beliefs

what happens when all authority is abandoned?

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If you’re born blind, totally blind, you need to be told about light.  That’s the only way you’ll come to believe something like light exists.  But if you aren’t blind, belief isn’t necessary – you simply see and know light.

It’s odd then – with respect to ‘awakening’ – the way beliefs seem to cause blindness in those with eyes to see.  Beliefs are just like cataracts.

To see for yourself that wideawake brilliant awareness is all there is, is simple.  It’s probably the most obvious of all observations.  So why do we resist?  Why do we look for the Real everywhere but here?

Conditioned from tiny-hood to believe ourselves blind (unenlightened) we unquestioningly accept the beliefs of those who appear to have vision (authority): parents, priests, teachers, gurus, scriptures.

What happens when that conditioning is questioned?  What happens when all authority is abandoned?  What happens when we use our own eyes and trust our own vision?

Clear brilliant awareness is inescapably present.  Clarity flowers.  And clarity instantly removes cataracts.

~

are beliefs of any kind necessary?

324

Echoes from Emptiness: Mt Warning - Woolumbin

Yesterday, on a drive to Wollumbin with S, we passed the gateway to a non-sectarian retreat center. A sign had been nailed up:

Are beliefs of any kind necessary?

How tempting to rush in with a yes or a no or a maybe, inevitably meeting the question with our pet beliefs and conclusions, and kidding ourselves that we’re having a profound dialogue…

But the question isn’t pointless. It has beauty in its potential to act as a pointer to the utterly imperative, yet impossible, question:

Who, or what, is asking?

If you tell me ‘you’ are, I’ll ask you to show me a ‘you’ that’s a stand-alone entity.
If you can’t, I’ll ask you how come you believe you are one when you can’t prove it.

With a bit of luck we’ll both end up falling in a heap laughing so hard we weep.

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