What do you believe in?
You declare something or an act as good or bad based only on your likes and dislikes. Anything or any act is not good or bad by itself. Good is something that you like doing or experiencing. If you think that something is bad then it is something that you dislike.
As you keep doing what you like again and again it becomes a habit. When it becomes a habit you like doing it again and because you like it you feel it is good and the right thing to do. This is a cycle.
A man who drinks everyday at the bar believes that alcohol is good for him which is obviously why he is spending all his time and money for. He likes the good feeling that he gets when he is drunk. Even if he knows it is bad for health, he believes it is good for his soul or his mind. It keeps him happy. He may defend his actions with his own arguments. He says, “look Mr Dhilip, one of my dear friend who never smoked or consumed alcohol died of a heart attack while quite young whereas look at me, I am still alive and stronger and healthier than you”. Hegenuinelythinks that alcohol is good for his system and his heart. It relaxes him whereas his friend who died so young did not have any good stress busters. He was risking his life by not drinking.
The owners of distilleries who are in the business of making wine,whiskey and brandy keep informing the world that a 60 ml of alcohol is good for their company and also for those who consume it. They obviously cannot say it is bad for the consumers. 60 ml multiplied by the world population is big time business. With the money that they earn they can set up the information on the internet saying that “a little bit of alcohol is great”. They too know that their client should live long enough to give them regular business or they will have to find and tempt new comers.
Then we have people who never consumed alcoholic drinks. I heard one such person say, “my dear friend used to drink 2 pegs of red wine thinking it is good for his heart, but poor fellow, he died young, whereas I am now 90 years old”.
Winston Churchill who drank and smoked his way through in life lived up to the age of 91.He is reputed once to have said, “I have taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me.” So according the Mr Churchill alcohol had a great positive role in his life.
Bernard Shaw stayed away from alcohol or the cigar. He lived to be a 94 year old man. Bernard Shaw was also a vegetarian but is believed to have liver extracts to strengthen his liver. But the world is very much against Shaw because he took the liver extracts. They are not worried about the rest of the world who consume a lot of meat, and drink endlessly. So the entire focus on Bernard Shaw is that he was cheating the world by saying that he was a vegan.
A human being is very intelligent when you compare them with animals like a dog or cat. This is said only by a human being. Human beings have the unique 6th or the 7th sense. But if you carefully look at what animals, birds and reptiles are capable of doing you may have your own doubts. Birds can fly long distance without a compass and still reach the destination without missing it and that too without any training. Watch a Kingfisher pick up a fish and you will wonder who taught the bird how to do it. They say not a single Kingfisher missed the target.
You look around the world and feel that there must be a creator called God because there are so many beautiful things in the world. The more you believe that there is a God you like that feeling and go to a place of worship. That becomes a habit and you like doing it again. So each time you go to a temple you feel good and happy. Those who do not believe in God fail to understand what makes you feel happy and good.
If you are an atheist you look around the world and feel that there cannot be a creator because you feel that a creator cannot exist without another creator. An atheist simply cannot understand how God existed all the time. Who created God? is the question that is so hard to answer. So they feel that people who think of God are either weak minded or foolish.
There are people who say that everything that happens in their life is due to the effects of planets. The planets are the cause. If Venus is in their 7th house the person will always be more romantic or sexy or be obsessive about something. So the man is obsessed with something not because of himself but because of that planet in the 7th house.
There are people who believe that only effort is important. They feel that someone is successful simply because that person had worked very hard. They feel that discussions of fate is simply a waste of time or a lame excuse.
However effort does not always yield the fruits. Ask a person who says effort is the key to everything that happens to a do a high jump beyond 10 feet if they feel that success always follows effort. There is a limit to effort. While effort is important, there is something else which yields the fruit of effort.
There are people who believe that there is no cause for anything. Things happen to them for no reason. People are simply trying to fix a reason for an event when there is no such thing as a reason. They believe in randomness and coincidence. There is no order to anything. It simply happens and that is it, no more questions. Just enjoy it and don’t ask questions.
Some people believe in ghosts. They love to see ghosts movies, read about it and spend a lot of time doing research on ghosts and angry spirits. They do not realize that they are themselves a spirit or a soul. For if they believe in spirits, they should believe that after they die they will also become the ghost that they are worried about.
People steal money from others and become rich. They have seen that people who did similar things went through a lot of stress later on due to the guilt associated with what they did and some of them may end up in jail. Yet they think that they can get away with it. Sooner or later they will end up in jail but they think that somehow it will not happen to them though it has happened to countless others. They feel that the money that they have with them can buy happiness. When hard earned money does not seem to give the promised happiness what are the chances of the stolen money doing that?
An MBA Gold medalist (soft skill expert) once advertised, “Send me a self addressed envelope and just 10 rupees and I will let you know how to become a millionaire”. The response was massive. The expert become a millionaire within a week. He replied to all his customers, “Now I am a millionaire, so the method I used works, so you can try the same and become a millionaire too”.
On the same lines we have many spiritual teachers in India. They teach you how to become spiritual and give up materialism. The material from the devotees and disciples reach their bank accounts. The disciples are now spiritual because they do not have anything material with them. Some of them give up their jobs and career and join as volunteers while their Master is rolling in wealth and travel only business class. The disciples of course take the long walk.
So what do you believe in?
Next time someone tell you “I do not believe in that”, ask them, “what do you believe in then”?
I do not know if you believed in whatever I told you just now. But that is you belief!
