It is common to confuse belief with faith, and with knowledge. There are big differences. Knowledge comes from experience. Belief comes from the lack of it, or in denial of it. If you believe something, then you don’t know it. You know that something is a belief when you are compelled to defend it, prove it.

Beliefs always exist in opposite pairs. A belief exists to counter an underlying, much subtler, usually hidden opposite belief.

If you believe deep inside that you are weak, then you spend a lot of time trying to prove to yourself and others that you are strong. You think that by creating this new belief, by feeling strong, you will become strong. But the underlying opposite belief eats away at and crumbles it’s foundation, which sooner or later brings you face to face with your weakness.

It could be the opposite too. You might believe deep within that you are too strong for your own good. So you spend years trying to prove to yourself and others that you are weak and dependent, getting yourself into all sorts of situations, needing to be rescued. Sooner or later, you get yourself into trouble so deep that no body except you can save you. And that day you will come face to face with the underlying belief.

You might even end up switching between these two states. Maybe over lifetimes, maybe over decades.

When you heal yourself, there is no belief left. The whole topic becomes a non-issue. If it is strength, you’re not going to worry if you are strong enough. You’re not going to talk, or even think about it. You know your own strength. When you really know, there is no need for belief, no need for thoughts or analysis.

If you really are powerful, you have no need to chase power, or shun those more or less powerful than you.

If you are truly happy, you don’t need to repeatedly keep doing things that make you ‘feel alive’.

If you truly feel special, you don’t need proof that you are, or that others are not. You simply never think about it. There is no doubt. So there are no thoughts.

If you really feel beautiful, you’re not going to spend hours trying to look beautiful, applying layers of make up or spending hours in the gym to get rid of that one last inch of fat, or taking selfies everyday, trying to look hotter than you really do. You have no need to hide the fact that you feel ugly inside, by trying to harvest compliments so you forget your own opinion.

If you truly don’t care what others think, you have no use of declaring it all the time, or posting it on Facebook. Because if you really don’t care, you don’t care about posting it either. You don’t need to mask the fact that you feel like a lesser person when someone dislikes you for ‘not caring’.

If you’re truly proud of being a mother (or a father for that matter), you don’t feel the need to declare to yourself or on Facebook that motherhood or childbirth was the best thing that ever happened to you, you’re proud of being a mother and you’ve got the best child in the world. You don’t need to do it, because you don’t need to negate a nagging fear that this whole thing might have been a mistake, and your child might be nothing more than ordinary.

If you really trust your spiritual path or teacher, you have no need to justify and convince others that your path is better. You don’t need to mask the fear that you might be on a slower path than you’d like, or on the wrong path altogether.

Of course, the tragedy is that most people have no idea about the underlying belief. If you found yourself reacting violently to any sentence you read above, mark that as a belief and work on it. The only way to uncover (and transcend) the underlying belief, is through meditation, but acknowledgement and acceptance will also take you quite far. Be free. Beliefs are not worth it.