Seasons of Change is a biweekly column from Jayne Clark addressing different topics each season. Summer's focus is spirituality and intuition. Jayne Clark works intuitively with clients to help them resolve issues regarding relationships, loss, grief, health, and career path. To learn more, head to jayneclark.com.

Lately I have been contemplating the difference in what I believe and what I know. When I am still and quiet, I can actually feel a difference in the two energies.

I have noticed that what I believe to be true has come from many years of studying great spiritual teachers and philosophies. I have attended many enlightening lectures and watched profound documentaries on the relationship between spirituality and science.

Exposing myself to these insightful teachings brought me tremendous understanding of some of life's most complicated questions. It was wonderful to learn that I am truly responsible for the quality of life I lead, how I could significantly change my life through changing my thoughts, and that everything I needed to be happy resided within me.

Though these concepts provided me with the emotional structure by which I could begin to heal much of the inner pain and frustration I was feeling, they didn't belong to me. They didn't arise out of my own consciousness or inner guidance. They were concepts I learned from the outer world and brought them into my inner world.

Beliefs are no more than our logical mind dressing up a spiritual principal as "truth" and convincing us that it is the path to enlightenment. Beliefs are ever changing. What we believe today isn't what we believed years ago. They come from the outer world and their origination is from the split, separated mind. That is how we can discern in what we believe and what we know.

Knowing, on the other hand, is the complete opposite. It comes from inside of us. The only way to have knowing about anything is to go inside, yield to the living Holiness that beats our hearts, listen for guidance, and then take our steps in the world with whole-hearted trust.

Sometimes it is best to take a break from the outer world and all that is being said about the path to enlightenment and seek our truth from within. When we do that, we have truly placed ourselves in the posture to having life unfold and bring to us goodness that we could not have otherwise.

When we seek knowing, we stop placating the beliefs of our ego. And that allows us to jump off of the merry-go-round of repeated patterns. All that is required is an open heart and the willingness to take each step that is given to us with trust without having to know what is around the next corner.

Image: Some rights reserved by xb3