# Beliefs > A belief is the operative mechanism through which any experience reaches you. The raw energy of creation is fundamentally neutral. A belief is the structure that gives that energy its specific meaning and determines the specific effect you experience. Beliefs are not opinions you hold they are the working assumptions mostly invisible that shape what you are able to perceive and what reality is then able to reflect back. - Canonical: https://sassani.app/topic/beliefs # Beliefs *Neutral spring water changes reflected color only after passing beneath one crystal shelf* In Bashar's teaching, a belief is the operative mechanism through which any experience reaches you. The raw energy of creation is fundamentally neutral; a belief is the structure that gives that energy its specific meaning and so determines the specific effect you experience. Beliefs are not opinions you hold — they are the working assumptions, mostly invisible, that shape what you are able to perceive and what reality is then able to reflect back. The sibling chapter on definitions-and-beliefs treats the conceptual vocabulary (self-reinforcing structures, definitions, belief mechanics in depth); this chapter focuses on belief as the living prism through which experience is colored — how to find a belief, how it sustains itself, and how it changes. ## The belief is the prism, not the thought about it A useful image Bashar offers is that of a prism: when you are in touch with what you believe, you recognize a thread that runs through every facet of an experience, and you can follow that thread back to the underlying belief from anywhere in the prism. The most reliable access is not thought but feeling — your strongest feeling can translate as your belief. Thought, by its nature, tends to make the search more confusing: it piles up obstacles and props that hide the thread. Following the emotional thread cuts through that. > — Getting In Touch With Beliefs (qa-1), [Source](https://sassani.app/source-transmissions/getting-in-touch-with-beliefs) This is why Bashar treats surface wanting as nearly useless for change. "It doesn't so much matter what you want. It really matters what you believe and what you know to be true. You can want all you want, but the only thing that wanting creates is the state of wanting." Wanting, in other words, perpetuates the state of wanting; the actual shift happens at the level of belief. > — Exploring The Definitions That Keep You From Changing (qa-2), [Source](https://sassani.app/source-transmissions/exploring-the-definitions-that-keep-you-from-changing) ## How a belief hides the alternatives *One close crystal pane fills the view while several clear openings remain at its edge* A belief, by design, makes itself appear to be the only possibility. Bashar states this as a structural fact: every belief system has the built-in ability to make it seem as if no other belief is possible — and it has to be that way, otherwise you could not have a full experience of that particular belief. This is why a negative belief can feel like a fundamental orientation rather than a choice. > — Threshold Of Believability Test All Beliefs Are Self reinforcing (qa-3), [Source](https://sassani.app/source-transmissions/threshold-of-believability-test-all-beliefs-are-self-reinforcing) The same mechanism shows up as a "mirror" quality in negative beliefs: a stubbornly persistent negative belief can seem to have its own intelligence, arguing back, pushing back. Bashar's reading is that it is your intelligence that the belief is using — it frames your own intelligence and reflects it back to you in a particular shape. You are, in effect, arguing with yourself. The belief is a mirror, not an autonomous entity. > — Brick Walls Beliefs (qa-3), [Source](https://sassani.app/source-transmissions/brick-walls-beliefs) ## The skeleton key: knowing beliefs can be changed The single counter-belief that unlocks the structure is what Bashar calls the "skeleton key belief" — the recognition that all beliefs can be changed. As long as you know you can always remember this, you are in a sense free to experience even deep forgetfulness, because you know you will always be able to remember your way out. Without that skeleton key, the self-reinforcing structure of a belief feels total and final; with it, no belief can hold you permanently. > — Threshold Of Believability Test All Beliefs Are Self reinforcing (qa-3), [Source](https://sassani.app/source-transmissions/threshold-of-believability-test-all-beliefs-are-self-reinforcing) ## Finding the belief: the investigative question *A single water ripple can be traced backward through layered clear pools to its source* To expose a belief that is sustaining an unwanted experience, Bashar offers a specific investigative question: "What would I have to believe is true about myself and my relationship to this situation in order to be experiencing the emotion that I am, in order to be experiencing the fear that I have?" Asked sincerely, with quiet listening afterward, this question eventually surfaces the specific belief required to be producing the current experience. > — Brick Walls Beliefs (qa-1), [Source](https://sassani.app/source-transmissions/brick-walls-beliefs) The same principle applies to patterns you say you do not prefer but keep choosing: you only keep doing things that you think are benefiting you somehow. The work is to look deeper for the belief that makes the unwanted pattern appear more beneficial than its alternative. Once you identify that belief, you have "a tool in hand that you can work with." > — Exploring The Definitions That Keep You From Changing (qa-2), [Source](https://sassani.app/source-transmissions/exploring-the-definitions-that-keep-you-from-changing) ## The threshold of believability test A practical instrument for measuring and changing a belief is the threshold of believability test. Ask: with your present belief system, how long do you actually believe it will take to become the person you desire to be? Start far in the future — twenty years, yes? yes. ten? yes. five? — I'm not sure. The moment you first hesitate, that is how long the process will actually take under your current beliefs. Then examine the belief behind that hesitation using the investigative question; release the belief if it is not what you prefer, and take the test again. Iterate until the only remaining time is the time the process genuinely needs to take. > — Threshold Of Believability Test All Beliefs Are Self reinforcing (qa-4), [Source](https://sassani.app/source-transmissions/threshold-of-believability-test-all-beliefs-are-self-reinforcing) ## Belief and the neutrality of reality *One clear stream reflects different colors across separate shallow stone channels* The background against which all of this works is the neutrality of reality. "Everything is fundamentally neutral. It doesn't have built-in meaning. The meaning you give it determines the effect you experience from it." > — Brick Walls Beliefs (qa-6), [Source](https://sassani.app/source-transmissions/brick-walls-beliefs) This is why Bashar can decline to "believe" people when they describe their problems: he accepts that the problem is real for them, in the sense that they are genuinely creating and experiencing it, while declining the deeper claim that they are fundamentally unable or bad — because as a creator, they can always choose another belief and another experience. > — Believing In Beliefs (qa-1), [Source](https://sassani.app/source-transmissions/believing-in-beliefs) The same logic undercuts the common fear that preferring a positive belief is "deluding yourself." Bashar's inversion: any delusion that exists is the delusion that negative belief systems hold sway over positive ones. When the chips are down, "turn them up" — and the irony is that you do not think you are deluding yourself when you turn them down. > — What Can Your Really Attract (qa-1), [Source](https://sassani.app/source-transmissions/what-can-your-really-attract) ## Belief as the source of permission-slips' power A permission slip — any tool, technique, ritual, or object — has no power of its own. It works only by aligning with your belief system to allow you to give yourself permission to become more of who you prefer to be. The thing itself is not doing anything; the belief structure is doing the work. > — Tachyon Crystals Permission Slip (qa-1), [Source](https://sassani.app/source-transmissions/tachyon-crystals-permission-slip) This is why one person's essential practice can be irrelevant to another: the permission slip has to match an existing belief structure to function. ## Practical implications Use feeling, not thought, as the access route. Your strongest feeling is the most direct thread to follow back to the underlying belief; thought alone tends to obscure the thread with obstacles and props. > — Getting In Touch With Beliefs (qa-1), [Source](https://sassani.app/source-transmissions/getting-in-touch-with-beliefs) Stop trying to "want" your way out. Wanting only reinforces the state of wanting. Identify the operative belief and work with it directly. > — Exploring The Definitions That Keep You From Changing (qa-2), [Source](https://sassani.app/source-transmissions/exploring-the-definitions-that-keep-you-from-changing) Hold the skeleton key. The single most useful belief to keep accessible is that all beliefs can be changed; this is what keeps self-reinforcing structures from feeling permanent. > — Threshold Of Believability Test All Beliefs Are Self reinforcing (qa-3), [Source](https://sassani.app/source-transmissions/threshold-of-believability-test-all-beliefs-are-self-reinforcing) Ask the investigative question. When an unwanted experience is showing up, ask what you would have to believe is true about yourself in order to be experiencing exactly this, and then listen for the answer. > — Brick Walls Beliefs (qa-1), [Source](https://sassani.app/source-transmissions/brick-walls-beliefs) Apply the threshold-of-believability test. Count down the timeframe until hesitation appears; that hesitation reveals the real time your current beliefs allow, and the belief behind it is what to clear. > — Threshold Of Believability Test All Beliefs Are Self reinforcing (qa-4), [Source](https://sassani.app/source-transmissions/threshold-of-believability-test-all-beliefs-are-self-reinforcing) Don't be fooled by the "mirror" of a stubborn negative belief. It is your own intelligence reflected back at you, not an autonomous force arguing with you. > — Brick Walls Beliefs (qa-3), [Source](https://sassani.app/source-transmissions/brick-walls-beliefs) Reframe "positive thinking" as accuracy. The genuine delusion is letting negative beliefs override positive ones; the inverse move — turning the chips up — is not self-deception. > — What Can Your Really Attract (qa-1), [Source](https://sassani.app/source-transmissions/what-can-your-really-attract) ## Representative passages For when you are in touch with what you believe, you recognize the thread that runs through all the other aspects of the same prism. You can therefore follow that thread back to the belief from anywhere within that prism. … it is to follow the thread from the level of emotionality.— Bashar, Every single belief system has a certain structure to it. One of the primary structures in beliefs is the ability of the belief to make it seem as if no other belief is possible — it has to be that way, otherwise you can't have a full experience of that particular belief. The only thing that unlocks you from that is the overriding skeleton key belief that all beliefs can be changed.— Bashar, It doesn't so much matter what you want. It really matters what you believe and what you know to be true. You can want all you want, but the only thing that wanting creates is the state of wanting.— Bashar, What would I have to believe is true about myself and my relationship to this situation in order to be experiencing the emotion that I am, in order to be experiencing the fear that I have.— Bashar, Any delusion that exists is the delusion that the negative belief systems hold sway over the positive ones. So when you say the chips are down, turn them up. Because you have the ability to do so. It's not deluding yourself to turn them up, but the irony is you don't think you're deluding yourself when you turn them down.— Bashar, Permission slips, any tool, any technique, any ritual, any object is just a permission slip. It just allows you to give yourself permission based on your present belief system to become who it is or more of who it is you really know yourself to be. The thing itself isn't doing anything.— Bashar, ## Related - [Definitions & Beliefs](https://sassani.app/topic/definitions-and-beliefs) - [Negative Beliefs](https://sassani.app/topic/negative-beliefs) - [Permission Slips](https://sassani.app/topic/permission-slips) - [Emotions](https://sassani.app/topic/emotions) - [Excitement](https://sassani.app/topic/excitement) Markdown twin of https://sassani.app/topic/beliefs. The HTML page is the source of truth.