Consider the question: Are your beliefs shaped by your experiences, or are your experiences shaped by what you believe?

If you consider those beliefs that arise as a result of your experience with the universe, e.g., because of so-and-so you believe, then you are talking about survival instincts. You are talking about your ability to adapt to the way things are. This is defensive living and a very low order of employment of consciousness.

The penalty for accepting the viewpoint that your experience with the world is the source of all your beliefs is that you become a tooth-and-claw creature, overburdened with past limitations, and surrounded by challenges to your survival: a dog-eat-dog world.

So there you are, scurrying around trying to decide which consequences are going to kill you and what you might do to survive a while longer. Then without warning, some Bodhisattva, an Avatar, walks through your life and reshapes reality by such pure acts of deliberate belief that somewhere deep inside it all, in a place behind who you thought you were, a new “I” awakens.

Things look different from this place, clearer, less threatening. The attitude changes from suffering survivor to interested explorer. You start to make connections; you see patterns.

Are your experiences affected by what you believe?

At first people are suspicious of such a question. It seems too easy. Then curiosity causes them to look a little closer.
Yes, believing certain things creates standards against which they evaluate experience. They believe in certain moral values. This is good and that is bad. And yes, sometimes moral values change, and it is possible that you might enjoy some things that you don’t enjoy now.

It does seem that how you experience the universe may have as much to do with what you believe, how you interpret, as it has to do with what is actually happening.