What do you believe in?


# Do you believe in god or are you an atheist?
# Do you believe in ghosts?
# Do you believe evil can be erad
# Do you believe in destiny? Or Free-will?
# Do you believe men are good or evil or both at heart?
# Do you believe in the right wing or left wing philosophies?
# Or do you believe in believing nothing?

Anton Chekhov very rightly said - "Man is what he believes". In the present context, it would have been men/women so as to not offend anyone but that's another story (again, do you believe women are equal to men, if not better?). It's what you choose to believe that makes you the person you are - you might choose to not believe this hypothesis but I strongly do.

Now, if we are a by-product of our belief systems which can be pretty convoluted to the point of being unchangeable, how do we act on this insight? How do we form these beliefs? What can we do to change them?

Let's understand how our beliefs took a concrete shape in the first place. To start with, they are passed down to us largely by our parents, relatives & friends (in that order) and then shaped by our experiences, exposure to the outside world & mass media to a great extent. Mind & memory are tricky customers on whom we are totally reliant - a lie told a 1000 times looks like the absolute truth over a period of time and it seems it isn't too difficult to manipulate our thoughts and beliefs. Having said that, we also strongly resist information contrary to our core beliefs and it all gets very confusing - mind manipulating us or we manipulating our mind? Are we a slave to our beliefs or can we choose them consciously?

I 'believe' most of us automatically subscribe to the belief system of our parents initially and as we mature, the option to choose kicks in in the late teens & 20s. Whatever we choose to believe in then shapes the rest of our life - we spend time with like-minded people, read literature and have discussions which are compatible to our beliefs and consequentially strengthen our belief system as it seems to be the most obvious and correct way to lead life. Infact, a happening which challenges what we believe ends up strengthening it - remember that last heated up discussion on electoral politics with your friend - could you see his perspective or di you just jenforce yours and thought he was just an ass for believing such random shit.

If you have a choice, how do you exercise it given there are too many influencers and distractions? Simply changing some basic habits helps big time - take time off from news, mass media & social networks, spend some time with nature, do a few treks or travel to offbeat places, try and not watch advertisements, switch off notifications from your news apps and abstain from any discussions which revolves around your favorite political party or religious beliefs etc. etc. Just disrupt your daily habits - it sounds very difficult but most of what you do on a daily basis is not really necessary for your survival to put it crudely. Just try it. Reading different philosophies, talking to different kinds of people and understanding their view points, travelling to new places and experiencing new cultures - simply being a mute spectator who absorbs information and spends some time alone to become comfortable with it really worked for me.

If you ask me what I believe in - the last option - believing nothing. I am uncomfortable with the idea of believing - am an agnostic, neither left or right and am constantly asking questions. I am simply a seeker who wants to experience things and see what makes the most sense. I don't know if this is the right way to live life but it certainly is pretty interesting. Once you stop defining yourself with your belief systems, you are way more likely to appreciate life. And there is nothing larger than life. Nothing.

So, believe with caution!

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