I learned recently that the Germanic root of the word ‘believe’ literally means ‘to hold dear’ or ‘to love’. As it evolved into English, for many centuries the word ‘belief’ represented ‘faith’. It was used to describe our relationship to ideas that could not be ‘known’. To believe was to have a conviction of the truth of a proposition or alleged fact without knowledge. These days though, we tend only to ‘believe’ in things that can be ‘proven’.
What happens when the words we have to represent a way of relating to truth outside of proof or knowledge lose their meaning? I’ll tell you what happens:
We lose access to that relationship.
This is the insidious way that language creates our experience. Our choice is always subject to the meanings we have access to.
As I ‘believe’ that we cannot actually know anything, the best that we can do in favor of a thought then is to ‘love’ it. This is what it means to believe, after all.
What is the worth of BELIEVING? What is the purpose of BEING LOVING?
No matter what they are, all beliefs (be-loves) are virtuous in their favor. Another way of saying this is that our beliefs create a confirmation bias. When we look out at the world with a belief, we see more of that and evidence of that in the world.
If this is the case – if confirmation bias is unavoidable – it behoves us then to create beliefs that are loving.
When the thoughts we be-love have us see more of them in the world, we set ourselves up for a virtuous cycle of love experienced and seen.
This is the most coherent unfolding. This is the path of spirit. This is the way of the Tao. This is the trajectory of evolution. This is creation.
Love creates love creates love.
To BELIEVE is to BE LOVE.
CREATORS CIRCLE
April 2018 – March 2019
Space available. Inquire now.
*This photo was taken in front of Nadine Larder ‘s 11:11 masterpiece, just before my coaching session with Steve Hardison at his home in Mesa, Arizona.