Is Direct Experience The Doorway To Truth?

[Self-Mastery]

Hey guys,

I hope you are enjoying your Sunday!

In today's video ("The Mechanics Of Belief"), Leo discussed how our beliefs stop us from growing. There are three major steps: 1) Defending our belief system blindly, 2) Being open to modify and change our web of beliefs, 3) Dropping our belief system. The alternative for our belief system that he proposes is direct experience.

I'm on board with him that beliefs, per say, cannot help us. However, I would love to know your opinions why direct experience would be the best alternative to our belief systems? How do we know that our direct experience leads us to truth? Do we realize that our direct experience is the best alternative by experiencing our direct experience? Can we ask the epistemological question with respect to our direct experience? 

Thank you!    

Edited October 16, 2016 by Seyed

[100rockets]

What I took from that video is that beliefs prevent you from exploring other possibilities. When you believe something any contradicting information tends to be dismissed such as believing in a religion or believing that if you haven't shaved today the girl on the street will reject you, you get stuck because your mind isnt open to the fact that it might be different. 

I'm having a little trouble with this though because beliefs aren't always fed to us by the environment, some are a result of a direct experience or multiple experiences. If direct experience is truth and you have had the same direct experience many times then can you conclude that this is the truth? Like the sun rising every morning.  Does it serve us at all to think we might be wrong about the sun rising every morning?

[AlwaysBeNice]

4 minutes ago, 100rockets said:

I'm having a little trouble with this though because beliefs aren't always fed to us by the environment, some are a result of a direct experience or multiple experiences. If direct experience is truth and you have had the same direct experience many times then can you conclude that this is the truth? Like the sun rising every morning.  Does it serve us at all to think we might be wrong about the sun rising every morning?

Yeah, there might not be a border anymore between belief and knowing/direct experience then.

Perhaps that's where the wisdom lies here though; why belief things in the first place?

Perhaps creating the belief is the ego holding on to it's identity, whereas surrendering to just truth is letting it go and being free. 

'Do we need beliefs to function?', indeed do we?

I didn't watch the complete video, but one thing that struck me was that beliefs can really really hold us back when experiencing reality (saw this very clearly on weed once) and it reminds me of the quote in Conversations with God. God:

"You cannot know God until you’ve stopped telling yourself that you already know God.

You cannot hear God until you stop thinking that you’ve already heard God.

I cannot tell you My Truth until you stop telling Me yours."

[DoubleYou]

Our belief system is a perception of direct experience. Not direct experience itself. 

So, direct experience is not an alternative to a belief system. The belief system simply doesn't matter.

You can see a color and be a 100% certain that it's blue. It won't change what you see. It doesn't matter what you call it, or believe it to be. That's just a story in the mind. It has nothing to do with reality. (Rhyming not intended lol)

But if I say the color is red, you will get defensive. I mean of course it's blue. You've known that since your childhood. But do you see that you're just defending a thought. Not reality. 

It's a simplified example but in essence that's all we've been doing. Defending thoughts that we don't even know how and where they originated from. 

At least that's my take on today's video. Interesting stuff. 

Just now, 100rockets said:

If direct experience is truth and you have had the same direct experience many times then can you conclude that this is the truth? Like the sun rising every morning.  Does it serve us at all to think we might be wrong about the sun rising every morning?

It will rise with or without you believing that it will or won't. It makes no difference.

[100rockets]

3 hours ago, AlwaysBeNice said:

Yeah, there might not be a border anymore between belief and knowing/direct experience then.

Perhaps that's where the wisdom lies here though; why belief things in the first place?
 

That makes more a little more sense now

 

3 hours ago, AlwaysBeNice said:

it reminds me of the quote in Conversations with God. God:

"You cannot know God until you’ve stopped telling yourself that you already know God.

You cannot hear God until you stop thinking that you’ve already heard God.

I cannot tell you My Truth until you stop telling Me yours."

This really hit home, I have to say this is the deepest topic Leo covered so far (for me anyway), it's sad and liberating at the same time to realize how what I adopted as a beliefs and ideas have been underlying destructive forces that keep me stuck even when evidence of direct experience is contradicting. Some beliefs are so engraved in the mind and many are subconscious it's quite a challenge to let them go.   

[Self-Mastery]

59 minutes ago, 100rockets said:

I'm having a little trouble with this though because beliefs aren't always fed to us by the environment, some are a result of a direct experience or multiple experiences. If direct experience is truth and you have had the same direct experience many times then can you conclude that this is the truth? Like the sun rising every morning.  Does it serve us at all to think we might be wrong about the sun rising every morning?

“My technique is don’t believe anything. If you believe in something, you are automatically precluded from believing its opposite.” Terence Mckenna

I think the major point is that we get stuck if we take our belief system too seriously. What matters most is to be OPEN. In other words, Openness and having firm belief system are not very compatible. Even if we obtain our belief system from direct experience, it is still important to recognize that it is still a belief system because it happened in the past and we cannot necessarily generalize it. For instance, sun rising every morning is an idea and a belief and it is not necessarily true because there is still the possibility that we will not see sun tomorrow.   

However, my point is that why do we value direct experience after all? How do we know our direct experience pushes us closer to truth?. How do we know that our direct experience does not delude us? In other words, why does direct experience give us a better perception of reality? I still consider this possibility that we do not have any fucking way to truth at all.

Edited October 16, 2016 by Seyed

[100rockets]

3 hours ago, DoubleYou said:

You can see a color and be a 100% certain that it's blue. It won't change what you see. It doesn't matter what you call it, or believe it to be. That's just a story in the mind. It has nothing to do with reality. (Rhyming not intended lol)

But if I say the color is red, you will get defensive. I mean of course it's blue. You've known that since your childhood. But do you see that you're just defending a thought. Not reality. 

This example is a bit of a mind twister (color perception is more of physiological thing not a perception based on thoughts) in this case if neither of us are color blind you'd really be telling me that I can't trust what I see and have known for a fact from a lifetime of direct experience. If I were to believe you, that would make me feel crazy. But I understand your point, I would be defending my own perception of reality. 

[Self-Mastery]

3 hours ago, DoubleYou said:

Our belief system is a perception of direct experience. Not direct experience itself. 

Oh I think it makes a lot of sense. Thus, direct experience is not a perception of reality. In other words, the final goal is to bypass the whole perception stage by increasing consciousness.

Edited October 17, 2016 by Seyed