Experiencing What You Believe

One of my former teachers once said, “We don’t think ourselves into a new way of living, we live ourselves into a new way of thinking”.  The great teacher, Buddha, said, “Believe what you experience”.  It’s been my experience of life that we often start with an answer and then we create a question.  We want things a certain way so we try to manipulate reality to match our desires.  Such manipulation may get us what we want but the side effects can be damaging.  Rarely do we just let life unfold.  The fact that it’s done that for millions of years doesn’t seem to deter us in our desire to be in control.  Most of us try to live according to whatever belief systems we have chosen to embrace.  How would life be different if we believed according to what we have experienced or we truly experienced what we believe?  If you’ve never experienced love, it’s difficult to believe in it.  If all you’ve experienced is hatred, it is difficult to believe there is anything else.  However, the idea of love can give you hope for a better life as well as the desire to seek it out.  As always, it’s about balance.  We need something to believe in but we also need to experience our beliefs so we do not lose our foundation in life.  If we never truly experience what we believe in order to support and strengthen our beliefs, they will eventually fall by the wayside.  Belief must be balanced with the experience of what we believe.