How would you feel when you believe you are intelligent. Obviously, the answer is great! On the other hand, how would you feel when you believe you are stupid? What about when you believe your parents abandoned you when you are young? Do you observe a consistent pattern occurring in beliefs? All beliefs make us feel.
What kind of believes do we have? I am ugly, I am beautiful, I am thin, I am useless, I am, I am, I am… . ALL “I am” are beliefs about yourself. In other words, any views you buy into become a part of your beliefs.
Is there any possibility that your consciousness has a limiting space for beliefs, like somekind of limiting hardisk? Definitely not. And so there is a potentially, millions, or even countless of beliefs residing in your consciousness hardisk. Each file of beliefs has subcategory files of believes. For instance “I am thin” – I am a thin ugly guy, I am not heavy enough, I am unhealthily thin, I should not be thin etc. So imagine the numerous ideas that strengthen the believes that makes me think I am that.
Now if your hardisk space is unlimited, then it is possible to speculate that the so-called you, is infinite. It is like saying beyond all creations there are mere potentialities, which is infinite by nature. Each creation becomes a limit in itself thus projecting a meaning of finiteness.
Remember the verse quote in the Tao- te-ching:
The tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be named
is not the eternal Name.
Beliefs arise from all the ideas I held on to that nails me down to finiteness. When I work with beliefs that frees me from the tyranny of mental bondage, I free myself from the imprisonment of mind and body. Before I can reach the light at the end of the tunnel, my only work is to recognize ideas that binds me and doing so frees me from the bondage of those ideas. It is so paradoxical – using illusion to leads me out of illusion. All beliefs are illusion and yet it is the illusion that leads me out of it.