Beliefs, Delusions, and the Mind’s ability to Perpetuate its Own Experiences
I’m not going to approach this idea from the conventional standpoint of attempting to describe the nature of beliefs, how we form them out of our conditioning, and the psychological process necessary for changing them, because a great deal has already been written on this subject. What I’m going to elaborate on instead is recognizing and coming to understand the power of our mind in first forming a belief as an ‘internal representation’ and then producing the ‘reality’ of the belief through our normal way of perceiving the world around us. As we integrate a particular belief back into the same system that acted to produce it, it becomes a natural part of our everyday reality. This natural power of our mind in being able to produce a physical effect based on an idea we assume to be true, has been demonstrated repeatedly through what’s called the ‘placebo effect’. These experiments demonstrate that when someone is given a medication that’s a placebo (inactive substance), while being told it will produce a specific effect, they will act to create the physical effect of whatever they were told it would do using their mind. Our innate ability to create the outer reality of our thoughts and beliefs come through our mind’s natural ability to organize the light (information) of our material world (matter is comprised of photons) into the construct of our belief as a mean’s of ‘experiencing’ it. One of the easiest ways to understand the true power of our mind in being able to construct our physical reality as a correlation to an internal representation developed on the inner planes of our mind, comes by exploring the fundamental nature of ‘perception’.
The most basic form of what’s referred to in Esoteric texts as ‘illusions’ (maya) created in place of actual (objective) reality that causes someone to get lost in a form of self-perpetuating fantasy, comes through a belief that’s formulated into a ‘mental filter’, or a dynamic series of correlated mental filters that form the basis of our ‘mental paradigm’ as our ‘lens of perception’. Our perception of reality is formed through our paradigm which serves as a filtering system for abstracting only the information available in any situation or set of circumstances that match our belief about it and can therefore be used as the building blocks for constructing it. Nowhere is the power of our mind more profoundly and simply demonstrated than in our natural ability to produce the reality of whatever it is we form a belief around. The energetic structure of our mind is formed as our ‘model of the world’, which vibrates at a specific ‘frequency’ and acts as an ‘organizing mechanism’ for restructuring the outer world to be a mirror image of our thoughts about it. This self-assembling ability of the mind works through sympathetic resonance to select only correlated bits of information inherent in the whole of reality, pull them to the foreground, and then arrange them into a corresponding theme (pattern), which it then animates with life as an ‘interpretation’ that forms the outer world to be of the same nature as the inner world.
A belief, like all things born out of the mind, doesn’t come as a single belief that operates in an independent and unrelated manner, it comes as a part of a dynamic system of beliefs, which are all harmoniously unified to function as a coherent whole. One belief is formed out of a dynamic ‘group of beliefs’ as a congruent part of the same system in much the same way an idea is developed into a potential reality in our imagination by thinking about it. As we think about an idea, we begin shaping it with attributes and qualities that give it specific characteristics. As we continue thinking about it, a chain-of-association spontaneously forms as a correlation to all other ideas of a similar nature that we use as the means for continuing to develop it by shaping it to be of a similar nature. We then continue to define the idea by how we adapt it to our current reality so that it becomes a natural part of our greater story. Our belief about something is formed out of the foundation of all our other beliefs where it’s shaped in relation with them as the means of intuitively integrating it so it can become a natural part of our reality in a way that makes sense. Once a belief is developed as a coherent part of our existing reality, it becomes self-fulfilling, self-perpetuating, and self-sustaining. We use it as the means for generating a consistent version of reality. Since we can perceive the reality of our beliefs, we don’t recognize them as being something we created and instead see them as an objective fact. Because our perception of reality is created in a completely natural and unconscious manner, we don’t realize how it is we’re creating our own personal version of reality as a means of experiencing ourselves through our own creation.
Duality forms a 3-Dimensional Reality of our Thoughts
One of the most basic errors we make in how we think about the nature of things comes when we approach everything outside of us as being separate and independent of us, instead of realizing that all of what we perceive as reality is formed as a coherent state. We throw duality into the equation as somehow meaning that we’re separate from everything around us and therefore have no part in shaping it, instead of realizing that duality (formed as polar opposites) is necessary in order to produce dimension through vibration. There’s no such thing as a ‘closed system’ that functions independently of everything else, or an incoherent thought forming out of a coherent mindset, and then somehow being magically perceived and maintained by it. Duality is necessary as the means of producing movement (friction) between two complementary aspects of the same thing (negative and positive poles) as a vibratory pattern. The light as essence that’s formed through the movement between opposite poles of the same idea, forms what we experience as reality (matrix of organized information). And it’s through this same process of polarity that we constantly act on our own mental construct as the means of growing and evolving it by how we adapt it to various situations to form new combinations that imbue it with new attributes and qualities to form novel configurations.
All our thoughts form as the offspring of our mental paradigm as fractal patterns birthed by a parent pattern and are always of the same nature as the whole that births them. Our mind operates according to the Holographic Principle where the part and the whole are of the same nature as a singularity. Our mind operates as a closed system of circulating energy that vibrates consistently at a specific rate, mode of consciousness, and frequency as a range of vibration (octave). Perception is formed as an emanation of consciousness that flows outward from a concentrated center, forming reality as a reflection of itself, and when it reaches the outer periphery of its energetic discharge, turns back on itself, reabsorbing the light that it served to modify, drawing it back into the center, where it’s synthesized into the paradigm from whence it emanated. By integrating our own creation as a variation of the same overall theme, we modify and upgrade our mental paradigm, evolving it according to the new information acquired. Once upgraded with new information the conscious energy is then projected outward again through a process of separation (extension) that’s really a form of regeneration, where it again forms a mirror image of itself as its environment and then reabsorbs it as an experience by coming back into a state of unity with itself. This idea is represented metaphorically by the mythological god Saturn, whose legend tells us ate his own offspring, and with the symbol formed out of the number ‘8’ as a continuous self-perpetuating system of complementary opposites.
We form the perception of separation, where we don’t realize we’re the one producing the very reality we perceive as ‘being out there’, apart from us, because this is the only way we have of ‘experiencing ourselves’. Yet the state we imagine to be apart from us as an outer reality is being projected by us as a natural function of our subconscious. Our subconscious is also what we call the group mind (collective unconscious) of the Earth’s Soul, and while many interpret this as meaning we’re all connected as one, it also means we’re the one producing our perception of reality, and of others as a part of that reality. We’re submerged within the sphere of the material plane as the mental construct of our subconscious where we create an experience of ourselves through our perception of others. We create ourselves through the reality that we project as a means of experiencing ourselves. We’re not just our body, as many believe, we’re creating our entire reality and every aspect ‘in it’ is a reflection of that same aspect ‘in us’, which is necessary as the means of experiencing that part of our Self. This doesn’t necessarily imply that others don’t exist outside of our ability to perceive them, but what it does mean in very definite terms is that we only see others as we remake them to be like us. We don’t see others as they truly are apart from us, but by looking through our myriad of mental filters that cancels out some aspects while amplifying others and reshaping them to conform to our beliefs about them. We transform everyone into our complementary opposite through our perception of them.
Unidentified Parts within the Whole – the Holographic Principle
Our mind, which is an inherent aspect of our soul, isn’t something that’s formed out of or emanates from our brain, as many have been taught, it’s a sphere of energy comprised of individual consciousness that envelopes, permeates, and acts to operate our brain and nervous system as our means of self-expression. Our mind also operates simultaneously on different levels, scales, and magnitudes to produce our entire outer reality in which we function and live out our life as a story we form out of what originates as a universal theme. While some have been taught to imagine this sphere of energy as only emanating a few feet from our body, it’s comprised almost entirely of subtle energy and not only emanates as far as we can perceive, but also serves as an active force throughout the sphere (atmosphere) of the entire material plane (Earth consciousness) where it functions through an organizing principle to produce corresponding patterns of its vibratory frequency. All vibration is formed out of an idea as a pattern or three-dimensional model (light body) coupled with life-force energy as magnetism that animates it with a personality and grows and evolves it through its own expression.
The mind functions through principles, and like principles, operates in the same way on all planes, levels, and scales of existence. It’s always the same creative process as a universal theme that’s played out through smaller patterns of an exclusive nature within larger patterns of an inclusive nature. It’s the same idea as a prototypal pattern formed as a theme being played out by smaller and larger groups of people that are of a similar conditioning and mindset. Much like concentric waves propagating across the surface of a pond, getting larger as they move away from the center, yet they’re all formed out of the same circle. The individual mind functions on a larger scale as the group mind, which functions within the collective (mass) consciousness of humanity, which functions within the cosmic mind of all life by telling different versions of the same type of stories. Each level is an essential part of all other levels, where one serves as the foundation necessary for others to naturally arise out of as a logical progression. The story that we all tell by how we live our life can only be told within a corresponding outer reality of a similar nature which sets the stage for us to act it out as a means of experiencing our own creation.
This idea is represented by the principles governing archetypes, which are all universal prototypes for combining in unique ways to form new possibilities as characters that all have a role in telling the same overall story, and as a result, are played out, one within the other, in a harmonious and congruent way. By learning how to operate our own mind according to Universal Principles we can decide which ‘role’ we want to play within the greater story of our own life. Once we decide what role we want to play in our own story we can work on ourselves to develop our character using archetypal ideas and embodying the qualities that make us ideal for playing that role naturally. When you learn how to operate your mind in a masterful way using principles of the mind, which are the same thing as Universal Principles that govern the entire universe, everything comes about through natural laws and in a completely natural way. When we work to create on the inner, mental planes by mastering our imagination as our will, it serves to give our subconscious mind a pattern along with a directive for creating as a reality. We only struggle to create when we don’t have a practical understanding of the principles that provide us with a kind of instruction manual for using our mind, and instead work against law as a result.
We’re constantly sending out and receiving information contained within our specific frequency as a range of possibilities for constructing a coherent and cohesive reality. We can only consciously form an awareness and knowledge of what can be produced, described, explained, and justified using our paradigm. Our paradigm is the energetic matrix of our mind and operates according to the Holographic Principle on multiple dimensions by propagating a series of fractal patterns as mirror images of itself through the etheric medium of the mind as it exists on multiple levels simultaneously. It then perceives itself through an outer reality as the means of experiencing itself. Experience is formed by how we interpret what we’re perceiving to give it meaning, and the type of story that naturally results from the meaning of our interpretation. Our mind only tunes into and acts to conceive of ideas that are congruent and correlated with our model of the world and can be used as the elements for constructing the same type of world as a variation. While we can easily produce a significant number of variations that seem different from each other as somehow being unique, they all still hold true to the same overall theme. A theme acts as the meaning that forms our life-story played out consistently through how we associate and identify with our own self-made experiences.
We can easily form a practical understanding of this idea by realizing how it is that we first form our experiences, and then translate them into beliefs about ourselves. Our beliefs, like the memories that shape them, aren’t formed out of the actual physical events or situation, but rather by how it is that we interpret them to create how we experience them. We form our experiences by the meaning we give things and the story we tell ourselves about them as a result. The story we form becomes a kind of theme we use as the means of shaping all our experiences to be of a similar nature. When someone interprets emotional charged events to mean they’re not wanted, for example, not being wanted becomes a theme they use for interpreting all events and situations of a similar nature to mean the same thing. It becomes a filter they look through to perceive in any situation only what can be used to tell that story and shape all their basic experiences in a way that tells that story. They will interpret any set of behaviors, no matter how well intended, to mean they’re not wanted. They go into every situation with an expectation and attitude of that being the basis and the outcome, and as a result, consistently experience themselves as not being wanted by others.
Energetic Entanglement and the Nature of Polarity
This idea of an archetypal metaphor as a mental state naturally forming a specific type of reality as a life-theme can easily be understood as the Holographic Principle which acts as an organizing mechanism that works primarily through resonance. This same idea moves between higher and lower planes (parallel dimensions) through the principle known as Energetic Entanglement, which operates through the relationship and activity generated by polarity. The same pattern that we use to form our identity also forms the life stage in which we play out our life story as the means of gaining knowledge of ourselves, which only comes through direct experience. We can only truly know what we have experienced. All true knowledge is acquired through self-knowledge and is received directly by becoming one with an idea in essence. We become one with an idea by entering into it mentally (energetically), becoming one with it where we perceive ourselves as being it, or by taking on a quality that when expressed by us as a way of being brings us a new and different experience of ourselves.
The Holographic Principle is a fundamental principle of the mind which describes how it functions as a both a part (particle) within a greater whole of the same nature (waveform), and simultaneously as the whole in which the part is a fundamental aspect and experiences itself in association with the theme inherent in the whole. The part and the whole are of the same nature, comprised of the same pattern as a 3-dimensional model (infrastructure) as an idea (archetypal matrix) that’s ‘thematic in nature’, and function together in a congruent manner as a single, coherent state. The part is metaphorical in nature and is of the same frequency and thematic pattern as the whole in which it expresses and has its life as a natural aspect. This relationship can be easily understood when you realize that to tell a particular story as a type of experience, you have to also have the proper outer conditions as the reality in which that story naturally plays out. Our mind isn’t ‘of’ the material plane and just creating and maintaining our body, it’s the means through which we’re creating our whole reality. Our reality ‘exists within’ our mind. The outer and the inner, just like the upper and lower, are polar opposites of each other. When one changes states or moves, the other follows suit instantaneously as a mirror image, not through a pathway in which a form of communication takes place, but because they are the same thing. They’re the same ‘mental state’ as a vibratory frequency that’s a part of both the smaller (lower plane or particle) and greater (higher plane as a wave) reality of the same nature and essence. The outer is a continuation of the inner. They’re both comprised of the same organized field of information.
All variations are produced through projections where we ‘act on ourselves’ (same field as a state) in another, forming an interference pattern as an energetic fusion of complementary opposites. This can be understood by conceptualizing the process used for making a hologram, where a single beam of coherent light is split into two beams, and one is refracted by a mirror to form a ray of scattered light that’s impressed with an image, while the other is deflected as the original light, scattered to form a ray also, and both are then reunited with each other and infused, forming an interference pattern as a hologram. Our mind is impressed with a 3-D reality in our imagination, and that reality as an internal representation is then used as a thematic template (perceptual filters and lens) that’s projected outward forming a corresponding three-dimensional reality on a much larger scale. The 3-D reality produced outwardly from an internal image that serves as a metaphor, is then perceived by the conscious mind as a correlated theme, which is then reabsorbed and translated into a memory of itself. The new memory is synthesized back into the greater memory (internal representation) that birthed it as a correlation, and over time are built-up through an accumulative process that grows and evolves it through indigenous variations that are all of the same theme, metaphor, and identity.
Memory, like the belief it’s formed out of, is also singular in nature and works by forming a mental filter as a lens we look through to form our perception of reality. We tend to think that we have a whole bunch of memories, only some of which are related to each other, but memory is formed out of our perceptions of the events of our life and how we interpret those events to give them meaning. As we form a memory of an emotionally intense event, it becomes a kind of core memory as a parent pattern that functions as a theme and serves as the means for birthing a multitude of correlated memories. A memory is formed as a representation or metaphorical template for instantly producing more realities of the same nature. As we encounter various new situations, we’re constantly referencing our memories of past events that were similar in nature, and when we find one, we pull it up in our mind, and use it as a perceptual lens for producing an instant interpretation of the present event by making it mean the same thing as the past event. In this way we use one memory to shape another memory to be of a similar theme, and as we process our experiences, we synthesize them back into the core memory they evolved out of, upgrading it accordingly. We use one memory to produce an infinite number of similar memories, and we accumulate and build up the same type of experiences over the course of our lifetime.
Reality is a Paradox Born out of Complementary Opposites
A belief isn’t formed out of an objective, factual event or set of circumstances, it’s formed as the meaning we give them by how we interpret them. Many people make statements like ‘I’ll believe it when I see it’, which is an oxymoron, because we only see what we believe exists. When we view life, which is in fact a projection of our own mind, as being separate and apart from us in the objective sense, we’re constantly caught up in what seems like an irreconcilable paradox. We fail to recognize in the most basic sense that our mind and the reality produced by it through our perception, is a unified whole as a coherent state in which every aspect of it reflects the whole. It’s not about attempting to identify what aspect of our reality is a belief and what’s not (as if we could), it’s about recognizing that it’s our ‘mind’ that’s producing all of it. We pull apart two aspects that make up a single whole, and pose one against the other, defending one by how it exists in contrast to itself in the other, and as a result, we stay locked within a delusion of our own making. We abstract a part from the whole that birthed it and make it into a whole in itself, while imagining its independent of the system we abstracted it from that birthed and sustained it.
We take an idea as a seed for reality, and as we begin thinking about it, we steadily define it by shaping it with specific attributes and qualities, forming it into a sensory reality as an internal experience of it. Experience comes through a synchronized process of stimulus-response that gives rise to a confluent effect. As we shape an idea in our mind by imbuing it with certain qualities and characteristics, it determines how it functions as a mode of consciousness and naturally behaves as a part of the greater system within which it was formed. As we focus on an idea and develop it with sensory characteristics it comes alive inside our mind and works through the nervous system to stimulate the energetic centers correlated with the endocrine glands, generating equivalent hormones as chemical messengers that act to regulate our state by generating and giving rise to complementary emotions. The idea formed in our mind as a hologram (mental construct) acts to invoke a corresponding emotion that animates it with life and determines how it expresses to form a specific type of experience. We are not the thought or emotion itself, we’re the Soul that’s generating them as a combination of thought, feeling, and emotion organized as a relationship between complementary aspects of our self.
How we Program Our Subconscious as a Request for Experience
As we build an idea into a thought-form by adapting it to our personal model, we modify it into a new possibility that’s unique to us as a personal creation. We form the idea as a pattern out of our essence (mind-stuff), resulting in a kind of light-body as a etheric blueprint that’s magnetized with our soul’s signature as our vibratory frequency. The reformation makes it congruent as a natural part of our outer world. We magnetize it by infusing it with sensation that stimulates the nerve centers of our body to produce an equivalent emotion as the chemistry of our body. The emotions become the animating force that brings it to life by causing it to vibrate at the frequency of the idea as a pattern where it acts as a template for organizing the outer essence to be of the same mental construct as the inner through energetic sympathy. Vibration as a living pattern works through polarity as resonance, where the vibration created on the inner plane organizes the light-matrix of the outer plane to vibrate in harmony with it. The life-energy infused in the mental-idea is projected outwards where it enters into (is absorbed by) all other particles of light that are complementary to it and can act to conceive it and produce it’s offspring as a correlating idea, and they begin resonating harmoniously as a coherent state. The idea exists on the inner plane as a symbolic idea in the form of an image, picture, or scenario, where it can be easily adapted through a chain of association to form a corresponding idea of the same kind and type, and sets the stage necessary for acting the idea out as an experience.
As we bring an idea to life on the inner planes by magnetizing it with sensation as an experience, the image is imprinted on our subconscious mind as a pattern for structuring the outer reality to be the stage and background for playing the idea out as an experience that bridges the inner with the outer. In much the same way a single concentrated beam of light (field of coherent energy) is split into two beams, where one is imprinted with the image as a thematic pattern, and the primary one that doesn’t contain an image is then merged back into itself where it acts to form the image into a 3-dimensional reality, and together, they lay the groundwork for experiencing the idea. The outer is a reflection of the inner, which means it’s the opposite aspect necessary to experience the inner aspect through relating and contrasting. This is where many get confused in terms of how we act to create our experiences, which are always experiences of our self. Not as a physical being looking out at disjoined material circumstances, but as a state of mind that give rise to thoughts imbued with qualities and feelings that naturally give birth to reality as the experience of our thoughts.
We create our life story based out of meaning and meaning forms themes for certain types of experience. If we perceive ourselves as being good, we have to enter into relationship with our complementary opposite as bad to compare and define ourselves as the opposite. Our idea of what bad means is defined simultaneously by what we imagine good to be. They’re both polar opposites of the same thing, and each is shaped by how it exists in relationship with the other, and one serves to define and give life to the other. Opposites act to shape each other through relating and contrasting. As I form a relationship with what I deem to be bad, it stimulates all the same qualities within me, bringing them into an active state. I can only create myself to be the opposite by choosing not to allow the traits and behaviors associated with bad to take hold within me and begin determining my thoughts and actions. By comparing myself in relation to bad, I can define myself as it’s opposite, and make decisions that simultaneously culminate good and take the actions necessary to become the expression of goodness.
If I desire to develop myself as being courageous by first forming an image of myself as such, I act to naturally attract and engage in situations that invoke fear and tempt me with cowardice, which is the opposite of courage. I must remain aware of what’s happening inside of me when I feel afraid so I can choose to be courageous instead, and step into my fears with a sense of determination and confidence. So as soon as I decide to develop the quality of courage, I also become a magnet for situations that make me feel afraid because it’s only through feeling afraid that I can also experience courage. This is why a victim always acts to attract and is attracted to those who will act to victimize them. Otherwise, they can’t create themselves by telling a story about being a victim. If we have low self-worth and harbor feelings of inferiority, we always end up in relationship with those who treat us in a way that fosters and validates our feeling of inferiority. Whatever belief we form about ourselves we act to naturally form the reality of our belief by consistently engaging in various relationships with people who will naturally play a complementary role in creating the same type of experience with us. Those who won’t play a supporting role, we’re not attracted to and usually have no interest in, or as soon as we get into a relationship with them, we act in ways that are designed to naturally provoke and bring out the behaviors we need them to display in order to sustain our beliefs about ourselves.
We form a joint reality of the same idea as a shared theme with those who compliment us energetically through shared qualities and characteristics that act to naturally play out the same story. If we remain in an unconscious state within our own life, feeling as if we have no control over who we become and what happens to us because we’re always reacting to the behaviors of others and the circumstances that we’ve been unwillingly cast into, then we simply play out the beliefs formed through our formative conditioning from an unaware state. We honestly don’t know any better and fail to realize in the most basic sense that we have the power to change our life by learning how to control our own thoughts and emotions. Once we begin realizing at some point along the way that we have the innate ability to create our self and our life experiences, we begin identifying with our true self as our higher soul, which exists as a higher level of consciousness, and we step outside of the delusions of our beliefs altogether, and no longer act on ourselves to validate them by building our reality out of them.
Dr. Linda Gadbois
Transpersonal Psychologist, Integrative Mind-Body Medicine, and Spiritual Mentor