Forest of Belief


In the forest of belief, where are the trails that bring one through? And to where do they bring one?

The odd belief that life is a jungle is a result of clashing energies of belief -- certainties that seek to devour each other like primeval lizards; belief against belief, right against right, wrong against wrong.

The fullness of pain that breeds this certainty about existence is the pain of unfeeling. "Unfeeling", once only an adjective for the insensitive, is now a verb, and adjective, and an adverb. It's meaning: to decline to experience; to ignore; to turn down the experience of a perception; to decline or refuse to see, know, sense or experience.

Thus to unfeel is the opposite of "experience fully" and summarizes resistance, ignorance, and the election of machinery over perception ( a popular way to discriminate against creations one can't tolerate, by swinging attention into a scramble of substitute creations.)

The more complex and involuted the level of experience, the more unfelt the other creations resting in consciousness at that moment. He who offers the most incomprehensible and complicated descriptions of his thoughts in explaining himself is the most unfeeling of actual creation; his explanations are layered denials each of which fends off a shadow of the one before it.

Who wins in the jungle? The lumberjack? Johnny Appleseed? Paul Bunyan? Mother Nature? The Little People?

In the forest of belief, oddly enough, they all do. There are no losers because it is a forest of belief The believer inherits the exact experience of his beliefs, whether he "prefers" them or not. In the forest of belief, they all win. The eater wins for having believed he would eat; the eaten wins for having believed he would be eaten. Each is awarded the full reward of his creation: his experience.

Each moment in the jungle is your prize for the creations that contribute to it. What are you winning a prize for now? What's the prize? "Now" is the prize, in every thread of the instant, for the superlative creative efforts of now.

If you would prefer a different reward, it can be easily arranged. Simply modify your own creation and the prize will transform before your very eyes.

# # #




Previous Essay / Next Essay / Table of Contents