The biggest destroyer of oneself are one’s beliefs, if such beliefs lead to other than one’s happiness. We emotionally cling on to and defend our beliefs as defined by our observations, deductions and experience, even contorting logic to support and reinforce them, so they become irrefutable facts. Our reality then becomes how we see and interpret the world through this window.
“Begin challenging your own assumptions. Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while, or the light won’t come in.”
— Alan Alda
When you talk of beliefs and perception, it reminded me of my daughter’s theory of knowledge essay. If our memory is a fifth way of learning and knowing …… Our memory is also this window that we interpret through and it is not always reliable.
To quote Prem Rawat, are you a believer or a knower? Beliefs can destroy but knowing is essential.
Yes, our beliefs apparently create physical neural pathways that in turn biologically cause us to interpret things as we have reinforced to ourselves.