How to Know What Belief to Question – Part 2

Our Built-In Alert Mechanism

We have a built-in mechanism that tells us we are attaching to a belief: it is called pain. When we experience mental stress as the result of attaching to a wrong belief, we know we are to inquire into that belief in order to experience freedom from it. At the root of all of our emotions, I believe, is a stressful thought; without the thought - there would be no emotional response other than the love of God and the peace and joy that it brings. In reality, our stressful thoughts are likely to be the product of not just one, isolated thought, but a whole network of interrelated thoughts: what is known in Psychology as complexes.

The Work is not a Principle

Byron Katie says that The Work is not a principle to follow - she says that The Work is the mind: we are working with the way that the mind works in order to undo all of the thoughts that we attach to - the thoughts that cause our suffering. Byron Katie believes that all suffering in the world is due to our stressful thoughts. Without the beliefs that we attach to things - there would be no pain and no suffering. This concept elicits resistance in a lot of people - perhaps because they want to hold onto the myth that something good can come from attaching to harmful beliefs – as if people would go unpunished if we were to do so and that justice would not be done.

The Power of Unforgiveness

The mind believes that if forgives someone - that person will go unpunished. But we are the ones that experience the punishment when we refuse to let go of harmful thoughts. This concept of holding-up a sense of unfairness simply keeps a person in a painful world was they see themselves as victims and other people as perpetrators. But without the beliefs to hold-up the concept of what is fair and unfair - there would be no more separation, judgementalism and no more suffering.

Surrender to Love by Letting go of Fear

In this condition we are not completely defenceless: it just means that we substitute our own limited and painful fear for God's perfect love. When we surrender to love we experience peace and joy; we also find that love enables our life to flow more effortlessly and things tend to happen when and how they should. It is our own fear, caused by attaching to wrong beliefs, which simply get in the way of God.