Viewpoint
In the beginning there was only thoughts and emotions and in the end there will also just be thoughts and emotions.
Beliefs are just a bundle of thoughts and emotions held together.
We form our core beliefs about ourselves and the world early in life through the society and culture we inhabit. That is from our parents, friends, teachers etc.
We have both empowering and hurtful beliefs about ourselves and the world. Often times beliefs are held so strongly that even when something happens in our experience that directly contradicts our beliefs we just filter it out and discard it.
When we are mind identified we identify with thoughts and so we identify with the beliefs we have. You can see the absurdity of this in our society.
Politicians getting so mad when someone doesn’t agree with their view because it actually threatens who they think they are.
Religious wars being started because one nation’s beliefs about God are different than another’s beliefs.
People get triggered all the time when their held beliefs are threatened precisely because it is a literal threat to who they think they are, i.e what they identify as.
Views are a bundle of beliefs held together, they are our macro beliefs. They are how we look at and in turn shape our world.
You have larger views such as:
worldviews
political views
environmental views
Equality views
Moral views
and the list goes on. The point is that the world of mind gets very complex but it really just stems from a lot of thoughts and emotions held together. That is all there is.
This is how we orient to life as the mind always needs a place to look from, a vantage point.
So it’s important to hold all beliefs lightly because the mind will always take a stance and a reference point from beliefs - viewing the world through belief.
All beliefs and views ultimately stems from the primary and strongest belief - the belief in I. It is the most damaging belief and all other beliefs are really just outgrowths of it.
It leads to a very distorted perception of the world. The world is about me, it surrounds me, my beliefs are correct and yours are wrong etc.
As long as we are mind identified we see the world through a lens, the lens of our own held views and beliefs. We don’t see the world how it actually is, we always see it through our own filters.
It’s really like wearing sunglasses all the time, filtering and distorting our experience without even knowing it. From this “me” perspective everything that is experienced is relational to me and classified thereafter. Something is labeled as good or bad, right or wrong, useful and not useful, important not important etc.
This is why it’s said that everyone lives in their own world. Yes there is a world of appearances that we can assume look very similar to everyone, but it’s interpreted extremely differently for each unique me which have their own set of beliefs and views.
As stated earlier, our held beliefs and views gives a very distorted perception of the world. However, as our ego dissolves our perception of the world changes with it. This is why spiritual masters stresses the importance of changing yourself in order to change the world.
You is literally just composed of many beliefs, the only thing that keeps the you seemingly real is the strong belief that there is a you! A belief that is held together by many sub beliefs. The you is an illusion and like all illusions will be dispelled if it is looked at enough.
Waking up is an identity shift away from thoughts and so away from our held beliefs and views both about ourself and the world, the two are really intimately linked.
When you have the first awakening the belief that is dropped is the belief that I am my thoughts, yet you still feel as if you relate to them somehow.
This core belief is what allows and paves the way for all subsequent beliefs to be dropped as they are all built on top of the first one.
There is not actually a self and other, that is just from thoughts perspective - as thoughts are always relational and dualistic. It is actually only the SELF.
Enlightenment is really taking the sunglasses of and seeing the world how it is - without any interpretation of it. It’s destroying all beliefs and assumptions until only what IS remains.
When you strip all beliefs enlightenment will be as the illusion of a you will be dispelled.
When you are enlightened you leave the whole world of mind behind, you leave all of it. Concepts, beliefs, morality, views etc. That complex way of orienting to life, orienting from a false perspective will be discarded.
It might seem absurd but you can live from a place of no perspective, no held view, no beliefs about yourself or the world and be perfectly fine. In fact, it is a way more efficient and joyful way to live as the mind was never meant to be oriented from.