A Non-Dual Perspective of Belief [Advanced]

Yoga is for seekers, not believers. Make no mistake about it.

There is some linguistic drift around the word “belief,” as it is often used interchangeably with supporting a cause or ideal, as in “I believe in universal healthcare,” or “I believe in gay marriage,” which is not what I’m referring to here. For the purposes of this article, when I say “belief” I’m referring to the broader tendency of our egos to arrive at conclusions about things that are not yet under our direct experience. The abandoning of belief structures is a central idea in Advaita Vedanta and other non-dual yogic sciences. And because non-dual philosophy runs counter to virtually every basic assumption ever promulgated in the Western mind, most of what I am putting forth here may seem aloof, valueless, provocative or even hostile. But if you are willing to plant a seed from this teaching let it be this:

Belief is not knowledge, wisdom, intelligence or the means through which we become more conscious. It is in fact quite the opposite.

Notice how no one claims belief in trees or mountains or the sky. These phenomena present themselves as true to their own form and require no further conceptualization to hold their place in our collective experience of them. By contrast, belief is nothing but conceptualization. It is the ego’s way of surviving its own identity structure through the compulsive repetition of thought, so much so that it embeds in the mind like hardened sediment at the bottom of a lake, unmovable by even the strongest currents. Belief is a contracted state of cognition whereby one’s life is experienced through a fixed lens of perception— A rigid scaffolding of socially ingrained ideas, notions, emotions and concepts. Belief is a survival tactic born of the unconscious and acts as a barrier to spiritual growth. This is why I say yoga is the domain of seekers, not believers.

Sadhguru describes belief as “bullshitting yourself into thinking you know something you do not know.” He says one does this because “they are afraid to acknowledge that they do not know what they do not know.” He admonishes the Western adages around “believing in oneself,” as these forms of belief just add another layer of delusion to the fear. He goes further to say that “belief imparts a certain confidence of which we should be wary, for what we’re really looking for in our beliefs is clarity. Confidence instills a false sense of clarity, which yields disastrous consequences.” It’s not difficult to find examples of this, not just throughout history but well within our own life experience.

A quote from the philosopher Terence McKenna:

Belief is an incredible cop-out on intellectual truth seeking because it precludes believing in its opposite. With belief you end up becoming your own con.

This is a very important thing to understand, however paradoxical it may seem.

In pop psychology there is the common notion of “limiting” or “self-limiting beliefs,” implying that there are spectrums of belief that can be adopted to either hinder one’s growth, or presumably to fuel it. From the standpoint of non-dual philosophy as laid out in the yogic sciences, all beliefs have a limiting factor, even those that on the surface appear to be “good,” or that embrace a growth mindset and contribute to some notion of human progress or the fulfillment of humanist agendas. This idea of belief— not as virtuous but as an inhibitor to self transformation, is a completely contrarian idea and difficult for the Western mind to grasp, as there is an emphasis from a very early age on the importance of belief structures to help preserve cultural myths, traditions, values, ideologies, survival strategies, etc. Just listen to how often people use the word belief in their everyday speech, as in “I believe____,” and you will see how deeply ingrained it is.

Belief is so indissoluble from Western religion that when one is referred to as a “believer” it is assumed this person has an unshakable faith in God. The reason why people “believe” in God, as opposed to being content within the felt presence of God has more to do with the cognitive structure of one’s mind than the content of any belief therein. The more contracted one’s mind, the more one is given to belief and conceptualization as felt presence seems an inadequate mode of religious experience because it has yet to find connection with the source (or Higher Self), which actually is incapable of being realized at lower levels of cognitive development. It’s ironic to then see belief structures as the primary obstacle to experiencing higher states of consciousness, when prior to this realization belief is largely thought to be the most direct path towards higher consciousness. However once one moves into higher states of consciousness the cognitive structures supporting one’s belief begin to dissolve. This process is what would in theory evolve one away from priestcraft and towards mysticism— or away from belief and towards recognition. Another way to describe this ascent would be a cognitive shift that moves one beyond rational and intellectual stages of development into the post-rational intuitive stages. Yoga by definition is a post-rational, non-dual cognitive state. It does not come naturally. One has to direct their energies higher to experience it.

Converse to this is the proud atheist, who is a believer as well though few of them seem aware of it. Atheists tend to think they are so high-minded and intellectually superior because they see past the illogical, pre-rational trappings of religion and God worship. They believe if everyone would just hurry up and align themselves around the infallible ideals of Cartesian logic and deductive reasoning then the long awaited prophecy of Techno Libertarianism v1.0 will hit store shelves to finally relieve us of all world’s ills. This is a grand delusion that needs to be called out. This is how a belief structure can allow the materialist atheist to pat himself on the back with one hand for a job well done while simultaneously destroying the environment with the other hand and not see the causality between the two.

At higher states of consciousness, the underlying cognitive structure of the God-fearing believer and the Logic-worshipping atheist leave very little to distinguish, as only the content of their mind differs, as in I believe in God, I believe there is no God. I believe I am right. I believe you are wrong. The structure of one’s mind is a far greater index of one’s character than the content said structure holds. Once you understand how cognitive structure reveals itself in the human psyche you will see the content it fills with is actually quite predictable. Yet we only recognize and seize upon the content of one’s mind, never the structure. If we were to look more at the structure of our minds, the God-fearing believers could perhaps recognize that which is preventing them from having a direct experience with God, which presumably is what they seek with their firmly held beliefs. And then conversely the Logic-worshipping rationalist atheist materialist positivist skeptic might achieve some glimpse of enlightenment once they come to recognize just how similar they are to the religious people they look down upon.

I don’t use the word God relative to my own teachings because it is freighted with so much baggage as to sound trivial, but know a true yogi is seeking to experience the source of creation, and to that end belief just gets in the way, much in the same way as construction scaffolding prevents one from seeing clearly the building underneath. At varying points in your yoga practice your belief structures will be up for re-examination, and the deeper you get into your practice the sooner you will see the freedom that comes with abandoning said structures as they will no longer serve you. Once you become conscious enough to rise beyond the limitations of belief a new domain of possibility will emerge, and it is within this new dimension of intelligence that you will find what you didn’t know you sought.

Namaskaram to you all.