Reality is whatever you believe it is

There was a story I was told while studying Cultural Anthropology in the 1980s. This is the story:

There was a tribe of Native South Americans in the rain forest who believed that a wood totem pole in the center of the village was what allowed their tribe to exist spiritually here on earth. One day this carved and highly decorated totem type of pole at the center of the village was eaten through enough by termites that it fell over. The people sat down or laid down while cultural anthropologists watched while they all stared blankly, starved and died over the course of a month or so. They wouldn't eat. They wouldn't drink anything. They all just slowly died until every one in that tribe died.

So, in this sense reality is whatever you believe it is.

So, be very careful what you believe because your very life in a human body on earth depends on this for survival.