Bereitschaftsbeitrag

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28. Dezember 2017

Tuning the mind

The life of the mind is determined by a person's expectations. That is not to say that expectations are causes, but that they reflect the causes involved in the life of our minds.

The contemporary reading of this eternal truth focusses on experience, the adjustment of our expectations to repeated observations, but expectation isn't merely a statistical gauge, it is the supreme judge of what exists, it contains instinct just as well as the validity of logic, and accordingly its development is richer than the mere collection of memories would suggest, although everything is of course an experience and becomes a memory...

As I've suggested in the previous post, our expectations change as a result of our decisions, the stand we take. There are forces governing the world, our expectation tells us so, and by betting on them, that is by striving towards situations in which they are decisive, for instance through righteousness to righteousness, our expectation changes in order to include the fate that we have created for ourselves.

All analysis must though start from concrete experiences that can be analysed, and so I will talk (again) about the two most meaningful spiritual experiences in my life.

Before the first experience, when I was 3 years old, I did expect that there was a power that moved the world towards the beautiful, but I expected no personal consequences for me. After I pledged nyself then I felt ever until the second experience, when I was 30 years old, that even in face of the bleakest outlooks the general drift towards beauty would open up a path for me, and miserably as I squeezed through, I did.

Then, when I was 30, I did expect that our conscious testimony of our lives had some meaning and would be involved in the creation of all things, but I had no notion of the way in which this might occur. After I rejected my life in isolation I since gradually gained an expectation of the creative seeds that spring from the spirits that we invite.

I cannot simply leave this point at that, but neither do I want to postpone the analysis, so I'll pick it up later. What we see in both cases is that our expectation provides us with general principles that we can, because we expect them, reach out to in one way or another by taking a stand and allow our expectation thus to grow and with it the life of our minds.

The expectation thus bears all possible futures of our minds, all possible spirits that may possess us. Which brings us back to conscious testimony. We are conscious so that we may embrace that form of existence that brings harmony. God is the great soul in which all things enjoy their nature, and we are not merely formed, but have the opportunity to sense him, if we thus expect, that is believe.

Age is a good thing. The frailer you get, the less concern is stirred by the way in which God's glory manifests itself in your life and you're afforded the wider view.

And yes, God does have a definite plan for us. It follows not from general considerations, but from the expectations of those near to him and what they have glimpsed (already millennia ago).

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