Belief
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Posted by:
jonx ®

04/11/2005, 11:45:54
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In my last exchange with ex-premies a few weeks ago on this forum, I had a discussion with Mike Finch, which evolved into him describing how he once felt about Maharaji, and how that is now null and void because he came to “realize” his feelings were all based on a belief system that he could no longer entertain. It struck me how off-base this position was, and I told him so.

 

Now, I know I’ll be called arrogant by you good people for saying this but, when a person who has rejected Maharaji says they’ve done so as a result of tossing their belief system, it’s a flag to me every time that that person did not understand the message. That is because the experience one derives from the practice of Knowledge is NOT -- I repeat, NOT -- in any way based on belief. As a matter of fact, the more I have shed the beliefs that I adopted early on, the simpler and steadier the experience has become. This has however not come without growing pain.

 

So that got me thinking while looking back over the years. It is true, when I first heard about Knowledge in the 70s, the first experience I had was one based on belief. It was kinda like, one day I imagined this rotund, brown-skinned little guy was the Lord, and then extrapolated this into its many implications. The result was that I generated, almost before I realized it, a heavy duty belief system.

 

It felt good at the time for many reasons. Besides fitting in with these cool yet wacky people, and feeling like I had some esoteric insight into existence – which was very important to me back then – more powerful was the feeling that I was the humble servant of the superior power in person. I had found him! All my worries were over. He would make it all right. Obviously, I opened myself up to the possibility of disappointment caused by misplaced expectations.

 

Over the years, he changed. And so did I. Beliefs were constantly challenged, and dropped. I remember the biggest trauma for me was seeing the food in his jet during one of his visits. A platter of meat sandwiches were put on the plane prior to his departure. Seems small today but that had me in turmoil for months afterward. But I remember when I got over it; there was a sense of liberation. “Freed up to eat whatever I wanted.” Such freedoms made the experience of Knowledge simpler. Simpler, because it wasn’t dependant on any of that stuff… only on the inner pursuit.

 

So looking back, I see a gift was offered to each premie, and this gift was wrapped in belief. Why… because it was the wrapping that attracted so many of us. Without it, we probably wouldn’t have noticed it. It was our job to unwrap it, and Maharaji took painstaking efforts to help us do so over the years. Some were able to open the box and see inside. Others never got that far. Instead the box was left on the shelf, or to be more specific, on an alter worthy to display a gift of such sanctity. At some point those people grew out of their infatuation with their belief system, and they chucked out the box -- wrapping and all -- claiming it was empty.

 

You see belief has a purpose. But once it has outgrown its purpose it must be discarded. People who yearn for truth cannot hold on to belief forever because it is constraining and stunts growth. It must at some point be replaced with Knowledge.







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