Stress Academy Presents:
Web Series – The Story of Stress
Part 1 – Understanding Stress
Episode 8 – How Do Beliefs Form?
In the previous video, we learned about how our knowledge forms and its relation to stress. In this video, we will inquire how our beliefs are formed and what association they have with stress.
To understand the relationship between our beliefs and stress, let’s look at the scenario of you seeing a snake from the previous video. In that example, we concluded that your wrong knowledge led you to be unnecessarily fearful. But, if you think about it carefully, it was not just your wrong knowledge that led you to be fearful. You instantly formed the wrong belief or conviction that the object was a snake after acquiring wrong knowledge. Do you think you could have avoided forming a wrong belief about this object being a snake? Or do you think the wrong belief was caused by the brain chemistry and therefore you had no choice or free will in forming your belief? Let’s try to find out.
At present, ‘how beliefs generate’ is a hot topic in neuroscience and there has been no conclusive, widely accepted model that satisfactorily explains how beliefs form in the brain.
According to Jain philosophy, belief is an intrinsic attribute of the living substance “consciousness”, and therefore it does not originate in the brain. Belief (Shraddha) is defined as “a living being’s conviction about the nature of something“. We form our beliefs about any object or situation using our own “free will” after accepting the acquired right or wrong knowledge. Now, additional factors such as external situations, acquired experiences, presented information or even brain chemistry may act as instrumental factors in forming beliefs, but they do not dictate the acceptance of the belief that a person adopts. For example, if we are wrongly accused of a crime that we have not committed, there is no way for anyone to change our internal belief of being innocent despite someone getting a forced confession from us on paper. We all have an inherent ability to be introspective in forming our beliefs by critically examining the situation or objects that we perceive. Importantly, we possess the capability to revise our previous beliefs in the light of new knowledge or improved understanding of previously acquired knowledge.
In the scenario of seeing a snake, had you been cautious and introspective in forming your beliefs, you could have avoided forming wrong belief about the rope being a snake and, thus could have prevented yourself from being fearful. According to Jain philosophy, we feel stressed because of our wrong beliefs about various things. You could argue “what if the object was indeed a snake?”
In reality, it is a combination of wrong beliefs that drives people to be fearful in any situation. In our current scenario, belief about snakes being harmful and a person’s own conviction about his inability to handle the situation leads one to be fearful. According to Jain philosophy, one of the most important wrong beliefs that causes stress relates to an individual’s true identity. Do we think of ourselves solely as a body made up of matter particles? If yes, then we are bound to be stressed when our body is undergoing sickness or hardship. Situations are not always in our control and that would leave us with no way of being stress free. Thinking of ourselves restricted to this body is the wrong belief, because as we have discussed earlier, the body does not survive death; however consciousness survives death. Even during our lifetime, all cells in the body get replaced as we develop new cells and old cells degenerate. How can we think of this body made up of matter particles as ourselves when we see those particles forming and leaving our body everyday? Our body is a temporary form of matter particles that we have acquired surrounding our consciousness; and therefore, it is our relative and temporary identity in worldly interactions. However, we should not associate this temporary identity as a permanent self in our beliefs. In the absence of this right belief, we continue to hold intense attachment towards our body and thus being fearful of anything that could harm our body.
Now the question is how do we develop right beliefs? Right knowledge is essential for developing right beliefs. We can form right beliefs only if we overcome our ignorance, doubts and wrong knowledge about the particular object. Each one of us is capable of forming beliefs based on direct or indirect knowledge. When the direct knowledge of the object is not available, we need to rely on indirect knowledge to develop our belief about that object. In the case of forming belief based on indirect knowledge, it is important to ascertain the unbiasedness and depth of knowledge of the source. It is difficult to form right beliefs if we think the person has vested interests or is not fully knowledgeable in the relevant subject matter. In most cases, we initially learn things through indirect knowledge from the trusted external sources and then we try to acquire first hand direct experience of the object by observations, thus further reinforcing our beliefs initially formed on the basis of indirect knowledge.
For example, when we were children, we may have been told by our parents to stay away from fire because we may get burned. However, all of us must have surely believed fire can burn once we had a direct encounter with it by touching it knowingly or unknowingly. In future videos, we will continue to explore various beliefs that cause stress and ways to rectify them.
You may be thinking where does this research about formation of beliefs come from? The great Jain Acharya Umaswami documented the research on formation of beliefs in his treatise named “TattvarthSutra” in 2nd century CE, which was originally propagated by Jain Tirthankar Mahavir Swami.
In the next video, we will explore the process of forming emotions and how they relate to stress. Having learned about knowledge and belief, do you think you have the ability to manage your own emotions?
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References:
- Acharya Umaswami. Tattvarth Sutra. ~150 C.E.
Acharya Pujyapad. Sarvarth Siddhi (commentary on Tattvarth Sutra). ~500 C.E.
English translation and explanation by S.A. Jain. 1992 C.E.
Available at: https://jainelibrary.org/book-detail/?srno=001197
