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For thousands of years, deeply spiritual people have longed and yearned to get in touch with the Soul, Spirit, and Unconscious generally. They have developed, over centuries, various forms of meditation or "silent prayer."
You must still the busy-ness of the conscious (thinking) mind and open yourself to the deep Love-nature (Christ-spirit or Buddha-nature) profoundly in the mind of all people. To clear the mind, many use a mantra, a simple phrase repeated. Some effective ones include: "God is Love and..." "Jesus Christ and..." "I am at peace," "aAhmitabha" (Lord of Light), "Loving Mary," "Gentle KwanYin," "Does not matter," etc.
There are literally hundreds of variations and possibilities.
A phrase of four syllables falls very easily into a rhythm, and that is why it is used in "pervasive meditation" (acognitive therapy). As this name for meditation indicates, clearing the mind is very therapeutic and healing to both mind and body.
Whenever you have a spare minute or two, start to "run" (repeat) the phrase in your mind. Relax as deeply as possible, centering your whole being on pure Love, and excluding everything else. Gently push all other thoughts and mind-pictures out of your mind. Take some deep cleansing breaths, and you might also want to visualize your body surrounded by a beautiful blue or golden light.
Do this as often as possible during the day. This will get you in touch with the Lovemind, Coremind, or Godmind within. In time, without any effort, your thoughts, words, and actions will begin to change for the better. You will find yourself happier, more joyful, more contented, satisfied, and fulfilled. You will find yourself speaking, thinking, and acting with greater patience and Love. You will express healthy and healing compassion, goodness, and kindness. You will find self-forgiveness pouring from the interior "Fountain" of God (Love)inside you.
Do not give up. Keep on trying. Keep returning to your phrase, no matter how many times the mind gets distracted. For you are opening the interior "door" to the Holy Spirit, your highest Self or nature.
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Showing posts with label coremind. Show all posts
Showing posts with label coremind. Show all posts
Saturday, June 16, 2007
Friday, May 25, 2007
How the Ego Blocks the Divine Mind
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Enlightened people call the usual human identity the "ego." When a person says, "I am Mary Smith," she is identifying her social and recognized human self, her ego. The ego is the person (identity) that we have always thought ourselves to be; it is the name on your birth-certificate and driver's license. It is whom everyone, including parents, assumes you to be.
But spiritual tradition has always held that we have a "secret identity." This identity is not conscious, but is hidden deeply within the Unconscious.
This secret identity is based on the spiritual premise that "our" minds are all part of a greater Mind-- a Mind that is a galaxy of infinite Love, joy, beauty, wisdom, and truth. Deep down, these traditions hold, we all "grow out of" this great shared Mind, as a thousand million flowers all grow out of the single earth. This beautiful and magnificent shared Mind, you might have guessed, is the "Mind of God."
What Jesus said about Himself, then, applies to all of us. For He said, "The Father [God] and I are one." (Jn. 10:30) Deep within the Unconscious, we are all in touch with a vast Mind that is pure Love. (This is called "Lovemind," "Coremind," or, "Godmind.")
The ultimate goal of enlightenment is to fuse, meld, merge, unify, or unite with this Mind of pure Love. This is the highest human act of worship. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, the attempt to "become one" with this perfect Mind is the sincerest form of Love for God.
For to see God as a part of one's own mind is to have a transformative effect. This God cannot be "distant," or "gone," relative to His/Her human children. For, by definition, wherever they go, He is.
The spiritual tradition teaches that this entire world is the dream, or "virtual reality," created by this one Mind. So, this God is everywhere, and within all hearts, and within all things. For just as when you dream of a blue ball and a red wagon, you are "in" the ball and the wagon, for they are part of your dream (and thus, of your mind), so, in an analogous way, God "indwells" all creation. This makes the entire world beautiful, and sacred.
When you identify strongly with the ego, or lower human nature, you are in essence denying the higher nature, the indwelling Holy Spirit. You are turning away from your own higher nature, your Love-nature, and identifying with the time-bound, terribly limited, and merely human, identity. People who make a career out of their egos, who spend all their time trying to inflate them, to get attention, praise, notice, accolade, approbation, and "strokes" for their ego are denying their deep interior higher Self, the God-Self. So, people in our society, whose goal is almost always to inflate, and gain attention for, the ego, are sabotaging their deepest spiritual plans. For the ultimate reason that we incarnate on earth is to overcome the illusion that we are merely animal-bodies and merely egominds. We come here to vanquish, overcome, and conquer ego-dominance and also ego-identification ("I am only Mary Smith").
The Scriptures make it clear that Jesus was not a freak, but a "model...for you to follow his footsteps closely." If Jesus was a model, this means that he was not a different species than are we. He truly was, asthe old formula said, "true God and true man." He had become a full incarnation, not of "another person," but of Love. He had fully "traded in" his old human identity for the realization, "I am a temporary incarnation of the principle of Love."
To become Love incarnate, we must fully de-identify with the ego. Mary Smith must say, "I am not only Mary Smith, although that is a small part of my mind. For I am also a vessel for the Holy Spirit of Love." Gradually, with the passage of time, and with the continued consistent practice of humility, Mary Smith's ego begins to disappear into her fuller identification with God (Love). This is the final and ultimate destiny of all living beings, to fulfill the words of Paul, writing about a time when "God will be all in all."
*******
Enlightened people call the usual human identity the "ego." When a person says, "I am Mary Smith," she is identifying her social and recognized human self, her ego. The ego is the person (identity) that we have always thought ourselves to be; it is the name on your birth-certificate and driver's license. It is whom everyone, including parents, assumes you to be.
But spiritual tradition has always held that we have a "secret identity." This identity is not conscious, but is hidden deeply within the Unconscious.
This secret identity is based on the spiritual premise that "our" minds are all part of a greater Mind-- a Mind that is a galaxy of infinite Love, joy, beauty, wisdom, and truth. Deep down, these traditions hold, we all "grow out of" this great shared Mind, as a thousand million flowers all grow out of the single earth. This beautiful and magnificent shared Mind, you might have guessed, is the "Mind of God."
What Jesus said about Himself, then, applies to all of us. For He said, "The Father [God] and I are one." (Jn. 10:30) Deep within the Unconscious, we are all in touch with a vast Mind that is pure Love. (This is called "Lovemind," "Coremind," or, "Godmind.")
The ultimate goal of enlightenment is to fuse, meld, merge, unify, or unite with this Mind of pure Love. This is the highest human act of worship. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, the attempt to "become one" with this perfect Mind is the sincerest form of Love for God.
For to see God as a part of one's own mind is to have a transformative effect. This God cannot be "distant," or "gone," relative to His/Her human children. For, by definition, wherever they go, He is.
The spiritual tradition teaches that this entire world is the dream, or "virtual reality," created by this one Mind. So, this God is everywhere, and within all hearts, and within all things. For just as when you dream of a blue ball and a red wagon, you are "in" the ball and the wagon, for they are part of your dream (and thus, of your mind), so, in an analogous way, God "indwells" all creation. This makes the entire world beautiful, and sacred.
When you identify strongly with the ego, or lower human nature, you are in essence denying the higher nature, the indwelling Holy Spirit. You are turning away from your own higher nature, your Love-nature, and identifying with the time-bound, terribly limited, and merely human, identity. People who make a career out of their egos, who spend all their time trying to inflate them, to get attention, praise, notice, accolade, approbation, and "strokes" for their ego are denying their deep interior higher Self, the God-Self. So, people in our society, whose goal is almost always to inflate, and gain attention for, the ego, are sabotaging their deepest spiritual plans. For the ultimate reason that we incarnate on earth is to overcome the illusion that we are merely animal-bodies and merely egominds. We come here to vanquish, overcome, and conquer ego-dominance and also ego-identification ("I am only Mary Smith").
The Scriptures make it clear that Jesus was not a freak, but a "model...for you to follow his footsteps closely." If Jesus was a model, this means that he was not a different species than are we. He truly was, asthe old formula said, "true God and true man." He had become a full incarnation, not of "another person," but of Love. He had fully "traded in" his old human identity for the realization, "I am a temporary incarnation of the principle of Love."
To become Love incarnate, we must fully de-identify with the ego. Mary Smith must say, "I am not only Mary Smith, although that is a small part of my mind. For I am also a vessel for the Holy Spirit of Love." Gradually, with the passage of time, and with the continued consistent practice of humility, Mary Smith's ego begins to disappear into her fuller identification with God (Love). This is the final and ultimate destiny of all living beings, to fulfill the words of Paul, writing about a time when "God will be all in all."
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