What Do I Believe In?
What do I believe in? This is a larger discussion, but it has to start somewhere. Let this be its start.
I usually stay away from debates. Merely because I see them as an exercise and I am not interested in the intellectual muscle, but in the actual answer, idea, concept. And also … they are full of political correctness. And I am tired of that. So I stay away from the religion, feminism, political, abortion discussions. But I do have an opinion. And my opinion is that you cannot generalise. In any case whatsoever. Every case is particular and should be treated as such.
This hasn’t, however, stopped me from looking for a more general approach to … let’s say life. Science and religion dispute over what or who put us here. Let’s leave them to it and let us worry about what the heck to do while here. It would also make life a bit easier if we were also to know, let’s say, why is stuff happening to us the way it does. You probably heard the rhetorical question “Why is this happening me?” a few times. That’s what I am talking about.
I did some digging, looked inside myself, read some books, observed around other “business models”. With my science background and my analytical being, I could only accept some answer that satisfied all my questions in a very elegant way. Without further ado, this is what I came up with.
I believe we are part of a big something. I don’t know what that is, but it’s there. And in order to get to it, we have to perfect ourselves over the course of a cycle of many lives. Yes, Buddhism. There are no shortcuts, but there are detours. It all depends on us.
The beauty of this belief system is that it considers life sacred, like many religions, but also that it respects it in any form, may it be mineral, vegetal, animal or human. It doesn’t force you to chose this or that religion. Do whatever you think it’s good for yourself, for your growth. It’s up to you to understand “growth” properly. Another elegant thing about this is that it puts the person in the centre, giving him or her absolute power over his or her destiny. Destiny doesn’t have anything to do with fatalism here. You can reach as far as you want and have all the time in the world to do it, given time has not a physical meaning.
As cruel as it sounds, I think this system can elegantly explain why there are children born with diseases or why there are species dying out. Either they are paying a debt from the past or maybe they have reached that level of evolution, they need to move on and go be with that big something I was talking about earlier. I don’t want to get into losing someone you love here and into how selfish grieving sometimes can be. Of course, one can take this karmic hypothesis and use it in his favour when trying to explain atrocities. I am not a superior instance here and I hate debates, as I said, so I will leave this to the common sense that people usually have to explain that NO, it is not ok to torture and decimate nations just because you have a certain skin colour.
What I said about us being here to evolve spiritually (and sometimes that goes together with scientifically), also explains why there are some people who, although without being educated or experienced, they are simply wise. And every time you look at them, you just have that feeling of peace and quiet from the beginning of the world. The opposite also goes: people who suck the life out of you and make you scared and confused. The first type are the ones who have reached a certain level of illumination and can share it, the second type are the ones who are at an early beginning of their spiritual existence and they need to accumulate.
So, all in all, I believe in people, as individuals, not as a race. For their immense capabilities and their perseverance or lack thereof.
There is a reason why “know thyself” has become a cliché. It’s because you have to dive inside yourself to discover where you are, in order to know what is that you need, and what you have to do to get ahead. I would add one more thing to it: don’t be scared if it’s little. And don’t compare yourself to anyone else, because there is only a part of them you actually see. Ok, those were two things.