Battle of the mind

We have embarked on a journey; a journey through a lifetime which is but a blink of an eye; a journey which starts and ends with love. Throughout this journey the mind wrestles with the heart sometimes ever so gently and other times it is a full out grudge match. Why is it that when we find the heart, when we accept our worth, accept the God within, our journey continues along rocky ground, continues to wind and turn making for treacherous curves and incredible inclines?  With our humanity comes suspicion, comes the notion that we, somehow, deserve to feel bad, that joy cannot consume our life's journey so we doubt and sabotage the placid journey.  Whether consciously or subconsciously, this doubt creeps in slowly at first then stubbornly refuses to budge, all because the mind, connected to the physical world, intertwined in the theories and projected life experiences proposed by societal norms feels threatened by the heart.  At young ages we are programmed to think rationally, depend upon logical explanations and be enslaved to the measurement of time.  "Return to the house when the street lights come on for that means it is getting late", "You must go to bed early because morning will come quickly and you need 8 hours of rest", "the deadline for your thesis is in two weeks, I hope you have been diligently working."  Measurements of time seem to stand in our way of truly developing the heart, truly and completely connecting to God via the soul for extended periods of time.  The mind loves to control, it loves to take the reigns and puffing up its proverbial chest thus accepting credit for life's accomplishments and throwing a wrench in the system when things are going too .  I remember teaching a class one year about heaven.  Being a difficult concept I was prepared for a grand discussion, even arguments but I was blindsided by the unanimous consensus which was to unfold.  We first spoke about the fact that heaven was not a place, nothing physical, no landmarks by which to describe its physical markings.  So I proceeded with, "Heaven, is not a room in the sky confounded by four walls, it is a state of being; being eternally in the presence of God, in the presence of love; no separation from this greatness shall befall the recipients of heaven."  Again, this abstract thought I knew would pose problematic since rational thought plagues my teaching methods from their onset.  Once we got past the spacial issues we moved on; tackling the concept of the spiritual realm, no physical bodies and the lack of need for such oppressive, constrictive confines, we discussed the fact that we are not defined by the physical, that life, itself, is not of the physical rather it is of the spiritual.  The discussion of the spiritual is where I found myself shocked and  deeply concerned for humanity.  Love began the discussion for we spoke of God as love and our deserving of such love for God's promise of unconditionalness was the basis of our discussion.  So, if we are to be love then we need to accept love, that we may become the love of Christ and live in peace; that our soul may not be restless; that our soul may rest in the arms of God.  Heaven, therefore, is the epitome of this love for we are securely nestled in the arms of God though we know no physical body.  "Take the best day you have ever had, multiply it by one hundred and rest in the joy, the greatness which that day brings always," was my next comment, hoping to have them look forward toward heaven.  It was the next question which lead to my fret, "So in heaven we know no sadness, no anxiety, no hurt?"  Excitedly I responded with a yes for I had seen on their faces that they understood this lengthy discussion.  I was unprepared for what followed, "Well, that is not possible then because we can't always have happiness."  "What?  The core of who we are, the core of our beings, who and what God calls us to be; His offering of love is encompassed in joy.  Yet these students sat in front of me convinced that we needed to have hurt, needed to have sadness that constant joy was not only not plausible, it was not possible.  They felt that they deserved the pain so that they could feel the joy.  If they did not know pain they they could not feel joy for joy was nothing more than a comparison of sorts.  They believed they would tire from the joy, for no one could withstand constant joy; they would be bored."  I was speechless.  I have had many faith questions thrown at me over the years but this one left me absolutely speechless. I poled the class and they unanimously agreed with this student's statement about needing the pain to feel the joy and the boredom found in constant joy was, indeed, true.  I then discussed this concept with several other classes only to find their agreement with, what I find, an absurd statement.  It led me to a long contemplative retreat on the power and stronghold of the mind and the need for the heart to be given a voice.  The mind manipulates situations that we may feel abandoned, feel hurt, cause hurt for that matter.  Pain, depression, anxiety allows the mind the freedom to do as it wishes, to skew the situation that it remain the hero.   For, as my students said, one can not appreciate the good without the bad, so the mind creates the bad that even the smallest good seems incredible. God's promise to us is that we can live enveloped in love, that we are worthy of all that consumes with tenderness, hope, and security for we are His children and He dwells within us.  I propose that we need to silence the mind.  Yes, we must think and, at times, logical thought is our saving grace.  It is just a matter of reprogramming the mind that it does not act as though the heart is a threat, that it need not become both the villain and the hero.  The heart and mind can work in conjunction with one another that life on this earth begin to mimic the life with awaits our eternal rest.  We all know Nike's slogan Just Do It.  What if that became the mantra of the mind, just do it?  When we use words like, "trying", "I'll get there", "soon", "someday"; these all leave room for failure or for enough time to slip away and the "trying" to be forgotten.  But, if we commit to "just doing" something then we are telling ourselves we can, we will.  Funny how words can manipulate, how they can, again by our choice, change our mood.  If someone comes to us using accusatory language, "You did this and You did that", automatically we are put on the defense and our guard is up.  We do this to ourselves as well when we leave room for the mind to manipulate the situation.  We have to learn that we will make mistakes, that we will fall, that life is not perfect and heartache will befall us; however, WE do not need to create this trouble in our own lives.  Letting the mind wander can be dangerous for spite, revenge and malice have become dominate components of our psyche with the intent to silence the heart for it speaks of the truth of love, the truth of God and the truth of our worthy nature.  We need not experience devastation to know blessedness; we do not need to know heartache to experience joy; we need not know loss to know greatness.   Any day we could look at the news and become soured to humanity with the crime and loss reported each night.  We look at the events of the world and say to ourselves, "Wow, we are the lucky ones, I guess we are truly blessed."  It took me a while to Figure out what my students were saying and though I disagreed with them I listened.  I started to look around and take in the world from their vantage point and I began to see, still I disagree, where they were coming from.  Inundated with sadness, they look at life from a different perspective (I believe many more hold their belief or at least part of their belief I am just the odd man out and that is okay no judgements are ever made).  I watched the news and, like I said, the comparisons began.  I do not believe that we need comparisons of good and bad  that we may understand and accept the good and essentially so in search for the bad that the good be even better.   Our soul holds the truths of love, the truths of our joy but sometimes the mind is too loud, too distracting, overwhelming that we forget about the heart.  Let us start now and reprogram our mind to think in terms of love instead of in terms of defeat.  When the heart and mind work in unison, greatness follows; greatness that is deserving of a God dwelling heart.  Humanity definitely gets in the way of love, of joy, of our innate connection to a loving Creator.  Manipulated by the mind, we throw ourselves into that which serves no spiritual purpose, that which takes us in the opposite direction of faith, that which leads us to become dependent upon the clock, enslaved to the "known", the definitive.  Well, what is truly definitive as defined by human language...birth and death.  Should we listen to the language of the heart we can be sure of love, sure of worth, sure of a Creator who has not left us only journeys with us every moment of the day and protects us as we are wrapped in love.  To shut down the mind completely is inconceivable, it is not possible for we require it for human survival; however, our acknowledgement of our flaws as governed by the mind, manipulated at each course needs to be addressed head on that we may embark in our purposed journey of faith, purposed in love, purposed in joy.  While the power of the mind grapples, the strength of the heart carries.  Let us adapt the slogan just do it and bridge the gap between the mind and heart that joy may be our destiny coupled with love.