What is beyond beliefs? Or rather, what is beyond seeing the grain of truth in a story and all its reversals, and the inherent neutrality of the situation?
It is very simple…
If we think apathy or nihilism or laissez faire or cynicism or heartlessness or rampant egotism or putting anyone down or aloofness, it could not be further from the truth.
It is true that any of those can come from a belief in any situation being inherently neutral. Actually, any of those, or a range of other ones, are almost inevitable if there is that belief, and it is taken seriously.
But it is very different to actually go beyond beliefs… to really see and have a felt-sense of how all stories are just stories, and all of the turnarounds of each of them have truths in them, canceling each other out and revealing the inherent neutrality of the situation. Using an inquiry such as The Work, we can go beyond beliefs one at a time, seeing this shift over and over in different areas of life.
What is beyond beliefs is a differentiated clarity and a receptivity of mind and heart. We see and acknowledge the relative truth in all reversals of a story. We are free to play with any of the conventional truths, knowing they are only relative truths. We act from compassion and empathy, from a freedom to see and have a felt-sense of ourselves in others. We act from wisdom, knowing that stories are only stories, for practical and temporary use only.
We are free to meet people where they are, acknowledging the truths in the stories they hold onto, and act from that differentiated clarity, empathy and wisdom, in whatever way seems appropriate in the situation (being receptive to learn from it and see how it could have been done differently). And then not call it any of that.
There is nothing wrong with relativism… but it must be a true relativism, one that goes beyond beliefs, including any philosophy such as relativism.
It is very simple… when it is alive in immediate awareness… when it is lived.