TRUTH IS A PRODUCT OF BELIEFS or, truths are products of beliefs _______________________________________ Plato, I believe,  introduced the notion of Forms. Forms were the Ultimate description of qualities. Qualities are notions like beauty, truth and so on. In English, we can discern between Truth (the ultimate Form of this quality) with a capital 'T' and truths, with a lower-case 't'. The significance of this is that while we aspire to the ultimate 'Truth', along the way, we find many  'truths'. The 'truths' go to make up the 'Truth' but it is never attainable. Life, according to the 'I Ching' means change. This obviously should make sense, since we change every day from one thing into something else. So with truths.  Truths change as we get more experience of the earth upon which we live. (There is no World, only worlds.) So 'truths' change. They change with experience in our living circumstances. What is a truth one day may not be the same truth the next day. Truths are not, therefore, static. They all aim towards the Truth but never attain it. Beliefs, if they are to be any use to truths, must therefore be subject to change as well. However, they are deemed to be (mostly) static (belief in a god of sorts, for instance). If therefore beliefs are seen to be static, they will affect truths. The truths will no longer be truths in the real sense (subject to change without notice) but seen to be the real Truth, which, in fact can never be attained. Thus Truth is a product of beliefs. An interesting notion is that the word 'belief' does not appear to be capitalised. That is, there does not seem to be a 'Belief' that is the Ultimate. Many claim their own belief is the Belief  but this is not accepted by those who have a different 'Belief'. Therefore there must be an argument for there being no Belief but only beliefs. It is arguable that beliefs have a purpose. (Purpose is a quality, therefore it must follow the rules of Forms. There may be a 'Purpose' but along the way there are many 'purposes'). But beliefs stem from not knowing or understanding. There is no reason for not understanding (if we are willing to learn from our experiences) but we must remember that understanding is directly connected with our sense of our self. There are all of us who have disabilities of some sort. Disabilities are those things that make us different from others without them; only. The 'only' is very important. Beliefs are self-limiting (and self-destructive). They make the dynamic, static. Often therein lies their use (or purpose, perhaps). But if we cannot accept that things change (or dynamic), where are we to go? The answer is, nowhere. We become slave of those who want and make us believe in them and have their own agenda to enslave us to their will. We can not hold the earth to our ransom. Life does not work that way. Life is a continuum. Life is not linear, it is crinkly. Salvation (if there is such a thing) is accepting change. It is accepting the lower-case 'truths' not believing in the Truth, but working towards it by living our everyday lives as we see fit, not what some other person tells us. We must therefore believe in ourselves as competent human beings. We must not believe what is pedalled as the Truth. We must believe our own truths as we see fit. We are all capable. Of those that might not be capable, we must help them to a life worth living, as best we can.

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