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We are entering the most turbulent, most exciting, most challenging and most critical times in human history. We have reached a paradoxical stage in our evolution. Our development is now threatening our continued survival. And behind this global crisis is an inner, psychological crisis. For all that we have created has come from human thinking- and it is to human thinking therefore that we should look if we are to find the heart of the problem.

We have become caught in the belief that the material world – the world that we observe through the senses – is the most important part of our reality. And caught in the belief that if we are to find the happiness we seek, it is to this world that we should look. If we are not happy, we must get our surroundings to change. Have people take more notice of us. Create a more secure future for ourselves. Be in control of things . Gather the things that we believe will bring us peace of mind.

This material mind-set lies at the root of our love of money – and remember it is our love of money that Timothy (1, 6:10) declares to be the root of all evil, not money itself- for money gives us the means to exchange what we have for the promise of greater happiness. It is this material mind-set that leads us to treat each other as enemies, poison the air we breathe, carelessly eliminate other species that share our planet and plunder the resources of the living Earth. We exploit the world searching for fulfilment that is at best an illusion.

We seem to have forgotten that whether or not we are happy inside is as much a function of how we see the world as it is of the way the world is. It is a question of how we interpret what we see and how we judge it. For if we judge what we see to be a threat to our well-being, we will make ourselves upset. It is by learning to let go of our attachments to such judgements we are able to be at peace, no matter how the world may be.

Strange as it might seem, belief is the antithesis of spiritual development. Through our beliefs we fix onto a particular perspective of reality. It is not yet ‘seeing is believing‘ so much as that we see what we believe. We tend to filter out those facets of reality that disagree with our own view of how things are. And in doing so we miss the whole. Yet has not spiritual growth always been an awareness of the whole – an expansion of our awareness?

To free our mind of its constraints is, and always has been, the essence of spiritual development. It tries to help us to let go of our attachments – all the things that we cling to, and all the ideas that we cling to. Yet paradoxically – as well as sadly – this need for security leads us to turn the very means of liberation into yet another belief. We turn our spiritual discoveries into doctrines and dogmas. We create a church.

To paraphrase the Buddha, “Do not believe because I have told you it is so. Only when what I say accords with your own experience should you believe.” For inner awakening is a matter of stepping back from beliefs and assumptions. It is about seeing reality as it is, not through the lens of preconception.

This is why spiritual teachings have time and again sought to help us break free from our prejudices and assumptions – break free from our belief that it is through material salvation that we will find the inner peace we seek – break free from the boundaries of our ego.

Belief is a function of the ego, not of our true self. The true self has no need of belief; it knows itself as it is. Awakening is about letting go of any attachments we might have to our beliefs – however spiritual such beliefs might be – and experiencing ourselves as we are.

This is the ‘new age’ that we all truly aspire to. Not a new age founded upon some new set of beliefs – a new set of religious doctrines and dogmas – but an age in which our minds are free from prejudices and our hearts are free from judgement. Such an age would indeed be new.

Our thanks to Resurgence & Ecologist magazine for permission to re-print this article.