The Mechanics Of Belief
By Leo Gura - October 17, 2016 | 53 Comments
Applied epistemology 101
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Vercingetorix says: Thanks Leo, sometimes your videos have the uncanny habit of answering exactly the question I was pondering in the days before the release of the video
Specifically this time I was wondering the point that I can Intuitively see the that it holds truth that only the present is truth, and past and future are just shadows, thoughts and memories that obscure this truth but, I found it very hard to rationally explain to myself this realization, and thus it’s hard to submit to this realization and follow it through practically (like trying to meditate/be present as much as I can every day). And you just come and hammer on this: every thought is basically a belief that if inquired deeply enough will be found to not hold ground, so If I can really see it my motivation for wanting to become present will increase by tenfold I assume. So thanks for that!
Max Gron says: Why is this OK? You should inquire into the anti-beliefs of Leo, I’m not explaining the meaning of this, I don’t interpret, but a meta-inquiry is needed for the correct beliefs. And we’re to drop everything and take on faith Leo’s belief in non-beliefs. He’s not skeptical enough, for one thing he’s a logician, which is still a belief, for another he believes in God. Contradiction, paradox, is a lie, my belief in reality is simple, I believe reality’s physical, it takes a lot of intelligence to reach this conclusion, especially if you understand Hofstadter and his strange loops. Leo is in denial of physical reality. Reality doesn’t work the same way Leo claims it does, he knows about meditation but nothing about science, if you knew how science works you’ll know it’s reality, based on testing natural things, science is itself a belief because it holds a tradition of telling theories you don’t want to hear when the average man believes in science, but if you take science as a belief without trying to change science you’re not a scientist. No, I’m no scientist, but the scientific-minded people undoubtedly think I’m a pseudoscientist. I don’t need science, I have no system, what I have is ideology and philosophy to prove my claims.
Mayur says: Wow !
Bernardo says: Do you have any thoughts on a video about discipline? I see it as a critical point for having a consise and consistent inner development. When I got the first glimpse of “damn, lot of shit goin rong” on starting newbie stage, which was when I saw your work and ideas, it was hard for me to balance and to not going crazy trying to improve everything on each oportunity i was presented. Now i grasp the concept of discipline and its founations, that with the meditation habbit had given me much awerness and acceptance and relief while working on myself. Thanks a lot for your work, im from Brazil and your way of researching and walking this path from zero is really inspiring and makes me wonder how much i will evolve seeing you evolving too!! forgive the bad english
Lynda says: Thank you thank you thank you!!!!
You just answered my long struggling question.
I felt much better in dealing with FEAR!
I will not be so anxiously thinking about the thing to do!
I don’t expect this awesome video dug up my problem!
Thank you!
Michael says: This is such a great insight…opening me up for possibilities
Thank you Leo
Charlea says: You never fail to amaze me! Thank you.
Christine says: Hi Leo,
Very informative video, lots to ponder over. I have been thinking about beliefs lately and how to uproot them and now I have more tools to do that.
Thanks very much.
Jim says: At the end of this The Mechanics Of Belief video you say a button is located below to download a worksheet but there is no button except to donate a tip. Where can I download the PDF work sheet?
Ragnar says: Worksheet is on youtube
Leo Gura says: Oops! Sorry… forgot to add the worksheet link.
Just fixed it.
jim says: Leo, I appreciate your pragmatic approach to this topic. I can wait to see what new experiences lies ahead using the tools you have provided. Ragnar, thanks for your help.
Ramona says: It is absolutely ok to have beliefs, opinions as long as you are not attached to them. Once seeing the truth, you don’t suddenly become an oak tree, you are still here as a human being.
Max Gron says: Nobody has learned anything, Leo’s saying don’t believe. All that ignorance based on interpretation, you’re wrong, and while you’re at it stop believing, it’s so simple all you have to do is drop your beliefs. Stop interpreting, all interpretations are wrong. It’s not based on what you personally think, it’s based on spiritual facts. That’s why most of you are materialistic and don’t want samadhi experiences, magic, or things to flow naturally, not really, you want attachment and to eat pizza and watch TV, that’s another video I’ll be watching, you’re having fake growth if it’s not spiritual, just get off your arse and do what Leo says, you lazy, ignorant person.
Amina says: This video on epistemology 101 left me with so many thoughts and reminders of direct experiences which I have had that have left me questioning life period. I am going to watch this again and again. Outstanding!
sithun says: Thank you Leo. And I mean it from my heart…thank u
Valerie says: Leo,months ago I accedently stumbled over one of your videos…honestly,you irritated the hell out of me…”Just who is this smug know it all anyway?”said myself to myself.Since then you have become a real source of inspiration and information,and I regard you with the utmost respect and affection…thank you from the bottom of my heart for so freely sharing what I have come to think of as “freedom”.
Most Sincerely,
Val
Adrie says: HI Leo,
The causes of wars are the attachment to god and the doctrines greed and lust for power. And there is a bigger goal which you have to find out yourself! The movie the matrix gives the best analogie.
Keep searching! (if you didn’t figured it out yet)
NIce job in seeing though it! You gave me extra steps to find my conclusions!
Max Gron says: The matrix, that just gives you more beliefs, more of your imagination creating wars. Watch the video literally ten times to get used to not believing, further down the line you show your busy life by your mouth, not being, just doing. This is false, after all becoming requires a death, it’s the death of the old you.
Elham says: Hi,
Thanks for the nice video.
That is so great to see how our beliefs shape our worlds.
Patrycja says: Hi Leo,
Thank you for such fantastic content on believe! Wow, it blows my mind how knowledgeable you are and you do operate on the higher level, it shows really. It’s amazing how in tact you are with your mind when speaking, addressing things! I hope I understood quite a deep subject such as believe and I am curious now what have you saw that you can’t believe?
I am looking forward to explore the worksheet exercise.
Many Thanks,
P.
Gavin says: Hey Leo! Love this stuff…
In case you weren’t sick of answering all my questions already…
How do you see the need to drop all beliefs with the quest for continued learning? (I think that counted as one of the 8 things we should be concerned with in life).
It’s certainly something I’m concerned with and it seems like a positive endeavour and something I really enjoy.
Is it coming more from the point of view of “learn the concepts and theories to broaden your understanding, but always know that they are all ultimately false, just tools to navigate life”?
I worry slightly as I advance further along my life purpose path, which will likely include learning a lot of new concepts and using my thinking abilities to make enough money to survive, while hopefully funding my own consciousness development pursuits.
Thanks again!
Manipal singh Sagoo says: Should I believe my life is being changed in a better way, listening to actualized.com
Lou Lou says: Thank you so much for this video! For a long time this topic is a very big discussion point in my life. Your video is making everything clear.
jos says: What about beliefs like “actions speak louder than words” or ‘what’s for you will not pass you”. I l can’t find any loop holes to those, can you? They prove to be true on so many levels and are good beliefs to hold…. or so I thought.
Brett Miller says: Hello Jos,
From what I can see those euphemisms/adages are binary, black and white. Extremely dualistic and as such, can’t be True all the time, yet they are usually contexualized as such. Because of this, they fail some of the time, half the time, or more.
For example: “Actions speak louder than words.” …true enough, for those occasions where action is required more than talking. If communication is appropriate in some situation, and action better off withheld, then the adage fails, and is False.
Human beings are capable (at least from the frame of reference of “relative reality”) of making decisions based on cognitive function. We can think and act in a more dynamic and analog way in this domain. Why not take advantage of that?
-b
Ramona says: I am sorry. I said something false: once the dream is gone, one can hold opinions and preferences wich imply flexibility (I prefer to do it like this, so I’ll do my best , but if life doesn’t go my way, I am in peace), but never a belief wich implies rigidity (I belive this thing so it must be like this and I will fight to prove it to you because my identity is on the line).
Uldis says: I know one thing for sure: “something exists”
Leo Gura says: That turns out to be false.
Jess says: Does Leo’s other video about the “web of knowledge” work in tandem with this video here? I believe so, I’d like to know how it doesnt work in tandem. The search continues. Awesome stuff Leo, thanks.
Some Guy says: Hi Leo, quick review…
I really like the Content you post, but do you really have to make each video that long? I mean, you repeat a lot of stuff over and over and over and over again (“Really Dangerous belief, extremely dangerous belief, really truly really extremely dangerous belief…”)? Do you really find it necessary?
Chris says: Hi Leo,
I’ve been very involved and ambitious in trying to understand the new age movement, spirituality, buddhism etc. I meditate and I read as much as I can on the subject. I have also come across a lot of research where Christians try to disprove the new age movement and spirituality. They are somewhat convincing, but I am also a skeptic like yourself. I even question the skeptics. My issue is that I have very strong Christian friends and they try to convince me that what I believe is false. There are many videos, articles, and seminars where Christians are aggressively pursuing an end to spirituality. Quite frankly I don’t have all the answers and I think it would be awesome if you made a video to counter these allegations with thorough research. It’s very easy to find many new agers/spiritual people who are converting back to Christianity so there has to be an explanation for this..Check out this guys website who is now a Christian and used to be new age spiritual/agonstic. his link on youtube says exposingthenewage.com but it’s actually reasonsforjesus.com once I click it. Can his claims make sense?
mark says: hi Leo, just wondered if you’d looked at imprint vulnerability due to chemical shock (psychedelics for example, Leary/ Wilson et al), conversion states or shell-shock( William sargent “battle for the mind”). if you hav’nt hope the names are useful. great vid. M
mark says: PS: big fan of not believing anyone’s BS, even my own. it is possible to continue playing the knowledge/ belief system/tunnel game, to engage in it for teaching -learning or see ideas/ beliefs /opinions as toys each new idea a shiny new one to explore. wow, look what happens if I bend this bit and add it that…hey that’s new..
I completely (well 80 percent) agree that life is best lived as an adventure. once again, thank you for the reminder. M
Stephen Peterson says: Leo you assume that something is true or false That is your paradigm. My paradigm is that there is no true or false only agreement. Make up something and then get lots of people to agree with you and you created a truth. You want people to get enlightenment. There is no such thing as enlightenment only degrees of experience. We are all ready enlightened. It’s different levels people are on. You can not get somewhere because there is nowhere to get. Experience is what there is, not going somewhere, being something, because we are already everywhere and being every thing.
May you experience more of who and where you are every day
Namaste
Leo,
“The end of Mankind as we know it?”
Love your work bro, but think it through:
Thank God, you say everybody should not just believe you and be a bunch of Little Leos…
If that were to happen:
Thousands of enlightened Leo’s out there, making women squirt. Soon, globally, there are couples and families broken, jobs and even lives lost.
It’s mind blowing, the “end of life and reality as we know it”.
You have a responsibility, hero….
Max Gron says: What’s with my obsession with fun? Nobody takes fun as a way of life seriously. He says disbelieve because there’s belief wars, it’s more complicated than that, there are belief wars because beliefs are separation, because it’s normative, e.g. if you believe it you think everyone should, because it’s shoved down your throat, because it controls people, but there’s also disbelief wars, like on atheism and skepticism, I question my disbeliefs, if there’s something worth a doubt I question it, it goes against what I stand for. Skepticism is an odd school of thought, it’s the first anti-belief in history, before that there were cults to replace religions. As the scientist I was I was questioning my former beliefs, and for a bit of a long time I questioned the skepticism. I stopped disbelieving. I only believe the Bible in a puritanical and book one of “Either/Or” way, & conventionalism, regalism, anti-perfectionism, anti-Australianism, traditionalism, music purism, intangible cultural heritage, quasi-vegetarianism, and that’s it, I questioned all the other beliefs. It’s not because I want to believe, it’s to maintain an identity, to be regular and consistent, that’s why I still believe.
Gaetano says: Sorry Leo, can you recommend a book about this?
It’s really interesting!
thanks
Karthiksuryavamsiv says: Hey leo can you provide subtitles for this
Riza says: Floki the boat builder!
Max Gron says: My beliefs give me a way of life and a good life, and of course my beliefs are a con man sucking me in, yes, I was never nothing, if you play the “be nothing” game you create untruth. I should be a Puritan and I should live my life the way I used to. I’m not changing my isitnormal profile. I did everything I needed to do in my spiritual work. Since there’s no self or other the beliefs are put there for you, you logical nihilist Buddhist hypocrite. I’d rather take rationality than this silly nonsense.
Max Gron says: Should I really be a Puritan? Puritanism isn’t a belief, it’s a disbelief in everything except itself, it’s a form of scepticism, I’m sceptical of the devil, of atheism and of sin, it becomes a belief when you insist on staying Puritan. Actualized.org is an anti-belief and anti-beliefs tell you to drop beliefs, but to some people it’s a belief. I was thinking the beliefs I have left I don’t have to fight for and it’s easier not to cling to.
Actualized is different, no book tells you beliefs aren’t true, books only feed you beliefs of philosophers, ideologists, religion, and scientists and diets, they don’t feed you anti-beliefs except this one book called The Language Codes, which is in denial of the popular beliefs of language, and sometimes the popular thinking, I never liked coffee since, just because I drank coffee it doesn’t mean I liked it, I was of the beliefs not of people, but from coffee beans, e.g. that I need coffee, or that coffee keeps you awake, people don’t do this, the coffee did it, coffee beliefs is all the coffee.
Max Gron says: Beliefs aren’t just beliefs, is science just a belief? No, it’s not, it’s a way of learning. I don’t hold anything I said on this website as a belief, I question what I say, it’s too specific.
An ideology is a specific belief, it puts thoughts in your head, philosophy is an ideology, it’s ideas. Leo has beliefs so why should I accept what he’s talking about?
He has beliefs and disbeliefs that contradict each other, of course he does, that’s because he’s doing religion, which doesn’t make sense. Why can’t a thing literally only be one thing and only itself? It’s not logical. Reality should only be itself without exceptions, it’s rocket science because religious people are insecure and have a hard time accepting this.
Max Gron says: Since I’m rational I can’t see that Leo’s playing games himself, he’s not, my lifelong search for living was to drop all my beliefs and only obey Leo.
I noticed with my vegetarian beliefs I was playing food games. But to me it’s no longer a game, I should be a vegetarian because Leo said so, and I didn’t even know I held that as a belief. Beliefs play control games, it’s all about division, not unity. There’s even normal beliefs to attack on everyone who doesn’t think you’re normal, so they’re the “weird” guys and you’re the normal people, the good guys, I know how a belief works. People who do drugs have one belief they don’t need to cling to or defend: they just believe in God and not the system of God (yes Christianity’s a system). Systematic belief in God is how people start religions, which are annoying to people. If I drop my beliefs now, does it get me more money? Do I get rich just by working without beliefs getting in the way? Yes, own it, disbelieve to pay the bills.
Max Gron says: This is bullshit, I don’t even believe Leo in dropping my beliefs, I question my disbeliefs, I’m not a sceptic.
Max Gron says: What’s with believing nothing then afterwards inquiring and then believing? That’s not any fun, rational and irrational at the same time, it’s irrational! Should I accept this? Irrationality is dangerous, and it’s not the content of mere logic that makes you rational, the content and sphere of reason and logic at the same time makes you rational. Leo knows nothing about reflection if any sage thought at all, reflection is meditating by criticising yourself so you don’t get in trouble, and furthermore beliefs should have a rational reason to believe, not believed on a whim. When I do anything it’s not a whim, it’s either consistently regular and conformist, or it’s sticking to my personal differences. If he knew about being different he would know it’s deviant to be different and it rejects what’s popular. Why is he making no fun claims? He said to be funny, so knock knock, is there anybody home? Buzzzzzzz, bam, romp romp, honk honk. I should be funny, I should amuse myself instead of taking serious spirituality seriously. It’s no fun at all, my culture (the fun-loving culture, especially of children) doesn’t approve of it.
Max Gron says: The anti-beliefs aren’t your brother, they’re there to contradict everything a believer says, most anti-beliefs aren’t someone else’s thinking as scepticism, it’s you hating things and thus not believing people. You have no idea what dangers you create when you won’t stop believing, those cowards don’t want to be nice they just believe against anything good. Reality’s whatever I think is a pain in the neck. Nothing is a fair thing, I never thought truth was a fair thing, I thought it was such a shock, especially with punk teenagers and grumpy old people, the odd thing is they’re both grumpy and your beliefs don’t make it any better, wow, even if it was me having the time of my life, it’s the truth, and in reality these people are the scariest you’ll ever encounter, they’re just scary people.
Max the Know better says: I know better than to often project, I am doing the practices, it’s not that I want no spirituality, I want what’s natural, like physical things rather than fantasy. Magic is evil: cursing people, turning people into animals, interfering with nature, it’s witchcraft, it’s weird shit. And I’m not listening to you badmouth science, science is true, it’s accurate, I just think cetology is a lie, it modifies the truth, and thinking reality is physical can cause problems, it makes you stupid, it slows your thinking. You think faster simply by not believing in matter, matter is evil, why is everyone assuming that your body is solid? In a way your body’s solid in the sense that it’s not liquid, but it’s also a thought creation, something you created yourself to be. Cetology is the belief that a whale’s not a fish, it’s a mammal, har har har har har! It’s a fucking fish! I discovered it, also black, white, and grey aren’t colors, if it has no hue it’s not a colour, that’s part of pragmatism, it makes it useful to not colour things in, it makes it useful to make things black and white, to distinguish it from brighter hues like green, blue and red. In reality I won’t have beliefs, not even belief in god, most people are scared when they believe, they’re afraid of evidence to the contrary, they’re scared to live, avoid suffering and all that, it’s right to wage war on belief, it’s seen as cowardice and difficult and painful to the people affected by a believer. Most science is an anti-belief, it’s the first anti-belief there is, before scepticism was denied by Socrates, he stood up for what he doubted, he doubted god and died over his atheism. It should be a right to doubt what you want, scepticism is still a belief. It paints me in a corner to be sceptical of everything you say I do, or say I am, I doubt it all. I’m not describing things I don’t know, I know I don’t know.
Max the shithead says: What I don’t know is the refusal to disbelieve the things to be believed, but I think of the brainwashing, religion has awesome power, and Leo is right on some things, it’s that strict as to dive right in, if there’s belief wars I rest my case.
Max Raoy Gron says: I think Leo’s correct in most things and correct about beliefs, but supposing I’m not a misologist, disbeliever in claims, or linguistic purist anymore, only Kierkegaard’s aesthetic life is the truth, this I continue to believe, most beliefs are sugar-coated lies, given that I have nothing left to believe, I’m on my own without these distractions. Given I’m sure I want to be religious, 94% certainty, it’s so, all my other beliefs are distractions from this one true belief.