What I Know For Sure – Moxie On Monday

I simply love reading magazines. Oddly enough, I always start reading from the end to the beginning. I start on the last page and make my way back to the first page.

One of my favorites is “O Magazine” by Oprah, of course. The jewel of the issue is at the very end. It’s a column called, “What I Know For Sure.”

That column always gets my wheels spinning and my mind thinking about the difference between what we know and what we believe.

Oprah doesn’t say, “What I believe for sure.”

Why not?

Because beliefs shift and change.

Knowing is forever.

The Bible tells us to “Know Thyself.” Whether you’re religious or not, knowing ourselves is where the gold is. Beliefs can get us into trouble. We tend to cling to our beliefs. We defend them. We fight over them. We divide ourselves over our beliefs. We fight wars over our beliefs.

Many of our beliefs aren’t even our own. They’re projected onto us, programmed into us by others. Much of the time, we’ve forgotten where our beliefs came from. We tend to operate unconsciously from our beliefs.

I was in the car this weekend. I happened to turn on NPR. There was an interview with a man who was telling his story about being indoctrinated into a cult. He has since left the cult but his story went into how he began believing what he was told to believe. He began to believe things that caused him to live in absolute fear. He began to believe things about others that made him hate people who didn’t believe what he was taught to believe.

Now, out of the cult, looking back and mostly deprogrammed from those beliefs, he was astonished at how easy it was to believe things that he knew couldn’t possibly be true. Over time, those beliefs took over his mind. They took over his life. They took over his well-being. They cost him his peace of mind.

We live in a divided world. Much of that division is caused by beliefs. Many times, we’re led to believe things that aren’t true.

Knowing is different.

The most enlightened humans I’ve had the honor to work with don’t operate from belief. They operate from knowing.

We defend our beliefs.

Knowing needs no defense.

We just know what we know to be true.

For me, when I know something, I feel it in every fiber of my being. It comes from a deeper place. It’s not from outside in but from inside out.

When I hit on truth, real truth, soulful truth, goosebumps – I like to call them “God Bumps” – spread quickly all over my body. My entire being feels the truth – knows the truth.

Truth is all around us.

Beliefs come. Beliefs go.

Like believing in Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny.

They’re transient.

Truth lives on.

Truth doesn’t divide.

Truth doesn’t need to be defended.

The most peaceful humans live in an inner place of knowing. They live securely, in peace, not with a house of beliefs built on a shifting foundation but with an inner knowing so solid, so strong, that the most powerful earthquake couldn’t shake it loose.

I know that Knowing Thyself is a beautiful place to be.

What I know for sure is that there is a power, a source of love so great, so big, so beautiful – a source where we all came from – a source where we are all deeply connected – a source that transcends belief. A source that comes from knowing.

A Source that doesn’t care if you call it God or Buddha or the Universe.

A Source so pure it doesn’t need a name.

A source that knows that we are worthy – YOU, ME – US – ALL OF US.

Knowing we are worthy changes everything.

That’s what I know for sure.