How To Distinguish Truth From Belief

[PlayOnWords]

I feel pretty strongly that direct experience conquers all. However of course, there have been many, many times in my life where I couldn't trust my experience. In fact, I was living with PTSD that has only faded now after a year of EMDR therapy. So I know how easy it is for one to delude oneself into believing all kinds of things. Having said that, I could mostly always see when the paranoia and delusions associated with PTSD was at play, but it didn't stop me acting as if it was real. The feeling of imminent attack, for example.

Anyway. I have a lot of questions coming up in my experience on this particular topic. I wonder if belief and truth actually merge into each other, for example. Say, I wanted to believe that gravity didn't exist. So I adopt the belief. Then when I drop a stick from a height and it falls on to the grass, I have some options. I can say "this proves that gravity exists" or I can say something along the lines of "well yes, the stick has fallen in accordance with the theory of gravity and it's pull etc, but I still believe that there is something else operating here." Now, the funny thing is, that these would both be beliefs. I can choose to believe in gravity, or I can choose to refute it and say something else must be at play. If I choose the latter, someone might say "but you saw the stick drop to the ground, how can you not believe in gravity?".

Where is the truth of the concept of gravity? In the present moment, right? Every moment that goes by I can see gravity at work. The leaves fall from the trees to the ground. Voila.

But there's a distinction here and almost a simplification to be made.

A) "In every passing moment I can see things fall to the ground naturally."

Versus

B) "Things are falling to the ground because of gravity."

See the difference there? Option A is very much not conceptualising the occurrence and just noticing something happen. Option B has a story about it, a belief.

Now, I'm obviously not refuting the existence of 'gravity' in physical reality. What I am saying, however, is that both statements seem to be true, yet option B seems to be believing the fact, on top of directly witnessing it.

How can this be? This means there is a possibility to conflate truth with belief. This is a rather benign example but it will have deeper ramifications. 

So, I think my point of this post is to ask, how can we ever know something to be true? And, how can we know it is not a projection from indoctrinated beliefs?

I want to give one more, hopefully compelling example.

I'm watching an Actualized.org video about What Is God? There's something inside me that knows I have not awakened to what this video describes. Yet, there's something inside me that believes it to be the case, certainly more than the Big Bang. Now, I go and take some psychedelic and ask it to show me what God is, and let's my experience confirms everything Leo has said.

How can I know that this is genuine truth, and not belief masquerading as the truth?

 

I've just realised what the answer may be. Something like "Being comes before knowing."

I'm gonna post it anyway as it seems like an interesting topic.

 

[Nahm]

@PlayOnWords

It’s most probable this will instantly be deflected & projected, like Nahm’s always tryin to one up, he always just says the opposite, he tries to be zen, etc. But, A & B are entirely story. Each word. Primarily, the conditioned notion that there are things. There is very literally no actuality to ‘conflation’. Absolute & relative are pointers. Neither have any actuality whatsoever.  When they aren’t pointers, they’re thought attachment, just like gravity. There is no call to refute (gravity or no gravity) what is already not actual / just a thought story. 

The truth can never be verbalized or said, only pointed to, and not even. All words are utter bullshit. Not even! So to believe a psychedelic confirms what someone said, is to believe a lot of back story to derive that. Before that, (so to speak lol)  you have to believe in self in other, in there being a past, a your past, in vibration being sound, in sound being words with meaning, etc, etc, etc.

You can’t know the truth. If you know the truth, its something else, that you know, and it is not the truth. That you, the knower, is in & of itself a belief, a concept, an idea. The belief in gravity is contingent on the belief in a you experiencing it. Anything thought to be the truth is still the masquerading… of, the truth. 

Being comes before knowing is spot on. Only awareness (being) is aware of knowing. Only awareness (being) is know, thus, there is not a knower and a known, and there is quite literally nothing to know. There is however more to experience than could be experienced in a hundred lifetimes, apparently. 

[Leo Gura]

The notion of gravity and causation... these are complex projections of the mind.

When you see a stick fall that is not evidence of gravity, despite what most people would tell you. It's just a stick falling. There could a thousand reasons and models for how and why the stick falls. Or even none at all.

OF COURSE there is the possibility of conflating truth with belief. That's what happens in 99.99% of cases.

Strictly speaking, Truth is raw experience itself.

Even to say, "I see a stick" is not Truth. That's already a conceptual construction on top of what is raw experience.

[PlayOnWords]

@Nahm More often than not, I feel your words do something. Even though they're utter bullshit and not even that. 

 

[James12345]

9 hours ago, PlayOnWords said:

I feel pretty strongly that direct experience conquers all. However of course, there have been many, many times in my life where I couldn't trust my experience. In fact, I was living with PTSD that has only faded now after a year of EMDR therapy. So I know how easy it is for one to delude oneself into believing all kinds of things. Having said that, I could mostly always see when the paranoia and delusions associated with PTSD was at play, but it didn't stop me acting as if it was real. The feeling of imminent attack, for example.

Anyway. I have a lot of questions coming up in my experience on this particular topic. I wonder if belief and truth actually merge into each other, for example. Say, I wanted to believe that gravity didn't exist. So I adopt the belief. Then when I drop a stick from a height and it falls on to the grass, I have some options. I can say "this proves that gravity exists" or I can say something along the lines of "well yes, the stick has fallen in accordance with the theory of gravity and it's pull etc, but I still believe that there is something else operating here." Now, the funny thing is, that these would both be beliefs. I can choose to believe in gravity, or I can choose to refute it and say something else must be at play. If I choose the latter, someone might say "but you saw the stick drop to the ground, how can you not believe in gravity?".

Where is the truth of the concept of gravity? In the present moment, right? Every moment that goes by I can see gravity at work. The leaves fall from the trees to the ground. Voila.

But there's a distinction here and almost a simplification to be made.

A) "In every passing moment I can see things fall to the ground naturally."

Versus

B) "Things are falling to the ground because of gravity."

See the difference there? Option A is very much not conceptualising the occurrence and just noticing something happen. Option B has a story about it, a belief.

Now, I'm obviously not refuting the existence of 'gravity' in physical reality. What I am saying, however, is that both statements seem to be true, yet option B seems to be believing the fact, on top of directly witnessing it.

How can this be? This means there is a possibility to conflate truth with belief. This is a rather benign example but it will have deeper ramifications. 

So, I think my point of this post is to ask, how can we ever know something to be true? And, how can we know it is not a projection from indoctrinated beliefs?

I want to give one more, hopefully compelling example.

I'm watching an Actualized.org video about What Is God? There's something inside me that knows I have not awakened to what this video describes. Yet, there's something inside me that believes it to be the case, certainly more than the Big Bang. Now, I go and take some psychedelic and ask it to show me what God is, and let's my experience confirms everything Leo has said.

How can I know that this is genuine truth, and not belief masquerading as the truth?

 

I've just realised what the answer may be. Something like "Being comes before knowing."

I'm gonna post it anyway as it seems like an interesting topic.

 

Belief = Thinking, thought.

Truth= Thoughtlessness or not identifying, naming labeling the thoughts, including word of the “thought “. 

[Nahm]

[PlayOnWords]

@cypres Yes, I was just skimming over PTSD and everything it encapsulates to get to the point of my post.

I agree with everything you've posted there.

[Surfingthewave]

@PlayOnWords I think this runs deeper than a discussion about the truth behind sticks falling. 

I'm sensing this is about your PTSD which you believed to be real for some time, up until you challenged it through EMDR, well done by the way.

Your belief about what caused your PTSD was your feelings. Feelings can feel more real than thought. Thoughts can start the process but feelings can make you believe what you're seeing and experiencing is real. Feelings can override thought especially ones of imminent attack. Using EMDR you had to go back to that trauma and reprogramme it so the experience was different. 

This has left you questioning what we believe to be true. Yes being or direct experience will always offer us Truth but to experience it we have to feel, we have to think. Experiencing our human-ness through sensations is the ultimate gift we have. Break down those sensations to what they truly are. This will lead you to your Truth, what you are questioning. 

You have demonstrated that we can overcome emotional distress (with the help of a guided professional). The mind is fascinating, so keep questioning it. 

 

Edited August 28, 2021 by Surfingthewave