A belief system can be defined as a series of ideas that we hold to be true based on personal experience and that have been tested sufficiently to be considered viable. We base our conceptions of the nature of reality on these systems.
From the very first moments of life, the biocomputer of the body/mind begins to amass, identify, and classify data pertaining to the events occurring in our surrounding environment. Experiential data provides the framework through which belief systems are developed, tested, and verified.
Firsthand experience of life and the integration of that experience teaches us the survival skills we need to learn to be able to find our way through life. Our ideas of who we are and of what we are capable of achieving are based largely on firsthand experience, as well as information we have gathered from our parents and other family members during our early childhood. As beings, we may be conceived and born with unlimited potential and an open consciousness, but the process of socialization to which we are all necessarily subjected as infants very quickly begins to define our limits, spatially as well as behaviorally. Well before we begin to walk and talk, we have an established place in the family hierarchy—personality traits and idiosyncrasies, ancestral strengths and weaknesses, a gender advantage or disadvantage, and a host of other sociopsychological influences to which we have been exposed and to which we have unconsciously responded.
From the very beginning of our lives, we are taught to believe that we are a certain person, with a particular name and a personality to match, who will be capable of achieving or not achieving certain goals and aspirations. Depending on the social milieu into which we are born, the limitations we face will be more or less severe, and our chances of succeeding to become someone with whom we can be satisfied will be largely determined by the conditioning we have undergone.
Given that a large majority of human beings do not really believe in themselves and are not aware of themselves as a being with the creative power to shape and transform their world, most people do not believe that it is possible to change. Parents in our world do not often teach their children about the power of their minds, nor do they teach them about their light nature, their healing capacities, and their intuitive gifts. Thanks to parents, children are educated to respect the behavioral limits so necessary to the functioning of family and society.
Thanks to education, we are taught to use the intellectual capacity of our minds to think, read, write, and analyze. However, most of us have never been taught about the creative power of the mind. We have never heard our parents discuss the philosophy that thought is creative. It is only once we are adults, functioning as independent members of society, that we really begin to become aware of how many of our behaviors, habits and attitudes are inherited from our parents, and that these habits can be destructive and cause suffering, both to ourselves and to others.
When we begin to pay attention to our behavior, we observe that we react rather than respond to situations. We often sabotage ourselves from having what we really need and want. We often seem to act according to a type of “automatic pilot” behavior. Without thinking, we speak; without reflecting, we act; without looking, we assume to see; without listening, we reply. Many people spend their entire lives being the person they think they should be, without ever really asking themselves the question: “Who am I?”; without ever asking the question: “What do I need?”; without ever asking themselves: “Where am I going?”
When we begin to pay attention to our habitual behavior, we quickly discover that we cause ourselves great suffering, very often for no discernible reason. We often have ideas about ourselves which are negative and limiting. We have these same ideas about others and about life.
The ideas, attitudes, and belief systems we hold form a type of selective criteria or filter, through which we perceive and experience reality. The experiences we have confirm to us that our attitudes are correct, and so our belief systems are verified and reinforced. Unfortunately, many of the beliefs do not really serve us and can, in fact, be harmful to our well-being and peace of mind.
Belief systems inherited from the family or developed when we are youngsters, do not have a true value for us now, even though they continue to function through our habitual behavior and form an intrinsic part of our social personality. Because thoughts are essentially creative, we continue unconsciously to give life to our belief systems, regardless of whether or not they are ultimately useful.
By developing our intuition, we begin to pay attention to the quality of the thoughts we have, both on a conscious and an unconscious level. By accepting the possibility that thought is creative, we naturally begin to explore the thoughts that we hold within ourselves—thoughts about who we are, thoughts about others, and thoughts about the nature of life, of reality, of evolution, and of spiritual development. In exploring the quality of our belief systems and mental attitudes, we begin to identify beliefs which are ancestral, familial, social, and personal. With growing lucidity and discernment, we transform inherited belief systems that cause low self-esteem, failure, fear, and mistrust, replacing them with preferred attitudes of self-acceptance, encouragement, and trust. Learning to differentiate between our essential selves and our personalities, we let go of habitual behavior patterns that restrain us from being ourselves and adopt inner attitudes that encourage the expression of our innate creativity and talents.