The Prison of Belief

Yes, belief is a prison because it cripples you and therefore deprives you of your individuality. It is only when you doubt, enquire, explore and experience that you can be free, thus be an individual. The same applies to disbelief. Before you disbelieve, ask yourself whether you have enquired or explored adequately or whether it is just by listening to others or out of fear that you have closed yourself.

Children are taught to believe, especially in matters of religion. Some religions do not tolerate doubt and enquiry, you simply have to believe. This is very dangerous. Such religions exploit you through your ignorance and fear. They make you ignorant and fearful so that you can be exploited and controlled. Experience, doubt and spirit of enquiry make you a rebel. And society, religious leaders and those who are at the top feel threatened by rebels; therefore, they seek to cripple you right from childhood.

Life is to be explored. Scientists do explore, but theirs is a wrong start. You have to start by yourself first - they do the opposite. By exploring the exte
al world, you no doubt get much knowledge. But by going inside, that is, by exploring the mind, heart and body, you get self-knowledge. Without it you are really ignorant, however much you may be knowledgeable in relation to the exte
al world.

Religion is nothing but the exploration of the inner world, while science is that of the exte
al world. Science leads to duality while religion to oneness. Belief kills the rebellious and revolutionary spirit in people and that is to the advantage of the rich, the politicians and the stupid religious leaders. In India, people have been taught that children are gifts from God and this has led to a great increase in population, resulting in dire poverty. No one questions this belief. In Muslim countries, belief has lead to widespread terrorism. Recruits are made to believe that by blowing up buildings, vehicles and innocent people, paradise is assured for them.

If children were taught to question, doubt and experience, terrorism would not exist. Parents have down the ages taught their children to believe, not to question, doubt or reason. They feel annoyed when they are questioned by their children; their ego is hurt because they are ignorant. Some give bookish knowledge or their own opinion so as not to appear stupid or ignorant. They do not have the guts or humility to admit that they do not know. No wonder, because they have not experienced their true self.

Priests teach belief mixed with doubt. By this, I mean that deep down they doubt, but they are not courageous enough to declare it. They even suppress it out of fear. So they teach beliefs based on words from their scriptures and that too, distorted, translated and often misinterpreted versions, not the original ones.

We should help children and adults alike to think deeply, not to believe blindly. Thought is universal, therefore we should see to it that it does not get tarnished by our emotions, selfishness and religious beliefs. Of course, thought has its limitation, but it can certainly help develop our minds to a great extent. Moreover, without using our thinking power to its fullest, it may not be possible to take the quantum leap into the no-thought realm. That is another state of the mind from where intuition and inspiration are born.

In the past, there were schools of thoughts where people were trained into thinking, reasoning and the art of logic. Today such institutions are inexistent. Thought should be like the light of a torch in darkness; it should be unobstructed by our unconsciousness and other conditionings. With thought, however, there is the danger of going astray. This is why we should learn to be honest, objective and detached, and only meditation can bring that state of mind or being. Clear and right thinking happens only when the artificial mind is transcended. The intense wish to change and meditation can help do that. However, first one should have the humility to acknowledge ignorance and have the determination to change. Therein lies the manliness of man or rather of human beings.

Indeed, great courage is needed to accept one’s ignorance. By so doing, the ego gets a big blow and that is the first step towards self-knowledge. The ego has not only to be struck but also completely transformed. Then alone is total freedom possible. Hence, I say that freedom is for the brave, for the one who accepts he is not free, but presently the slave of the lower mind, which is the ego.