The quotation is from
Tao Te Ching (Chapter 64) which is attributed to
Lao Tzu -
千里之行，始於足下 - Qiānlǐ zhī xíng, shǐyú zú xià literally it is A journey of a thousand li starts beneath one's feet. A beautiful statement with optimism and hope. Irrespective of our position, status - social, financial, relationship or anything else, it is looking about where we are, right here , right now, accept it, no looking behind, leaving the past where it belongs. Be in the present, observe it, take a decision and take it forward which begins with a single step.
The statement itself offers wide range of outlook in variety of situations we face day-to-day. Certainly it is not meant for traveling but emphasizing the 'first-step' as the one that counts. In the statement we have a counterpoint between 'thousand miles' and 'single-step'.
BBC's Learning English - Moving Words clarifies :
The rhythmical parallelism is reinforced by the contrast in
vowel length and consonant sonority: note especially the long
vowels and liquid consonants in 'miles', and the short vowels
and plosive consonants in 'step'. The force of this quotation
lies in its final word.
It offers hope, guidance, encouragement to anyone who is in a difficult path, specially in a temptation of giving up or in hesitation to start something. Being aware of what is beneath our feet and what's at the destination point, which may be literally thousands miles away, will help us to guide where to place our foot with that 'first-step' and all the others that follow.
The Step before the First-Step
When Philosophy meets Psychology that 'first-step' begins with believing .Are we really believe that when we take a single step we come closer to our destination? Are we comfortable to take it forward with a single step? Certainly these philosophical statements give desired outcome when act from our core psychological stand point- which is called belief. And it varies obviously person to person.
What do we mean by Belief ?
If we go by dictionaries, we get some definitions of belief. let us see what it is
Cambridge Dictionary : the
feeling of being
certain that something
exists or is
true
Collins Dictionary : Belief is a feeling of certainty that something exists, is true, or is good.
Oxford Dictionary : An acceptance that something exists or is true, especially one without proof.
Something one accepts as true or real; a firmly held opinion.
A religious conviction
If we observe closely with the definitions and the explanations, we find some interesting words in order to understand how belief works.
Confidence in the truth of existence of something not susceptible to rigorous proof - basically takes us closer to assumption. Basically we assume that something is true before we have proof.
When do we consider something as True ?
A very simple question if we ask ourselves when we watch news in the TV. Do we believe it? A series of typical observation will derive when we search for the answer. Each of us believes it differently - some believe in full , some believe partially or some believe it only when it come from the mouth of a trustworthy person. And interestingly trustworthiness of a person also varies widely among the followers . If I consider her / him trustworthy, it does not mean that my friend agrees to consider her/him trustworthy.
What is the Proof of a Truth
Is it possible for me to prove that it is 10 o' clock by just seeing my watch. If I doubt it I may check with the computer or mobile phone. If I doubt even that I may call a friend to get the time correct. Now the question is, is this exercise prove me the time is true? No, because I am still believing it.
It is our beliefs - they become self-fulfilling prophecies. Beliefs are sometimes divided into core-beliefs ( that are actively thought about) and dis-positional beliefs (that may ascribed to someone who has not thought about the issue).
Take this even further , what happens to our brain when we make up a belief - simply we assume it true without having the proof.
The moment we generate a belief, our consciousness creates new probabilities in our life. New probabilities lead to new realities. Even if we are not aware of this, we have opened a new avenue into a reality that contains the probabilities of manifesting exactly what we believe.
It is something like Radio frequency, to catch it we have to wait until it finds its resonator. The moment the resonator is found it will transform from a possibility into reality, which means our belief just manifested.
How Quantum Physics explains Consciousness
The illusion of matter becomes more obvious and the realization that nothing is independent from each other and more conclusive. Dualism is the concept , Quantum Physics can lead us to new paradigm in consciousness.
Dualism
Our consciousness is programmed with basic concept of dualism. Either it is this way, or it is the other way. Ether it is good or it bad, true or false, hot or cold etc etc. Everything in the nature have its complementary opposite in the very nature. So when we look closely, we will find the concept of duality.
Dualism and matter, both concepts are sometimes most of us fail to understand that these are the concepts , because of their vastness.
With no further detailing we can easily say Dualism takes the important role to decide whether an event is true or false. Then what we say about truth. When every concept leads to an experience and by experiencing it we can fulfill its purpose.
I am here linking a real-time report with a video inserted into it
which critically explain how dualism plays a very crucial role to understand an event as true or false.
An experiment by tossing a coin we can observe quantum experience- How ?Let me toss a coin with a condition to decide whether I go to meet someone or not. By taking the coin in my hand I already know there are two possible outcomes. Either it will end up with head or with tale.
Based on the result outcome, I have to choose meeting the person or not meeting the person. If I have to choose not to meet the person. But the other time line still exists in the parallel universe that is I am meeting the person. I just focused my attention on one of the universe by taking a decision.
Time
Let us consider if we do not take a decision. It is a very difficult task for our mind and it requires some training, but we are capable enough not to take a decision. We are able to have our attention in a consciousness superposition, where both worlds are present at the same time. It means at the same-time I am meeting the person and not meeting the person. It is very clear that our mind is not trained to grasp the idea.
Quantum Superposition
Time does not exist in quantum superposition. In this case a light can be on or off at the same-time, because both are real in two different world of consciousness. If we look into a moving object and experience it seemed to freeze. Think of a second tale of a watch, when we observe the second tale is not moving suddenly we understand it is actually moving. But when we observe the tale is not moving, the state is called quantum superposition. By practicing, the state can be expanded and we can experience superposition.
It is the first step of believing with creative consciousness. It is like a completely new topic which never came to us before.
A creative response to live is faster than any decision we can make up. We decide based on past experiences.
A result based on computer analysis is on the data we feed into it. It comes up with the past data which were available to the computer to analyze. It does not consider the present moment. Therefore it is always limited.
It is obviously a superposition, when we are able to allow our consciousness to take a decision on the very moment but not considering on the past data.
This is what we call believing,
Thus believing is the first step of thousand miles paradigm.
Can a simple belief create a reality in our life ?
It is actually possible to do that - by controlling the quality of our thought. Our thought is a form of vibration, rather a combination vibrations of different frequency. Here we can conceptualize pure thought over contaminated with different thoughts comes to our mind at a given time.
Lets go back in 1937, when
Napoleon Hill originally published his book
Think and Grow Rich, everybody wanted to know how manifestation changes thought to reality. In other words, everyone wanted to know the formula of Law of Attraction . It is actually
Desire + Belief + Expectancy + Action = Manifestation.
Napoleon Hill explained :
When faith [by which he meant belief] is blended with the vibration of thought, the subconscious mind instantly picks up the vibration, translates it into its spiritual equivalent, and transmits it to the Infinite Intelligence, as in the case of prayer.
Let us consider an analogy of a swimming pool where a man is standing at waist water level at one side of the pool. There is nobody in the pool. The water is absolutely still. He makes a wave in the water by one of his hand. He observes the wave goes gently towards the sides and ends there and little form of return wave is formed. Then few more people jumped into the pool and started swimming. Then imagine what will happen if he tries to make another wave.
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Ripples of Influence By User:Lbeaumont based on image by
Mila / Brocken Inaglory - This file has been extracted from another file: Multy
droplets impact.JPG, CC BY-SA 3.0,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=29111316
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The second condition is the real analogy to explain our thoughts at any given point of time. Which is called ripples of influence in our mind. That mind is responsible for our entire thought process. It is quite clear that if we take a single step, we practically need to clear our pool of thoughts and proceed for
A Journey of a Thousand Miles Begins With a Single Step.
Any thought arises in our brain is simply an energetic process and the energy can be converted into physical reality by consciously monitoring through our belief.
When we decide to believe , reality takes its form instantly.
