What Are You Thinking About?
An ongoing conversation my friend Michael Parisi & I have is around the question: What is the mind of Christ?
Or what is the mind of God?
I’ve been exclusively reading St. John of the Cross and finding great value in his ancient writings.
What’s becoming increasingly clear to me is that the overwhelming majority of our socially / culturally conditioned thoughts are a complete waste of time.
They do not lead us into a harmonious dance of trust with the mind of our Creator.
They are a waste of energy at best, a destructive pattern toward ourselves and others at worst.
The more one’s mind steps into communion with God, the more this excessive thinking—
*worry
*fear
*anxiety
*doubts
*addictions
*resentments
*jealousy
*revenge
*vanity
*hedonistic pursuits
starts to fade away as strength, confidence, and faith grow into the simple and repeated act of fully surrendering to God’s will, moment by moment.
This does not actually require more knowing. It requires an absolute unknowing. A process of subtraction.
With the continued emptying of the mind and the heart, we become much more open and available for God’s presence to fill us and illuminate us.
My sense is that, as we become increasingly purified on this path, the amount of overall content bouncing around in our head can be reduced by probably 75% to 80%.
Figures like Eckhart Tolle, Thich Nhat Hanh, & others who teach the value of stilling the mind are correct.
Yet, here’s the important thing: You can never still the mind by trying to do it for your own egoic benefit & gratification. It just creates more internal noise.
It happens as a byproduct of fully giving your life to God (the loving presence at the heart of all creation).
I believe this is what it means when Christ teaches us to be ‘poor in spirit.’
After an extended period of disorientation & now reorientation, I have found a most rooted and beautiful home for myself in the rich tradition of contemplative Christianity.
Particularly the Catholic / Orthodox tradition with its long list of great saints and absolute powerhouse mystics to draw pristine wisdom from.
The interesting thing is very few of the clients I work with have been, or are, Christian.
My clients have always spanned every category: ‘spiritual, but not religious,’ Yogis, New Age, Buddhist, Muslim, Jewish, Christian, Pagan, Atheist.
No one has ever been asked to change who they are.
Everyone is, however, asked to consider the same question.
What are you thinking about each day?
If you look closely, the odds are most of what you’re thinking about is an unhealthy waste of time & energy.
The good news is, through clear intention, dedicated, committed practice, self-inquiry, discipline, grit, and grace, that can and will change.
I can attest to that from my own experience and the lives of those I’ve worked with.
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