In my First and Second Degree limited awareness world of competition and defense, I’ve divided up oneness with beliefs. A belief is basically a set of connected concepts I’ve separated out from all concepts to form or add to my story. My acceptance of that belief as truth becomes my defense of those concepts and my story as the story.
Belief as Authority
My belief, then, acts as an authority that proves I am a sovereign individual, free to think and act as I please. Not obvious to me is that I’m the servant of that authority, which is my belief.
Perhaps that’s why I rankle so much when someone, even me, challenges my belief. That challenge is to the sovereignty of my identity – who I am. I am my belief.
In a context of true vs false, my perception of separation defends my story from yours based on my truth. This pits my story against yours in a battle for “the right belief,” which connotes there is a wrong belief, yours. When applied to a group of like-minded individuals, a simple belief can grow to fanatical, perhaps dangerous, proportions.
Thus, my beliefs confirm my paradoxical concept of separation as the one and only truth. One might consider belief as the initial and fundamental defense that separates one into a competition between this versus that.
Belief as Defense
Because I perceive my right belief as separate from your wrong belief, I defend mine from yours, me from you. This belief in separation in sovereignty provides me with a sense of differentiation that I can use to compare – and defend. Thus, I confirm my rightness.
Comparisons can lead to competition in which every concept appears to defend itself against all others. This means that every belief is a defense protecting and protected by other beliefs.
When I say, “I believe…,” am I actually saying, “I defend…?”
To answer a question one must question the answer. When there is only one answer to a question, I’m probably dealing with a belief upon which I’ve placed a high degree of certitude. To dissolve the defense that is the belief, I must question my sense of certainty. Concerning my belief:
- What is this belief protecting?
- How is it protecting it?
- Why is it protecting it?
- Who am I protecting?
