Behavior modification is one common way to look at things. But, the Way of Christ is about being transformed by the renewing of your mind (Rom 12:2): The renewal of consciousness. Everything we do, think, and feel externally begins internally. As an illustration, did you check Indian cricket scores lately or study nuclear physics or take a crossbow into the garage and start shooting? No? Why not? It is not within your consciousness to do so. So, those things don't occur because they are internally not there. What does occur, occurs because it is held internally in consciousness. So, if we'd rather not do some act, the Way to accomplish this is by the renewing of the mind, the renewing of one's internal consciousness. We renew internally and the external changes in accordance.
And actually that's what the passage in James being discussed above is all about. The teaching is on temptation and is addressed to anyone that is experiencing temptation. It promises that if one endures through a temptation, having stood the test, one will receive a crown of Life. Temptation occurs because a bit of consciousness is locked into the form of a desire. When temptation arises, we take responsibility for it as our creation. We are aware and we face it head on. If we wish, we can lay it down and not have it manifest in external action. And having stood the test, that bit of consciousness is transformed, it diffuses. It is no longer in the form of a desire and it will return to it's Source and we will experience in our crown (our mind, our consciousness), the Life of Spirit; aka the Crown of Life.
This renewal of the mind happens bit by bit. We go from grace to grace. You start where you are and you go from there. It is the spiritual work of The Way. We have the mind of Christ within us. And as we loose the bits of energetic consciousness that we have bound in various forms, as we lay down the life that we have formed, Christ is formed in us. We can have thousands of Crown of Life experiences.
This is not a religious theory. This is practical. We have to experiment so that we can experience so that we can know.
Perhaps a testimony will be helpful. Two days ago, I was doing some work on myself. There was a heaviness felt near my heart. I focused my attention on that feeling of heaviness. After awhile, in vision, a door appeared. I opened the door and saw a one room bare cabin with a chair in the middle of the room. I was led to just sit in the chair. I had the intuition that the room symbolized the heaviness and that simply sitting there with the door open, the energy of the blockage would diffuse. I did this for awhile and there was relief from the heaviness in the chest. Also in vision, I saw an Alka Seltzer tablet dissolving in a glass of water and intuited that I was the tablet, God was the water and I was dissolving into Him (That one was a wonderful experience).
Later, I was reading a book when I started to feel queasy, clammy, like a headache was coming on. I began to think: Oh, I'm not feeling good. I was going to leave here at 2:30, maybe I'll leave at 1:30 because I'm not feeling good. I'll just go home and lay in bed. I thought, I'll tell my family that I'm sick. I saw in my mind's eye my family seeing me laying in bed and asking if I'm sick and me saying I'm not feeling good.
That mentation all happened in 10 seconds and then I became aware of what was happening in my head. I was experiencing temptation to do what the thoughts were saying. I gathered those thoughts and took them captive. I sat quietly with a calm serene mind and I asked, what is source of these thoughts, what is the desire here. Right away, the insight came: to feel connection with another. I continued to sit quietly and asked, how so or why. Again, the insight came: when you're sick, people naturally feel empathy or sympathy for you. So, when you're sick people connect with you and you feel that connection. So, being sick is a good way to feel connection with someone else.
So, based upon my life experiences and choices I've made, consciously or unconsciously, by beliefs I held at one time, by things I've done or seen done, a bit of my consciousness locked into a form in me. That bit took the form of, it's good to be sick because then people connect with you. Is this what I want? No. I'm gonna loose that and let it go. I willingly lay this down. I willingly repent. (Repent is meta + noia, which is change (meta) my mind (noia)). It is a literal change that happens. And as that locked up bit was allowed to diffuse, a Crown of LIfe experience happened and my consciousness was renewed and that bit that was locked up was allowed to return to the mind of Christ which was formed a bit more in me.
Thanks for reading what turned out to be a pretty long post. Phew.
PS. What arises in you in reaction to reading this post is the material you can use to renew your mind, right here, right now.
And actually that's what the passage in James being discussed above is all about. The teaching is on temptation and is addressed to anyone that is experiencing temptation. It promises that if one endures through a temptation, having stood the test, one will receive a crown of Life. Temptation occurs because a bit of consciousness is locked into the form of a desire. When temptation arises, we take responsibility for it as our creation. We are aware and we face it head on. If we wish, we can lay it down and not have it manifest in external action. And having stood the test, that bit of consciousness is transformed, it diffuses. It is no longer in the form of a desire and it will return to it's Source and we will experience in our crown (our mind, our consciousness), the Life of Spirit; aka the Crown of Life.
This renewal of the mind happens bit by bit. We go from grace to grace. You start where you are and you go from there. It is the spiritual work of The Way. We have the mind of Christ within us. And as we loose the bits of energetic consciousness that we have bound in various forms, as we lay down the life that we have formed, Christ is formed in us. We can have thousands of Crown of Life experiences.
This is not a religious theory. This is practical. We have to experiment so that we can experience so that we can know.
Perhaps a testimony will be helpful. Two days ago, I was doing some work on myself. There was a heaviness felt near my heart. I focused my attention on that feeling of heaviness. After awhile, in vision, a door appeared. I opened the door and saw a one room bare cabin with a chair in the middle of the room. I was led to just sit in the chair. I had the intuition that the room symbolized the heaviness and that simply sitting there with the door open, the energy of the blockage would diffuse. I did this for awhile and there was relief from the heaviness in the chest. Also in vision, I saw an Alka Seltzer tablet dissolving in a glass of water and intuited that I was the tablet, God was the water and I was dissolving into Him (That one was a wonderful experience).
Later, I was reading a book when I started to feel queasy, clammy, like a headache was coming on. I began to think: Oh, I'm not feeling good. I was going to leave here at 2:30, maybe I'll leave at 1:30 because I'm not feeling good. I'll just go home and lay in bed. I thought, I'll tell my family that I'm sick. I saw in my mind's eye my family seeing me laying in bed and asking if I'm sick and me saying I'm not feeling good.
That mentation all happened in 10 seconds and then I became aware of what was happening in my head. I was experiencing temptation to do what the thoughts were saying. I gathered those thoughts and took them captive. I sat quietly with a calm serene mind and I asked, what is source of these thoughts, what is the desire here. Right away, the insight came: to feel connection with another. I continued to sit quietly and asked, how so or why. Again, the insight came: when you're sick, people naturally feel empathy or sympathy for you. So, when you're sick people connect with you and you feel that connection. So, being sick is a good way to feel connection with someone else.
So, based upon my life experiences and choices I've made, consciously or unconsciously, by beliefs I held at one time, by things I've done or seen done, a bit of my consciousness locked into a form in me. That bit took the form of, it's good to be sick because then people connect with you. Is this what I want? No. I'm gonna loose that and let it go. I willingly lay this down. I willingly repent. (Repent is meta + noia, which is change (meta) my mind (noia)). It is a literal change that happens. And as that locked up bit was allowed to diffuse, a Crown of LIfe experience happened and my consciousness was renewed and that bit that was locked up was allowed to return to the mind of Christ which was formed a bit more in me.
Thanks for reading what turned out to be a pretty long post. Phew.
PS. What arises in you in reaction to reading this post is the material you can use to renew your mind, right here, right now.
