THAT
YE MAY BE MINDFUL... By
Steve Van Nattan Here is a discussion
I think will help us deal with our thinking processes under stress, and it will
answer the New Age version of spiritual thinking. FIRST,
I give you a "reasonable" discussion of "mindfulness" from
a Transcendental Meditation perspective. This is NOT the Bible way of thought
and mindfulness, but it will show you that there is an issue. I especially want
to get to you Pentecostals and Fundamental Baptists who operate at the emotional
and fluffy headed level of thought. This is making all of conservative Bible believers
look silly and obnoxious to worldly people who use their minds for purposes other
than feeling good. You better sit up and take notice folks:
MINDFULNESS-- TM STYLE
http://mdmd.essortment.com/mindfulnesswhat_old.htm
When you experience mindfulness, you are in a moment of pure experience; you are
completely in tune with reality. But it is not the reality of your mind, which
Ian’t reality at all, but how you perceive reality. You are in tune with the being
of whatever it is that you are aware of. It’s kind of like seeing out of the corner
of your eye—you get a glimpse of something; you can’t see it exactly, but you
get an awareness that it is there. When you focus your eyes, you lose your awareness,
your perception of the object and you see it the way you have been trained to
see it—straight on as it is. Your mind perceives it as it has been trained to
perceive it—as a “car,” or a “dog” and what those symbols stand for. Mindfulness
is so fleeting that it is almost unobservable, especially to someone who has not
been trained to be mindful. You generally become mindful of an object or feeling
and before you even realize it, you have moved to your mind; you focus on perceiving
the object or feeling, recognizing that perception, naming it (such as “car” or
“love”) and then getting involved in thinking about it. Your mind takes control.
The original mindfulness gets lost, and you forget it, especially if you didn’t
even know it occurred in the first place. That is the reason many people meditate:
it allows them to prolong that moment of awareness, of mindfulness. Mindfulness
can help you reduce stress and enjoy life more. When you are mindful, you are
very cognizant about what is going on around you and how you feel about what is
going on around you. And when you are very aware of people, things, and situations,
you are able to make a skillful choice about how to respond. For example, if the
kids are all yelling at once and you are being mindful, the yelling doesn't cause
you to get angry and blow up at them. Instead you tend to feel calmer and are
able to focus on what is going on, in this case the yelling. When you are calm,
you tend to respond to the stress of the yelling by calming down the children
and getting to the bottom of the problem rather than yelling back at them. When
mindfulness is prolonged through meditation, you will find that your experience
is profoundly changed. However, you have to learn how to meditate and it takes
consistent practice to become mindful. Few people are constantly mindful; only
people like His Holiness the Dahli Lama have learned through extensive training
to be constantly mindful. But once you learn how to meditate and become mindful,
you will find that mindfulness can rally change your life. Now,
I want you to look at "mindfulness" from the Word of God, King James
Bible. We will look at the ways in which God is mindful, and then the ways man
is mindful, good and bad: GOD
IS MINDFUL Psalm 8:4 What is man, that thou art
mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? Psalm
111:5 He hath given meat unto them that fear him: he will ever be mindful of his
covenant. Psalm 115:12 The LORD hath been mindful of us: he will
bless us; he will bless the house of Israel; he will bless the house of Aaron.
Jeremiah 15:1 Then said the LORD unto me, Though Moses and Samuel
stood before me, yet my mind could not be toward this people: cast them out of
my sight, and let them go forth. MAN
IS MINDFUL 1 Chronicles 16:15 Be ye mindful
always of his covenant; the word which he Nehemiah 9:17 And refused
to obey, neither were mindful of thy wonders that thou didst among them; but hardened
their necks, and in their rebellion appointed a captain to return to their bondage:
but thou art a God ready to pardon, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and
of great kindness, and forsookest them not. Isaiah 17:10 Because
thou hast forgotten the God of thy salvation, and hast not been mindful of the
rock of thy strength, therefore shalt thou plant pleasant plants, and shalt set
it with strange slips: 2 Timothy 1:4 Greatly desiring to see thee,
being mindful of thy tears, that I may be filled with joy; Hebrews
11:15 And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came
out, HOW
CAN WE BE MINDFUL IN HOLINESS? Philippians 2:5
Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:
6 Who, being in
the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:
7 But made
himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made
in the likeness of men:
8 And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled
himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
Romans 15:6 That ye may with one mind and one mouth glorify God, even the Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians 1:10 Now I beseech you,
brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing,
and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together
in the same mind and in the same judgment. Philippians 1:27 Only
let your conversation be as it becometh the gospel of Christ: that whether I come
and see you, or else be absent, I may hear of your affairs, that ye stand fast
in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel; Holy
rollin' and hollerin' to hear ourselves and get the warm fuzzies is not conducive
to bringing the one mind of Christ to control our fellowship. It takes conscious
use of the mind to come into unity with the mind of Christ. It also takes the
teaching of Bible texts other than sign gifts and healing in Pentecostalism, and
giving and soul winning in Fundamentalism. 1 Corinthians
2:15 But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of
no man.
16 For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct
him? But we have the mind of Christ. The mind of Christ
causes us to examine all things and say "Good" or "Evil."
We start with ourselves if we want the mind of Christ. Let a man
examine himself 1 Colossians 11:28 But let a man examine
himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup. We
are so eager to examine each other, but examination starts with me first. Then,
we may go on to examine the mind of others to see if they line up with the mind
of Christ. This is how we "judge righteous judgment." THE
PROBLEM Romans 7:25 I thank God through Jesus
Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with
the flesh the law of sin. This is the problem with
TM and the Dalai Lama. They are "mindful" in lust for what they can
get out of their mind control. You saw in the Romans text the saint serves. This
is also clearly the mind of Christ who was a servant in Philippians 2 above. The
mind of the saint is conditioned to be "mindful" in order to serve,
first, Christ, and then others. THE
MIND OF CHRIST IN THE BELIEVER The mind of Christ in you then
controls your mouth: Romans 15:6 That ye may with one
mind and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
1 Corinthians 1:10 Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus
Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among
you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same
judgment. The chain of command moves from Christ to
us, not the reverse: 1 Corinthians 2:16 For who hath
known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of
Christ. The mindfulness of TM, the Dalai Lama and self-centered
men, even in the local church, is shaken easily by circumstances. Only by the
aid of devils can a sinner ignore his fears and conscience and pretend to be at
peace with himself and the world. This is done by emptying the mind, which Jesus
never did. 2 Thessalonians 2:1 Now we beseech you,
brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together
unto him,
2 That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by
spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at
hand. Notice next how that only a right way of thinking,
which is in the model of Christ's holiness, is approved of God:
1 Peter 1:13 Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope
to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus
Christ;
14 As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the
former lusts in your ignorance:
15 But as he which hath called you is holy,
so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; Finally,
the TM crowd, and the Jackboot Fundamental Baptist preachers and their mindless
followers, may never rise above the flesh and self-love to the point of sanctified
mindfulness. Here is the ONLY way this is done: 1 Peter
4:1 Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves
likewise with the same mind: for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased
from sin;
2 That he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh
to the lusts of men, but to the will of God. No one
wants to suffer, and most saints in this Laodicean age will do anything to make
sure they don't suffer. Thus, they make certain their thinking follows the mediocre
path, and they are never "mindful" of life and other saints in the model
of Christ. There is no shortcut to a sound mind. This is why there are so many
"Christian" shrinks. What are YOU going to do with your
mind? Is Christ your example, or are you mosly coasting mentally all the time? BACK
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