YmirGF
Bodhisattva in Recovery
Ok, I am being a bit lazy. I wrote this two months ago and posted it up on Islam.com where it landed with an audible "Thud". I really had never heard a word about this until I saw a message from Robtex. He was talking about examining beliefs. I was enchanted. Robtex, you will quickly understand why I had to pull this post from Islam.com and insert it here, and I hope you enjoy.
The mind of a child
Posted by YmirGF on Wednesday, September 14, 2005 on the forums at www.islam.com
Comment:
Let me tell you a little story.
Around the time I was twenty years old or so, I hit upon an idea that filled my mind with intrigue. I was reading a book of some sort and the author recommended that the best way to understand what one believed was to make a journal. In this journal, you simply wrote down anything and everything you believed. To be thorough, the author suggested to keep jotting down things, as they came to you, over a period of a few months. He mentioned that after an indeterminate time everyone would eventually run out of ideas. He said that at that point one just "close the book" and put it away. Got it so far?
After perhaps a week or two, just as it is fading from your conscious awareness, you should then start to read all you have written down. Now for me, this took several months in fact and then I took the summer off, as it were, and came back to it in the fall.
That fall I began reading. I had managed to fill a 50 page loose-leaf binder with all the ideas I believed. What makes this interesting is that this author stated that you should not only write down "big" beliefs, but also things you only "sort of" believed in and to note those passages accordingly. (Updated note: Subjective beliefs only. You will do yourself no favours if you write things like, I believe the sky is blue. Technically, you are welcome to write any sort of beliefs whatsoever. However, if you get too deep into non-subjective beliefs, you may never finish the journal and this will become a pointless exercise.)
Bear in mind, for me this was almost thirty years ago and all this was done in ballpoint pen. The Old Fashioned Way. People, were "Word processors" in those days, LOL. Please, do NOT do what I did. Dummy me, being a pure sot of Scottish ancestry, found it impossible not to use both side of the pages I was writing on. (Updated Note: Yes, I know it is a bit wasteful, but use ONLY one side of each page. It doesnt matter which side, hehe.)
This presented a bit of a problem later on, as you will see. I realized, as I read, that it was easy to spot common beliefs, or beliefs that were rather similar. There were also those nasty, clearly noted, "sort of" beliefs too. (Updated Note: You will find, as you are writing this over a period of months, that you will simply reword the same belief in different ways. Do not just chuck them out, during the analysis stage. Examine each one, against the others, that they are similar to. You might just find some subtle nuances. God is in the details.)
What I found as I read, was a real hodgepodge, simply because I wrote things down over a period of weeks, AS they occurred to me. (And yes, a few notes were on serviettes and candy bar wrappers I would take home with me to transcribe into "the journal".) I'm not even sure why I am telling you this, but maybe someone will take the hint.
Anyway... I read through the whole thing a few times and had a few laughs, when I spotted one idea that did not go along with another idea. They were at odds. I remember blinking and thinking... "Well, which is it? Make up your mind." So I began the slow, painstaking process of tracking through my own mind and understanding how the ideas began to fit together.
I quickly found that my journal was just too unwieldy, as the pages began to get battered from constant flipping back and forth. I thought. If only each one was on a separate card. I could just spread them out and easily rearrange them in the proper order. So blissfully, I set out to copy every odd page onto a fresh sheet of paper. It didn't take too long to finish this and then I went back to the original pages and put a large X across all the odd numbered pages. I then reached for my handy dandy scissors and began to have a ball cutting it all up.
In no time, I had fifty pages cut into pieces in my lap and so I began to spread them out on my bedroom floor. At some point my mom came into my room and just cracked up laughing. She asked, in a somewhat imperious tone, just what was I up to now. I chirped what I was doing and we both laughed pretty hard. When she had opened the door, I had paper ALL over the floor!
My parents were pretty used to me and my wacky ideas, so they took it all in stride. Well, I spent several nights sifting through the piles, gaining back my floor space. (Updated Note: It actually did not take all that long to organize things. When you examine many ideas you will understand why you believe them rather rapidly. Remember, you are not out to get yourself, but simply trying to understand why you believe the things you believe.)
Even at the age of twenty, I was struck by the fact of sitting there, quite literally, surrounded by my beliefs. It WAS amazing. I will tell you that I really just had the luck of fool and merrily proceeded to dissect what I read. I began to arrange these random bits of papers in logical order. Trust me, if you do this, you will see what I mean. One notices right off the bat, certain belief just go together.
One also notices those annoying "sort of, kind of" beliefs. They stand out like a sore thumb.
After things were organized, I made the simple decision to give thought to the things I wasn't sure about. (Updated Note: The key is to be open-minded and critical of what is in front of you. If you find that you dont entirely agree with and idea, try to discover WHY.) Many ideas dissolved in the next few months, as I analysed them and decided which I didnt want and which ones were worth keeping around. It sounds odd, I realize, but again, if you tried this you would quickly understand what I am getting at.
(Updated Note: There is no time frame for the analysis stage. It is largely determined by how thoroughly you wish to go through things. Some ideas, you will feel comfortable with and you will not have to rack your brain too hard, in order to understand why you believe them. Other thing will surprise you. In theory, one could spend the rest of their life sifting through, but I wouldnt suggest being that gung-ho. It may be helpful to note some beliefs as unresolved and simply park them. You can come back to them once the project is done. Again, God may be in the details, but dont go too crazy. It is meant to be fun.)
That, my friends, brings us to what are called "conflicting beliefs". I hit on conflicting beliefs AFTER going through the "sorta, kinda" beliefs and AFTER they were resolved to my satisfaction. (The idea being, as long as you are HAPPY with what you decide on, right and wrong becomes a value judgement.) These were beliefs that ultimately did not agree with each other. Trust me... YOU WILL find them LOL.
I must state clearly. This was not an undertaking following any psychological doctrine; say from the theories of psychiatry. IT was undertaken purely as a personal exposition. It really is almost a game. I was a young adult and was simply having some rather intellectual "fun". This game would eventually result in catharsis after catharsis, as I homed my way in on the "big" beliefs. In some ways, it was like peeling an onion and I began to appreciate that beliefs and belief structure, actually have texture of a sorts. You see, the "big" beliefs are deeply tied to emotion and that is where the fun really began. (Updated Note: Those big beliefs are tied directly to you views about yourself.)
As a result of this unusual "hobby" it became apparent exactly how I viewed my own reality or how I viewed my world. It was, after all, right there in front of me, so it was a bit hard to miss. When you get rid of the chaff, the wheat remains. It is for this reason that I took such offence at being called "unlearned" recently. I understand that I should not be offended by ignorance, but then again I am only human. I am after all is said and done, a mere thinking, feeling, living, breathing, and loving person, just like you. I would ask, "Have you done this much?" Trust me, it adds a delicious new dimension to "Know thyself".
This is a very simple thing, anyone can do. This is a key that will literally unlock your mind. And it is given freely.
May your god shine upon you and fill you with his love. God knows, you are worth it. If only you can let yourself. BE!
This Clear Proof is brought to you by YmirGF, Sept. 13, 2005.
Offer void where prohibited. All rights reserved.
(That last line is supposed to be like a TV voiceover and is a joke.)
The mind of a child
Posted by YmirGF on Wednesday, September 14, 2005 on the forums at www.islam.com
Comment:
Let me tell you a little story.
Around the time I was twenty years old or so, I hit upon an idea that filled my mind with intrigue. I was reading a book of some sort and the author recommended that the best way to understand what one believed was to make a journal. In this journal, you simply wrote down anything and everything you believed. To be thorough, the author suggested to keep jotting down things, as they came to you, over a period of a few months. He mentioned that after an indeterminate time everyone would eventually run out of ideas. He said that at that point one just "close the book" and put it away. Got it so far?
After perhaps a week or two, just as it is fading from your conscious awareness, you should then start to read all you have written down. Now for me, this took several months in fact and then I took the summer off, as it were, and came back to it in the fall.
That fall I began reading. I had managed to fill a 50 page loose-leaf binder with all the ideas I believed. What makes this interesting is that this author stated that you should not only write down "big" beliefs, but also things you only "sort of" believed in and to note those passages accordingly. (Updated note: Subjective beliefs only. You will do yourself no favours if you write things like, I believe the sky is blue. Technically, you are welcome to write any sort of beliefs whatsoever. However, if you get too deep into non-subjective beliefs, you may never finish the journal and this will become a pointless exercise.)
Bear in mind, for me this was almost thirty years ago and all this was done in ballpoint pen. The Old Fashioned Way. People, were "Word processors" in those days, LOL. Please, do NOT do what I did. Dummy me, being a pure sot of Scottish ancestry, found it impossible not to use both side of the pages I was writing on. (Updated Note: Yes, I know it is a bit wasteful, but use ONLY one side of each page. It doesnt matter which side, hehe.)
This presented a bit of a problem later on, as you will see. I realized, as I read, that it was easy to spot common beliefs, or beliefs that were rather similar. There were also those nasty, clearly noted, "sort of" beliefs too. (Updated Note: You will find, as you are writing this over a period of months, that you will simply reword the same belief in different ways. Do not just chuck them out, during the analysis stage. Examine each one, against the others, that they are similar to. You might just find some subtle nuances. God is in the details.)
What I found as I read, was a real hodgepodge, simply because I wrote things down over a period of weeks, AS they occurred to me. (And yes, a few notes were on serviettes and candy bar wrappers I would take home with me to transcribe into "the journal".) I'm not even sure why I am telling you this, but maybe someone will take the hint.
Anyway... I read through the whole thing a few times and had a few laughs, when I spotted one idea that did not go along with another idea. They were at odds. I remember blinking and thinking... "Well, which is it? Make up your mind." So I began the slow, painstaking process of tracking through my own mind and understanding how the ideas began to fit together.
I quickly found that my journal was just too unwieldy, as the pages began to get battered from constant flipping back and forth. I thought. If only each one was on a separate card. I could just spread them out and easily rearrange them in the proper order. So blissfully, I set out to copy every odd page onto a fresh sheet of paper. It didn't take too long to finish this and then I went back to the original pages and put a large X across all the odd numbered pages. I then reached for my handy dandy scissors and began to have a ball cutting it all up.
In no time, I had fifty pages cut into pieces in my lap and so I began to spread them out on my bedroom floor. At some point my mom came into my room and just cracked up laughing. She asked, in a somewhat imperious tone, just what was I up to now. I chirped what I was doing and we both laughed pretty hard. When she had opened the door, I had paper ALL over the floor!
My parents were pretty used to me and my wacky ideas, so they took it all in stride. Well, I spent several nights sifting through the piles, gaining back my floor space. (Updated Note: It actually did not take all that long to organize things. When you examine many ideas you will understand why you believe them rather rapidly. Remember, you are not out to get yourself, but simply trying to understand why you believe the things you believe.)
Even at the age of twenty, I was struck by the fact of sitting there, quite literally, surrounded by my beliefs. It WAS amazing. I will tell you that I really just had the luck of fool and merrily proceeded to dissect what I read. I began to arrange these random bits of papers in logical order. Trust me, if you do this, you will see what I mean. One notices right off the bat, certain belief just go together.
One also notices those annoying "sort of, kind of" beliefs. They stand out like a sore thumb.
After things were organized, I made the simple decision to give thought to the things I wasn't sure about. (Updated Note: The key is to be open-minded and critical of what is in front of you. If you find that you dont entirely agree with and idea, try to discover WHY.) Many ideas dissolved in the next few months, as I analysed them and decided which I didnt want and which ones were worth keeping around. It sounds odd, I realize, but again, if you tried this you would quickly understand what I am getting at.
(Updated Note: There is no time frame for the analysis stage. It is largely determined by how thoroughly you wish to go through things. Some ideas, you will feel comfortable with and you will not have to rack your brain too hard, in order to understand why you believe them. Other thing will surprise you. In theory, one could spend the rest of their life sifting through, but I wouldnt suggest being that gung-ho. It may be helpful to note some beliefs as unresolved and simply park them. You can come back to them once the project is done. Again, God may be in the details, but dont go too crazy. It is meant to be fun.)
That, my friends, brings us to what are called "conflicting beliefs". I hit on conflicting beliefs AFTER going through the "sorta, kinda" beliefs and AFTER they were resolved to my satisfaction. (The idea being, as long as you are HAPPY with what you decide on, right and wrong becomes a value judgement.) These were beliefs that ultimately did not agree with each other. Trust me... YOU WILL find them LOL.
I must state clearly. This was not an undertaking following any psychological doctrine; say from the theories of psychiatry. IT was undertaken purely as a personal exposition. It really is almost a game. I was a young adult and was simply having some rather intellectual "fun". This game would eventually result in catharsis after catharsis, as I homed my way in on the "big" beliefs. In some ways, it was like peeling an onion and I began to appreciate that beliefs and belief structure, actually have texture of a sorts. You see, the "big" beliefs are deeply tied to emotion and that is where the fun really began. (Updated Note: Those big beliefs are tied directly to you views about yourself.)
As a result of this unusual "hobby" it became apparent exactly how I viewed my own reality or how I viewed my world. It was, after all, right there in front of me, so it was a bit hard to miss. When you get rid of the chaff, the wheat remains. It is for this reason that I took such offence at being called "unlearned" recently. I understand that I should not be offended by ignorance, but then again I am only human. I am after all is said and done, a mere thinking, feeling, living, breathing, and loving person, just like you. I would ask, "Have you done this much?" Trust me, it adds a delicious new dimension to "Know thyself".
This is a very simple thing, anyone can do. This is a key that will literally unlock your mind. And it is given freely.
May your god shine upon you and fill you with his love. God knows, you are worth it. If only you can let yourself. BE! This Clear Proof is brought to you by YmirGF, Sept. 13, 2005.
Offer void where prohibited. All rights reserved.
(That last line is supposed to be like a TV voiceover and is a joke.)
