Originally Posted By: Ellis
Thank you Bill S. No, of course I did not mean we are only what we believe, but our beliefs do colour our actions. I think, TT, that you are equating belief primarily with religious belief, or belief that requires dogma and support from outside. I think that our personal beliefs (which can include religion) are what drive us. Poeple who have not got a strong sense of their own ideas and direction are often confused, upset and frantic, searching for beliefs and unhappy with life.

Belief is belief, whether religious or....
Beliefs help to create reality on top of the underlying conscious impulses that are often hidden in the dream states. Impulses which create not only the body but the extension of that, in the world we see and experience. Our perceptions of who we are (as you say the stuff that dreams are made of) are often colored or distorted by our beliefs, AND.. our beliefs are constantly changing, both subtly and dramatically with our changing experiences in our relationship with the world around us.
What drives us keeps us breathing and evolving from our first breath. Beliefs about that drive, and who or what we think we are in relationship to what dreams are made of, is taken on as the construct of the ego is created and allowed to define reality thru the outward directed senses.
Originally Posted By: Ellis

I am not passing judgement on the belief of others. Personally I think that some of the things people dedicate their lives to supporting and believing are barking mad, and definitely not for me. That's OK. Of course sometimes beliefs are dangerous, and paradoxically that is when we often realise the power of belief most.

We are, I believe, "the stuff that dreams are made on".* Indeed has not it been said that without our dreams we may lose our sanity. And what are our dreams if not based on our beliefs?
* The Tempest Shakespeare

Reflections of Desire, which can be restricted by belief. Often desires that are unconscious. Desires created at deeper levels of conscious awareness than those that are known in sleeping, dreaming, and waking states of consciousness. Desires born of a consciousness described by enlightened individuals who experience a relationship with the essence of all that is.

Back to the question:
What is spirit or soul?
Can it break or be broken?
Is pneuma an idea based on a belief or on something tangible and experienced?
If as the Rev. Suggests, it is a relationship, is the relationship conceived in the imagination?
If so is the human intervention of therapy derived from a need for reinforcement of belief in principle and idea, or is it directed towards a repair of that which we relate to, or the object of our relationship?
Why does a cat need intervention? Does a cat need a human to define its relationship to spirit and the physical world as a human prescribes itself to reality by his/her beliefs?

The question does seem to be expanding itself doesn't it... wink

I was addicted to the Hokey Pokey, but then I turned myself around!!