Knowing vs. Believing

Over the years in my work, I’ve met people from all kinds of religions, traditions, philosophies and mentalities. Most of them believe in some kind of religion or philosophy. Others think that they don’t believe in anything, while in reality they are still creating the philosophy to “not believe.”

People believe in God, Work, Love, Hate, Peace, War, Art, Sex, Music, Drugs, Humans, Evil, Health, and Nature, just to name some focuses to believe in.

Most of us believe in something and many are even ready to kill for what they believe in. Unfortunately, there are many times when people don’t actually know nor do they have real knowledge of what they believe in. If you believe in something and you don’t have information about it, you have a problem. Often, believing in something is copying someone else’s belief or knowledge.

It has happened many times that I’ve spoken with a strong believer of a religion or philosophy. The believer tried to convince me that his way of thinking was the right way. When asking the believer what exactly he or she knows about the idea being “sold” to me, his or her excuse is that it is written in the Holy Book (whatever religion this book is coming from) which says the truth. When I ask that person if he knows exactly what he is talking about, the answer is most often fluffy and unclear. In most cases, those kinds of communications end without a convincing statement from the believer.

Suppose you talk about Ghosts or Extraterrestrials. Many people get very cynical and reject any belief in ET’s. Ask those same people if they believe in God, and they respond, “of course”. Unfortunately, none of them have seen God so far and it comes down to the point that they actually don’t know that God exists but yet, they believe in one. So, how can they reject the possible existence of ET’s or Ghosts because they haven’t seen them when they believe in God without having seen him?

Have you ever thought about how many times a day you say “I believe” and “I know”?

In my opinion, it is only valuable to stand with what I really know. As long I believe, I observe and analyze until I know or realize that I can’t know and then I never identify myself with it.

Look at yourself walking through the path of life. What exactly do you believe and what do you really know?

Acting from knowledge makes life easier and better. You feel more secure about what you are doing.

Knowledge makes you experienced and does not allow others to manipulate you easily. Also, to believe is often driven by the desire of wanting to belong to something external. As soon as you know, you belong to yourself!

You can also make a “belief” and “know” list. Write down everything you really know and those ideas that you just believe in. Then focus on what you know and leave the believing to others. You will see how much clearer life suddenly becomes!

(Martin Zoller)

Ultrafeel.tv : All beliefs are actually nothing but reality tunnels, a kind of language-based virtual reality cocoon, which severely limit our freedom!

Martin Zoller is an intuitive consultant and gives psychic advice regarding relationships, business, legal affairs, politics and destiny affairs. He also offers meditation and coaching courses as well as workshops to improve and develop intuition and the human potential. These courses are designed specifically either for individuals or companies and institutions. Martin currently lives in Basel, Switzerland. Zoller has written several books; his latest ones are ‘Hellsichtig‘ and ‘Intuition als Schlüssel deiner Seele‘. More about Martin Zoller can be found at his site: Martinzoller.eu

See similar stories on ultrafeel or Martin Zoller on Inner Beauty (21. Jan 2012) Religious Fundamentalists On Board of UFO (By Nick Kim) (14. Aug 2011) Intuition Als Schlüssel Deiner Seele - Martin Zoller's Neues Buch (14. Mar 2011)

1 comment. What do you feel?

Crazy, Rebel, Misfit, Troublemaker

Here’s to the crazy ones.
The misfits.
The rebels.
The troublemakers.
The round pegs in the square holes.
The ones who
see things differently.

They’re not fond of rules.
And they have no respect for the status quo.
You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them,
disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them.


About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them.
Because they
change things.
They invent.
They imagine.
They heal.
They explore.
They create.
They inspire.
They push the human race forward.

Maybe they have to be crazy.
How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art?
Or sit in silence and hear a song that has never been written?
Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels?

We make tools for these kinds of people.
While some see them as the crazy ones,
we see genius.

Because the people who are crazy enough
to think they can change the world,
are the ones who do.

(Steve Jobs, late C.E.O. of Apple; 1955 – 2011)

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…Even the fear of going in a wrong direction is an ego trip.
Why are you so afraid of being in a wrong situation? — because the wrong situation is very ego shattering and the right situation is very ego enhancing. In fact to think of the future is to think in terms of the ego. So remain with the moment if it is needed for your growth — that you should go in a wrong direction — it will happen. And you cannot avoid it, because avoiding it will be avoiding your own growth. You cannot avoid anything.

So whatsoever is available, enjoy it to your total capacity; respond to it totally.
Let this moment give all that it can give to you. And the next moment is going to be born out of this moment. If this moment has been rightly lived, from where will the next moment come? It will grow out of this moment. It is going to take on the same quality.
It is going to be a continuity with this moment. The next moment is not coming out of the blue. It grows out of you like a leaf grows out of the tree. It comes from your roots… it is nourished by your life juice.
So if this moment is lived rightly…. And when I use the word ‘rightly’, I don’t mean in the sense puritans use it; I don’t mean the meaning that moralists will like to enforce on it.

To live rightly means to live totally. It is not being virtuous; it is just being whole. The right is not against wrong or against sin. The right is only against being partial. Don’t be partial, don’t be fragmentary. And the right has nothing to do with any goal, any perfectionist’s ideal. The right has something to do with the feel of this moment If you feel good, it is right. Easy is right. Happiness is right.

So celebrate this moment, enjoy this moment, delight in this moment — and the tomorrow will take care of itself.
Think not of the morrow. The moment you start thinking that you may go wrong, that you have to go right, the ego has entered.
It is the ego that is worried about its decoration — morality, good, virtue, respectability… some shoulds. So just remain with the moment, as much as possible and everything will go right. If this moment is right, everything is going to be right.

This is the definition of being right if you are happy in this moment nothing is going to be wrong. Happiness is a sure indication that things are flowing with the total; you are one with the universal.

Happiness arises only when there is a harmony between you and the whole... when there is no conflict, when there is no pain. Then there is sheer joy — and the joy is incredible because you cannot even find any cause to it. You cannot explain why it is there.
It is there unexplained, and it is utterly there, for no reason at all; it is simply there. It is there like a mystery. So live in the moment and by and by start dropping these tensions of the future. If you go wrong, you go wrong; nothing is wrong in it. Don’t be a coward — be courageous. In life a few wrong things happen. In fact they are part of life.

You cannot weave a cloth unless the thread is put in such a way that each thread is crossed by another thread, the vertical is crossed by the horizontal; otherwise the cloth will not exist. A good man is simply good. He is a heap of thread; he is not a cloth. A bad man is simply bad. He is again a heap of thread; not a cloth. A whole man is both. He accepts God and devil both, day and night both.
And in that acceptance is transcendence. In the very acceptance you are neither good nor bad. You have gone beyond both; you become a witness. And that’s what real sanctity is.

So don’t try to be good and don’t try to be right. Don’t try to avoid the wrong and don’t try to avoid the bad, because then your life will lose all salt. You will become tasteless. Saints are tasteless — at least so-called saints. A real saint has tremendous contradictions in him; he is paradoxical. He is both sweet and bitter. He is as dark as the darkest night and as full of light as the noontime. He’s simple like a child. You can almost call him a fool. That’s what Saint Francis used to call himself — and he is as wise as there is the possibility to be.

This is how it goes — exploding, imploding, exhaling, inhaling. This is how it goes — happiness, unhappiness; good and bad, right and wrong. So don’t be worried about it. Simply trust life. I teach you trust — trust in life. So if sometimes life leads you into some wrong ways, go. Don’t resist that moment; just go totally so whatsoever life wants you to learn from that experience is learned, and you can come out again.

(Osho)

‘God is not For Sale’ – chapter 21, Darshan Diary, Monday, 1. November 1976

1 comment. What do you feel?

Jeff Foster‘s ‘Welcome Home’ non-duality essay.

No teachers, no students. No awakened beings, no unawakened beings.
No path nor absence of a path. No gurus, no disciples. Simply life making love to itself, dancing as all of this, appearing as something we call ‘world’, as all that you see and all that you cannot see, arising and falling back into the barest emptiness, timelessly and forever…

And the emptiness is not a cold, dark, empty emptiness – but a rich, full, alive emptiness, pregnant with infinite possibility, saturated with this… incomprehensible intimacy that should, by all accounts, be impossible -
and yet, undeniably, is.

Nothing is not nothing , not the absence of all things, but also the presence of them, so that nothing is really everything…. and so it all ends not in nihilism, but in wonder, in fascination, in the kind of gratitude that breaks your heart.

Yes, all that is left is a radical simplicity that cannot be taught, cannot be formulated, reified, systematized, and ultimately cannot even be named – but still, it is all there is, and all there has ever been, and all there needs to be, because only a separate mind would ever want more.

It’s right here and right now. It’s there in and as the cup of coffee on the table in front of you, in each and every breath, in the wrinkles on your father’s face, in the feeling of the wind on your cheeks as you walk to the supermarket, in the pain in the chest as the body dies – and you’ve been seeking it your entire life without knowing it.

It’s beyond ‘awareness’ and ‘contents of awareness’ – it’s not pure consciousness (a blank space devoid of the personal) because blankness needs content to be known and experienced as blankness, just as emptiness needs form to be known and experienced as emptiness and vice versa – it’s not the witness behind the world because it’s also the world in its entirety which nothing can separate itself from in the first place and call itself a ‘witness’ -

it’s not Absolute as opposed to relative or vice versa because that very division never existed in the first place – it’s not ‘nobody here’ or ‘there is no person’, although those very personal viewpoints are allowed to arise and fall away naturally – it’s not ‘advaita’ as opposed to ‘neo-advaita’ or ‘neo-advaita’ as opposed to ‘advaita’ but it allows these man-made, mind-made divisions to play themselves out -

it’s not opposed to anything because it is everything including all opposition, even opposition to opposition –
it’s not mine or yours but it does not deny the possibility of mine and yours and relationship between them –
it’s not pure absence as opposed to presence or vice versa, but those concepts are allowed to arise too –
it’s not a teaching, but perhaps, and only perhaps, it can formulate itself as a self-destructing teaching, a kind of teaching which annihilates itself in the end, a temporary language which has no authority but that which you give it, and in the end (and there is no end), has no authority at all.

Because in the end, which is also the beginning, life is the only authority, and all the teachings of the world burn up in the fire of this unbounded freedom…

When you try to put this into words, you always fail.
Thank goodness it doesn’t need to be put into words.

And so, once again, beyond words or lack of them, welcome Home to what you really are.

(Jeff Foster)

(Photo: ‘Butterfly on Pink-Violet Flower’ by h.r.fox @ ultrafeel.tv)

Jeff Foster is a young advaita (non-duality) teacher who lives in the UK. He attempts to articulate the timeless message of nonduality, something that is ultimately impossible to put into words, in a simple, human and down-to-earth way, avoiding as much as possible the arcane, heavy, outdated and often self-righteous spiritual language of the past. He believes that the truth – that which is present and alive – is absolutely free and cannot be captured by any religion, ideology, philosophy, belief system or person. Jeff presently conducts meetings and retreats in the UK and around the world. Lots of free information on advaita can be found on his website, including essays, talk transcripts, books, CDs and DVDs, audio and video: Lifewithoutacentre.com

2 comments. What do you feel?