Spiritual Core Beliefs --What are they?
By D.R. Lawrence
There are many things we perceive as a "knowing" and believe it to be so based on that. These things we explain as a "knowing" are core beliefs. We operate on core beliefs and values daily - many times unaware of what they are or where they come from. They can be from an external generated stimulus or control, or they can be from an internal focus. Some examples of core beliefs we accept externally are a) knowing the sky is blue during the day even if the clouds obscure its view; b) if I do not have oxygen, my body will die. These are beliefs we have learned from our existence here. However, core beliefs are perceptions and not all are balanced with scientific and other laws we have come to understand.
Many core beliefs we carry with us are dysfunctional concepts. Values and beliefs we hold intrinsically that were learned from our background, culture, and experiences in life. Automatic thoughts of, "I can't", "I don't deserve", "I will just fail" creep in as reminders our past that have sat at the helm of our consciousness to keep us from our higher dreams and aspirations. Its like climbing a mountain with thrill and exhilaration, then thoughts flow when we reach the mid-point like a polluted river telling us we will fail. So entrenched are these thoughts that many times we aren't even consciously aware of them.
In order to reach the top of the mountain we must get beyond these limiting beliefs, and begin to build core beliefs reflecting our understanding from a higher inner understanding.
Once we begin to realize that something must change, we become vacuum cleaners eating up every book, teacher, counselor, and source we can find to understand what went wrong. We attempt to study all the philosophies and concepts in the world in the hopes of finding the "wellspring" of knowledge to correct all our woes. Although books and guidance can be greatly beneficial, there is a dilemma here. Do we still follow the tradition of looking outside ourselves for the answer verses within? Do we still carry a feeling and belief that we are isolated or separate from the answers we seek? Regardless of the path or ideology we choose as our outline for truth, the following is a good set of questions to ask for our own well being:
CLINEBELL'S (1965) TESTS FOR MENTALLY HEALTHY RELIGION
Does a particular form of religious thought and practice
1. Build bridges or barriers between people?
2. Strengthen or weaken a basic sense of trust and relatedness to the universe?
3. Stimulate or hamper the growth of inner freedom and personal responsibility?
4. Provide effective or faulty means of helping people move from a sense of guilt to forgiveness? Does it provide well-defined significant ethical guidelines, or does it emphasize ethical trivia? Is its primary concern for surface behavior or for the underlying health of the personality?
5. Increase or lessen the enjoyment of life? Does it encourage a person to appreciate or depreciate the feeling dimension of life?
6. Handle the vital energies of sex and aggressiveness in constructive or repressive ways?
7. Encourage the acceptance or denial of reality? Does it foster magical or mature religious beliefs? Does it encourage intellectual honesty with respect to doubts? Does it oversimplify the human situation or face its tangled complexity?
8. Emphasize love (and growth) or fear?
9. Give its adherents a frame of orientation and object of devotion that is adequate in handling existential anxiety constructively?
10. Encourage the individual to relate to his or her unconscious through living symbols?
11. Accommodate itself to the neurotic patterns of the society or endeavor to change them?
12. Strengthen or weaken self-esteem?
Each individual must determine the ultimate reflection of sound spiritual core beliefs and values. Those are found with and through inner practices such as meditation. We must come to accept all aspects of ourselves unconditionally. Understand what are our ultimate concerns and begin a JOURNEY today to discover what are your spiritual core beliefs!
( http://www.csulb.edu/~tstevens/sct-oh.htm )
