Puzzle Pieces: The Source of All Distortion

[Louisabell]

The overall message is that each belief we make our own contains a framework for experience which we can use until it is used up.  At that point, we need to let it go and find a different restrictive belief structure to explore.

I find this a very fruitful concept.  On the one hand, it honours the long term process of seeking that which is less distorted than what one's understanding currently embraces.  On the other hand, it guides those of us who have cycled through numerous levels of ideation and belief to let go of all of it, thus allowing the next cycle to begin afresh.  This allows the subsequent cycle of exploration to be fully commensurate with one's being, rather than experiencing conflict with that of which one has trouble releasing.

In other words, as one's capacity to embrace a larger point of view emerges, one's ability to accept this and release the prior limitations must also adjust proportionally.  As the above example suggests, this adjustment may be more delayed than one might expect.

Sure, although many beliefs appear to be serviceable enough on an indefinite basis as long as one continues to ignore those experiential items (which inevitably emerge) that conflict with said belief. So I would expand on this by saying that the capacity to embrace a larger point of view, that you speak of, is really a function of a person's willingness/curiosity to take on new information, fortitude to withstand the discomfort of cognitive dissonance and the dogged persistence to see it through to the other side. Especially so when having to pull the belief in question out from the depths of the subconscious in order to examine it in the light of the conscious mind. A larger point of view would be inevitable in this situation, as there is one less distortion to see the world through.

On the other hand, a person could come across a new thought-form in their travels which looks and feels mighty cosy and inviting. That person then choosing to adopt this thought-form as a belief of their own. I can't speak to the potency of a belief which is adopted in this way, but it may serve an important function in the moment by pulling one out of a slump, and act as a much needed saving grace, but in time, this belief like all others, must also face the meat-grinder of experiential fire. 

A loss of belief can equate to a loss of identity. I think it takes a while before the self relinquishes the need to scramble to find a new sense of identity when coming upon a virgin landscape of expanded perception after a previous form of identity was lost... until perhaps belief just becomes what everything else is to the adept, a tool that is fitted and unfitted at will for the purposes of service and nothing more... total guess. Can there be perception without belief even? 

I find this concept you raise fruitful as well, thanks.