive of the infinite nature of reality and are just constrained like you and me in their thinking, but perhaps at a slightly aggrandised level, or whether they choose to be constrained because it suits them. I may be able to conceive of an infinite world, but I can make my life very comfortable in this corporeal world by simply furthering a set of self limiting beliefs that allow me to have what I want at the expense of others. My self limiting belief in this case is such that I cannot conceive of a place in a world where everyone is capable of infinite thought or unconstrained thought. 

If you think about your life, you are by definition an assembly of self limiting beliefs. You are defined by everything you are told you are. You are defined by an exhaustive list of what are effectively constraints. These constraints are boundaries, are definable qualities that we choose to accept, and on acceptance instantly become barriers in the sense that they constrain and define everything we are, and as a result everything around us.

Let’s look at these finite constraints for a minute. I won’t be able to cover all of them because actually they are infinite. That should tell you something straight away. If the finite is actually infinite, how can we actually have such an idea as finite at all - and the answer is we cannot.

You are defined as the following:

• First of all, note I used “you” as the first word in this sentence. “You” is the first self limiting belief that you are given. “You” is the first idea we have, “you” or “I” is the first pre requisite for living a finite life. “You” is given to you and once you accept it it becomes “I” and those around you become “You’s” in relation to you. For others to exist as finite beings, you must first accept that you are a finite being. The two are mutually dependent. Without one the other cannot exist. It is this existential threat to existence that drives us to define ourselves in finite ways. The more ways we can find to define ourselves and the more constraints and boundaries we can construct, the better we are able to define ourselves, our “I” in relation to the “You’s” around us. In a finite world this is essential. The problem is that we are by nature infinite and the very act of definition is an attack on our very nature, hence why we become unhappy. Our happiness becomes defined by how unconstrained we are in relation to others. In a way we seek happiness through the knowledge that we are able to have more than others around us. In effect our happiness is a measure of how less constrained we are compared to others. It’s not actually about happiness at all, it is actually about realising in some small way our true nature.

Humans have since the dawn of time relied on what I will loosely term “thought leaders”. These are people that profess to know the infinite nature of the universe and can lead us to the promised land. I have no doubt that they are true in what they say, because without fail they all say the same thing, they all say in essence that reality doesn't exist, that there is something bigger out there that we simply cannot comprehend, and they all give us various ways in which to achieve an understanding of this infinite nature. Funnily enough all of the methods that are prescribed for this rely on training yourself to stop thinking or the use of mind altering drugs. In effect the prescriptions given all focus on stopping ourselves from limiting our thoughts.

You see if you are awake, which most of us are most days, all we are doing every nano second of the day is imposing constraints. It is what we have to do to interact with something. If we didn’t do this, what would there be to interact with. The very idea of a cup of tea, requires me to have all the ingredients to make the cup of tea. If I want that cup of tea, I need to assemble all of those ingredients in order to achieve that objective. You will rightly scoff at this simplistic example, but take a moment to think that at one time the idea of a cup of tea never existed and even today on this planet there will be people who have no idea what tea even is. To them the idea of a cup of tea is just a blank sheet of paper, a wasteland of nothing. If you mentioned a cup of tea, nothing would happen in their brain other than to register that you made a strange noise. To them a cup of tea is simply unlimited possibility space. Without you drawing the lines, the constraints, the definitions of what a cup of tea is and how one might go about assembling it, the cup of tea would never likely come into existence for them.

Here’s perhaps a more meaningful example. We live in a world where we have accepted that we have finite resources and resources are valued with money and money is a limited resource. We live our lives according to this principle. When the government spends too much, we need to borrow more and if we borrow too much we need to pay more taxes to pay this off. We can only have so much tax before we start to have less money as an individual and we need more so we either get a better paying job or we cut back on what we are spending. You can see from just this brief description all of the boundaries and constraints and definitions required just to exist within this system and you would be right when you say that this system works just take a look at everything we have achieved with it. You would point out that this system is correct, and makes sense and is valid.

So now consider living on mars. If everything I have just said was true, we can’t possibly live on Mars, as that is another planet. We would not only need all the money we have on earth to support mars, but we would also need to redirect a lot of money from earth in order to get to Mars. Where does that money come from? If we have a finely balanced system on earth at the moment and we are all paying the most tax we can sustain the borrowing we need in order to keep everything around us as it is, how can living on Mars be a possibility. Well, the answer is that we don’t have a limited supply of money, we have an unlimited supply of money. The limitations we perceive at the moment are constraints that we have all decided to abide by. The current world on earth is simply a collection of ideas we have been persuaded or decided to accept. They are only as real as our belief in them. This is how living on Mars will become a possibility. We will generate money that doesn't currently exist and create the Mars colony. You might want to consider at this point, that if we are capable of creating an unlimited supply of money for Mars, why can’t we do it here first and sort out all the problems we have. That would be a very good question indeed. The answer is we can, if we choose to. We can choose as a human race to solve all of the problems we currently have. So why don’t we you might ask?

Well there are two things at work here, firstly is a desire to do so, and secondly an ability to conceive of an alternative. 

Firstly, if you wield a lot of authority and influence over your life and the lives of others, you are generally happier because relative to those around you you wield more autonomy. This is something to be protected. It is a form of selfishness and self definition. It talks to the ego directly. There is a lot of that thinking going on and it doesn't get much more sophisticated unless these individuals and their positions gets challenged and they risk losing stuff it’s normally at this stage that they get very creative again about how they change the rules so that they get back what they lost. You see It’s more about our desire and willingness to change than our ability to do so.

Secondly we are all constrained to a greater and lesser degree by our finite thinking. Just ask anyone around you what their dream house looks like, and you will get answers as varied as a small house all the way through to castles and mansions. You are in fact asking a different question of people, you are asking them to define a boundary to their thinking, the limits of their thoughts. There is no right or wrong answer to the question, it is simply a question of what boundary they have set for that particular question. It’s like asking how much money would someone need to win on the lottery to be happy - the answer will vary according to all the constraints that person has set upon themselves and how much they think it will cost. 

The point here is this. If you cannot conceive of the answer to a problem, the problem will not get solved. At least not by you. If you live in a world where your very existence is a self limiting belief, there will be problems that exist where the solution is beyond your capability to even imagine, and even if you could imagine it, you need to persuade everyone else that it is possible too, before it can be brought into  existence. If world hunger can be solved simply by ensuring everyone on earth has enough money to be able to secure food, we need to conceive of a world with vastly more money that is in existence currently. In order for that to happen, we have change the entire planetary financial, commercial and societal systems in order to do that. That means everyones definition of what life on this planet currently is, has to change to something else and that means we have to redefine almost all the finite constraints and beliefs that we have in order to do this. 

Ultimately, that threatens us, because in our small, insular, finite world, we don’t want to lose what we have worked so hard for. So in a way in order to solve world hunger we have to ensure everyone is better off during the transition and at the end of it.

You can now start to see why communism was such a powerful idea when it was created as an idea. It had a popular idea at the heart of it, that everyone would benefit equally. Thats a powerful motivation for change.  We have so many of these ideas, we have Socialism, Communism in various forms and Capitalism in many forms. These are all finite systems of thinking that we have invented in an attempt to solve problems we have. They are all finite, they are all planetary, they are all ego or “i” and ”you” based and therefore fundamentally constrained and limiting.

What would happen if we were to realise that there is no you or I, that the very idea that we exist at all is simply a function of self limiting beliefs. That in fact we are no more than form of infinite non-corporeal consciousness. Impossible you would say - that by the way is the ultimate self-limiting belief. I would counter with the examples of some of these gurus in the past who have been witnessed simply breaking down into light and disappearing. Again, impossible you would say. Again another self limiting belief. The evidence has been there for hundreds of thousands of years, but if you think it is impossible you will ignore it, much the same way that if you think the best house you can get in your life time is a small house in a good street in you local area rather than a mansion in the country. You get the life that you and those around you believe to be possible, that is the very definition of self limiting finite belief systems.

So why am I talking to you about this. Well, the reason is very simple, it is time that we started to do away with our self limiting beliefs, it is time to stop accepting what we are told about the world and ourselves. It is time for us to search and become our infinite selves. 

That sounds good doesn’t it. 

But that is what most of us try to do all the time without realising it. The truth is that it harder that is sounds, but we have a unique opportunity at the moment. 

The world is in turmoil and we need to change direction. Most of the planet unfortunately will continue to seek to protect what they have and choose to continue believing in what has gone before. A good example of this finite legacy thinking is the belief held by a certain part of Russian society that Ukraine should be part of Russia. This is a tragedy or self restricting beliefs. 

Everything we have believed in so far has got us to where we are now. What we need more than ever now, is infinite thought, the ability to conceive of a new reality that solves all the problems we have currently, that and the blind support of a majority in order to bring it into being. These thought leaders are out there, they are already doing this in various ways, creating new communities, new rules, new ideas about money and commerce, new systems of management. 

In fact we are not short on new ideas, the problem is we have too many ideas for a majority to form around them. This is the biggest risk we face today, our “leaders” and I use that word very guardedly, have immense influence at this moment in time. Our future is in the hands of those that wield influence over us, because that is what the majority will accept as their constraints in the new world. 

You, the yous and I’s of us that understand this must stand guard over those who do not. It is simply too much to assume that those that lead have an infinite capability to conceive of a better idea of the world. It takes more than just a few people to get it right, it takes all of us to get it right. We know this, and it is validated every day when a government implements a new idea which on the face of it seems like a good thing to do until it is implemented on the ground and we realise that it simply doesn't work. In order for that idea to work it requires far more interaction from everyone, it requires all of us to take the ideas and implement them in ways that work for us. It requires us to give up one very important self limiting belief that we have, and that is this: we need to stop believing that centralised bodies of power can solve all our problems and look after us and we need to start believing that  collectively we can do a better job. We need to start telling these centralised bodies, what we want. We want them to solve world hunger, we want them to stop polluting the earth, we want them to stop all war and do away with armies and weapons of mass destruction, we want a peaceful world where we have what we need to be happy.

What too much? am I being unrealistic, am I living in a fantasy world? or is your thinking just utterly constrained. Think about it, why can’t we, why shouldn't we have all of that and more? there is absolutely no earthly reason why we shouldn’t, but we won’t have any of it until we overcome our finite constrained thinking about what we think is possible and what we think is impossible.

As someone once said “anything is possible, the impossible just take a little longer”

We can be whatever we can persuade ourselves and those around us we want to be. This is the true nature of existence, something that is available to all of us, if we choose to accept and believe it. Once you understand this fully, all you will see around you is self limiting beliefs. Your task is to ignore all of these an allow yourself to dream of the world you want, and to share those dreams with each other.

A better world is simply a firmly held new idea that many other people choose to share with you.