Book Four Chapter Sixteen: The Mindful Type

The mindful type:

The mindful type is one whose mind has been filled, one whose eyes have been opened, and whose senses have been alerted. We might call it the ‘interested’ type, for such individuals now actively seek the answers that, previously, were only hinted at. This type has arrived. While they understand that there is nothing new under the sun, they burn with the newness of a changed spiritual identity. Still firmly rooted in their corporeal reality, they are keenly aware of the reality their eyes cannot see.

Job 4:15, “Then a spirit passed before my face; the hair of my flesh stood up.”

There is power and force and energy in the invisible. God is invisible. God’s thoughts are invisible. Few will deny the power of God; few will deny His energy. The force of His will is evident throughout the ages.

See Psalms 33:11, “The counsel of the Lord standeth for ever, the thoughts of His heart (mind) to all generations.”

As seekers, we feel quite at home with such a concept. Having practiced spiritual vision, we see the strength of God in His thoughts toward us. We are comfortably aware that God is strong in ways that man is not.

Consider Job 38:31, “Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion?”

In all honesty, we must admit that we can no more gather the best of Pleiades into a bundle than we can undo whatever holds Orion in place.

The seeker has arrived. Seekers do not cringe at the bigger picture of God. Truth does not trouble us; we have an appetite for it. Truth is a sandwich for the hungering seeker. Not only do we find it filling, but we ingest reality with each new bite. We take a bite, relish the savor of it, look along each plane for exactly where we next wish to sink our teeth. While we chew, we turn the sandwich over in our hands and see the other side. Like the sandwich, our reality has two sides.

Both of those sides are here and now. We reject that the spiritual is in an inaccessible plane, far away. We reject that the spiritual side of our reality may be realized only in some vague and far-flung future. The spiritual half of us, the mind of God, is being realized here and now. The seeker stipulates that the spirit is meant for the flesh, as the flesh is meant for the spirit.

See Joshua 5:15, “And the captain of the Lord's host said unto Joshua, Loose thy shoe from off thy foot; for the place whereon thou standest is holy. And Joshua did so.”

Consider that the place, so invested with spiritual reality as to be ‘Holy’, would have been insignificant without the real, flesh and blood foot of a faithful seeker standing upon it.

Now, please take note of who it was that spoke to Joshua. It was a high-ranking angel, a spokesman for God. When Moses received the same message, it was, again, a messenger of God speaking for God. In noting how angels, and other messengers of God, speak to man in the scriptures, I find the similarity in their manner striking.

They speak with the authority of God.

That gives us the impression that one of two things is at work. One: the messenger believes he is God, and so speaks with authority. Two: God actually speaks through the messenger, and the messenger, in fact, is only reciting what he hears verbatim. As to the latter, what exactly is the angel picking up on, his inner angel? Does he hear a voice transmitted over distances, from realms inconceivable? Or, does the messenger simply recite the words that ‘come to mind’, words that both originate in and are received by the God-mind in the messenger?

The seeker accepts that a man may be not only a prophet (messenger) but also an angel (messenger). The seeker seeks the God-mind and respects the God-mind in others.

See Colossians 3:22, “Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh; not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but in singleness of heart (singlemindedly), fearing (respecting) God (the God-mind in others).”

The seeker sees the angel in his fellow man, an ongoing process that will make man more and more attuned to the growing God-mind within.

See Colossians 3:23, “And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily (conscientiously), as to the Lord, and not unto men.”

When man is not inclined to reach above himself, when he is just not up to the challenge, he reaches around for something familiar, something already done, something he knows he can do again. Perhaps that is why God gave the Israelites a definite time restriction (one day) in which they were not permitted to reach around for the familiar and easy things to do. It was His way of insisting that the challenge be met.

As for the modern day, I must admit we are a terribly backslidden lot. We give God only an hour a week instead of a day. Seems a few of us are not up to the challenge. We do the hour, then we reach back to things familiar and comforting (corporeally). We go shopping, eat out, or work around the house; we listen to music, watch TV, or engage in a host of other small distractions and busy work. If God is a God of knowledge who inhabits our heads, and if God is life, then isn’t anything that detracts from or limits the exercise of the God-mind a form of death?

Isn’t the occupation of our minds by the God of knowledge also the occupation of life?

See the purpose of such occupation in Psalms 102:20, “To loose those that are appointed to death.”

The prevalent concept of God as some white-bearded distant sky daddy will cause many to struggle with the thought that God could actually be in their heads - right here, right now. Our language is a barren rocky field strewn with signposts pointing down roads that lead nowhere.

Consider where the expression “God above” leads. Even the seeker may find it difficult, when in prayer, not to look toward the sky. God is right here and right now; He is realizing Himself within us. And listen up, we have it on good authority that God (where He actually lives) does not live there alone.

Hear God, Himself, describe His neighbors in Isaiah 57:15, “For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit (mind), to revive the spirit (mind) of the humble, and to revive the heart (mind) of the contrite ones.”

He dwells in the high and holy place . . . with us.

Now, the seeker realizes that ‘the challenge’ is not the same as those comfortable and familiar things we reach for. No one ever honestly said it would be easy. We know from history, even from our own personal life experiences, that the path of progress is rife with pain and danger and sorrows galore. The realization of the God-mind may leave a few rope burns.

See God at work in us in Mark 3:27, “No man can enter into a strong man's house, and spoil his goods, except he will first bind the strong man; and then he will spoil his house.”

And you never saw Him coming. You heard no footfall to warn you. But you found yourself bound hand and foot; you struggled; you complained. You never saw your captor, but, what you did see were the events in your life that said to you ‘thus far and no further’. You saw the results of your decisions to try this or that path. You never suspected you were being led.

See Ecclesiastes 9:1, “For all this I considered in my heart (mind) even to declare all this, that the righteous, and the wise, and their works, are in the hand of God: no man knoweth either love or hatred by all that is before them.”

Our thoughts are the workbench of God. He sits tinkering with wheels and cogs; they are strewn upon the workbench in no particular order, but they make perfect sense to Him. With nimble fingers, deft and practiced, He puts them together like the large pieces of an easy puzzle. Then He takes them apart and puts them together another way. Our thoughts, our will, our motives, and feelings are but cogs that may become a pocket watch or a grandfather clock. God is not limited in what He may do with the parts. Inhabiting flesh, making the mind, turning us as if by bit and rein – well, that’s just what He does. That's his field of expertise.

See Psalms 44:21, “Shall not God search this out? for He knoweth the secrets of the heart (mind).”

Even for those of us that know, it still feels like we are thinking our own thoughts, making our own decisions. If I have told you to ‘repent’ or to ‘get your act together’, is my concern for the improved spiritual state of one solitary individual, or for the improved spiritual state that exists and grows in both of us?

I am, as Isaiah 59:13 says, “Conceiving and uttering from the heart (mind) words.”

But, the expert is building something better within. It cannot help but be communicated. And, you may complain that I am a pest, and doing nothing more than offering my own subjective take on the matter. But, you have only subdued certain cogs within yourself. You only tick differently. Fact is, all of your wheels and cogs are interchangeable with mine. That is why the communication is so inevitable. God is building both of us together. The very fact that you are exposed to the communication, that you are open to the cause, speaks confidently of the effect. My wheel spins, your wheel turns. Until each of your cogs snap firmly in place, you may find yourself under pressure.

Jeremiah 17:10, “I the Lord search the heart (mind), I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.”

The free flow, between individuals, of thoughts and ideas, is not a footprint of the 21st century only but has marched openly through the ages. It has ever been a platform upon which societies have come together, upon which universities have been founded, upon which sciences have developed. And, while men of the modern day exalt science over the religious beliefs of early cultures, there is no evidence that the primitive religious societies were nonscientific. Science shares in common with religion the free flow of thoughts and ideas. One caveman in a vacuum does not a wheel make. One man with fire is not easily hidden from the rest of the tribe. Even if begrudgingly, modern man must admit to the science of primitive people.

We must admit the science involved in the construction of pyramids by ancient religious people. We must admit the science involved in the formulation of ancient calendars and predictions of future events postulated on the basis of past events. The ancient peoples were both scientific and religious. The one thing clear to all of us is this: from the beginning of recorded history, and even before, mind has communicated with mind.

Is it anything more than raw willfulness that some people wish to separate science from faith? Is it anything less than evident that some people reject the prophets of religion only to accept the prophets of science? Should we put away the disciplines that do not deal with empirical evidence? There is no Moses or Samuel of science who can prove empirically that anything at all turns over in their heads. But all of us, in fact, accept the reality of invisible thought. We accept that in communication between two separate corporeal individuals something clicks; something connects; something passes from the one to the other. In the communication between the communicator and the communicated, there is a sameness and a similarity that speaks, in the very least, of a square hole in readiness for a square peg. It is not empirical, but how could communication work otherwise?

A wall is built with brick and mortar. The mortar fits between and binds brick to brick no less than

bricks fit around the mortar and hold it in articulate definition. The mortar has familiar knowledge of the brick, and the brick cannot deny the mortar.

Jeremiah 20:12, “O Lord of hosts, that triest the righteous, and seest the reins and the heart (mind).”

North is intangible, yet every map marks it; every compass includes it. Purpose is invisible, but, we accept that it has direction. Purpose moves from what has been to what will be. We may call purpose, indeed, we may call direction by yet another name. That name is of another intangible. It is an intangible that works in both the corporeal and spiritual, and being invisible, still finds wide acceptance among the scientifically inclined. That name is evolution.

Physical beings have evolved. Societies and languages have evolved. Spirituality and mentality, also, have evolved. When I speak of the spiritual, or mental evolution across societies, I am reminded of the development within an egg. Some parts develop while certain neighboring parts do not. Then, in their time, they develop while developed areas around them take a break. However, on the level of the whole, the whole egg moves in one direction and sees a single purpose.

The mind has evolved. Perception has evolved. We know that our brain is capable of much more. It has evolved with the God-mind, has kept pace with the forward direction. The brain, I believe, will match the purpose of the God-mind, and will take us beyond the isolated individual.

See Jeremiah 24:7, “I will give them an heart (mind) to know Me, that I am the Lord: and they shall be My people, and I will be their God: for they shall return unto Me with their whole heart (mind).”

The ever-present question in this work is: ‘what exactly is spiritual?’. This work has evolved to the point where we now examine the evolved ‘type’. We call this type the ‘mindful type’. And we have not yet reached an end. As direction and purpose go, the mind of this type is only just jumping past the bears. Once we get up and over these falls, we still have a long way to go before we reach the breeding grounds. In our present exertions, we hold that spiritual is mental is spiritual. We assert that our known, or perceived, reality is but a reflection. Our highly honed seeker senses practice perception. We look into the mirror, not to see the spiritual by corporeal standards, but to see the corporeal as part of the spiritual standard.

We are the mindful type because the mind of God has evolved within us to the point where it has taken control of the eyes and ears. The God-mind now flexes the perceptual pectorals of articulate definition. We now perceive the direction, the evolution, the purpose. We see the God-mind not only in our beginning, not only in our development but in every pattern of the great tapestry of being. We see levels; we see stages. We see the pieces of the puzzle in place, and at this point, we wonder if the puzzle is not, itself, one immense piece of yet a larger puzzle. Here, now, is a loaded verse worthy of closer scrutiny. Now that the God-mind controls perception, what great treasures will be uncovered?

See Revelation 1:4, “John to the seven churches which are in Asia: Grace be unto you, and peace, from Him which is, and which was, and which is to come; and from the seven Spirits (minds) which are (and which are streaming into the past and future) before His throne (seat of power).”

Now, let us look closely at this verse from the book of Revelation. God and/or Christ is described as positioned in His seat of power and authority. From that seat, God and/or Christ rules absolutely: it is therefore called a throne. That throne is said to exist equally in the past, present, and future. A nonlinear timeline is indicated. The power and authority of the work occur cooperatively in each time frame; the work, therefore, must occur simultaneously. The throne may be viewed as at the center of time, reaching out and affecting all time at once. Lastly, the agency of that communication is found in seven spirits (or minds) that are before, or that surround the seat of power. They stream outward; they radiate from the seat of power toward everything else.

That there are seven minds or mindsets, may be viewed in many ways, but I will put forth just one for consideration. The seven minds affecting all time (nonlinear) may suggest that serial time has seven ages.

That man derives his nature from the nature of God has already been set forth. We expect to reach the divine nature, developmentally, through the disciplines of knowledge, understanding, and wisdom. What we have now is also a reflection; it is something shared in common with God. It is not that we ascribe to God the anthropomorphic terms of human nature, no: exactly the reverse. If we rejoice, it is because joy is in the nature of God. The traits of God’s nature rub shoulders with the traits of human nature. There is a real connection; there is a connection between realities. The wings of a butterfly are equal: they are exactly the same – and a butterfly with one wing just cannot fly.

See God and man and the nature of their equality in Jeremiah 32:41, “Yea, I will rejoice over them to do them good, and I will plant them in this land assuredly with My whole heart (mind) and with My whole soul (complete spiritual identity).”

When God asks us to love the Lord our God with all our heart and soul, it is because that is how He loves us. Those of us that hope, do so without the full benefit of a clear understanding of the future.

We look for the good even though we have absolutely no knowledge of what that good might be.

But, hey! - cheer up. The invisible, spiritual God ( the same God who is realizing Himself inside of

us) knows all the good that He has prepared for those of us who love Him as He loves us. Now, I

should not have to say it, but I will - those of us who have the God-mind, if we don’t already share

that knowledge, we soon will.

Wrap your budding God-mind around 1 Corinthians 2:9, “But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart (mind) of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him.”

Shall we not become more and more like Christ, more and more like God? The mindful type is an intermediate type, and I have said of this type that we have arrived – but, we still have places to go. What will be the next higher type? How much further may we evolve spiritually? If I may hazard a guess, I think the next type will be that of a seasoned vet: one who has practiced to the point of total confidence.

See 1 John 3:20-21, “For if our heart (mind) condemn (oppose) us, God is greater than our heart (mind), and knoweth all things. Beloved, if our heart (mind) condemn us not (be in full rapport), then have we confidence toward God.”