FIVE MINDSETS THAT HAVE HELPED ME SEE WHAT CAN’T BE SEEN WITH EYES ALONE

Assumptions are those ways of thinking that are the foundation of why we believe what we do. When an atheist says “There is no god,” it is because of the assumptions that they hold. It is the god that they assume NOT to be true that they place at the center of their lives. To be fair, they are correct in their assumptions if you hold the same way of thinking to be true. To shift away from the “there is no god” assumption, science is famous for the assumptions it holds in reality. There is a “theory of everything” floating about the Internet, which tries to unify everything into one way of thinking. All of this makes sense if you have the same assumptions, which, by the way, are just as individualistic as snowflakes. Just as those with the assumption that “Jesus is the Son of God, Savior” can be the same, what that means becomes what that individual person experiences in their life about what it means to be human and those choices that have become mindsets or a conglomerate of assumptions (perhaps not all agreeing) that shape our minds and hearts.

From assumptions come language and the basis for moral choices. I have a soft spot in my heart for all those who seek the truth and end up not being able to move beyond two universes of reality (the physical as the basis for humanity and the eighty or so years I carve out of that for my time alive on earth, plus the mental universe so I can reflect on that base and determine the deeper purpose for why I wake up as a human being and not a dinosaur and can say, “Is there anything more to life than death)? Is there another level of evolution for humans that is beyond just what we can see?”

I offer my assumptions (some call it opinion, but it is an opinion that is fantasy to those who can’t make the jump from a reality that has both visible and invisible dimensions) about what reality looks like. Belief comes from my assumptions, but when I run up against what I consider to be a mindset that leads me to a wall over which my reasoning cannot mount, without help, I look around to see what can help my humanity move to what I am convinced is its destiny, and what mindsets are out there with the energy to live me up to the next level of my rationality to one that fulfills my physical and mental dimensions.

What follows is the mindset that I have accepted as allowing my humanity and also my life experiences to not be lost when I die but move to the next level of my intelligent progression. Here are five ways of thinking within the framework of my assumptions about life that have allowed me to see what cannot be seen by eyes alone (this is another way of saying that invisible reality is the deeper part of the visible/invisible duality of the physical universe.

LINKING ALL REALITY TOGETHER — Let me be clear, I don’t claim to have linked everything in a neat bow and then smugly sit back and criticize others for their lack of insights, but rather it is part of my CONVERSIO MORAE, looking at life and wondering what makes it meaningful. Science looks at reality and seeks to show what makes it up and how it works. Nothing wrong what that. I do that myself. But there is more to life. Conversio Morae means I look at life each day and measure myself against what I perceive to be The Christ Principle. I don’t deny scientific inquiry and methodology only that it does get me to what it means to be a fully evolved human. The Christ Principle does that for me. This is one of my mindsets.

CONTINUITY OF TEACHING — Most people look back at the Apostolic period and interpret it from their vantage point of where they are now in life. Continuity of teaching is the mindset that each age must confront its demons and dispel them (or not). What passes on from one generation to another is its heritage (like the Coronation of King Charles III), Christ is the Magister Noster, the great teacher, the visible manifestation of the Father in the person of Jesus the Messiah. Tradition, to have continuity, must be viewed as moving forward and gathering momentum. For The Christ Principle, the core is the same but how it is addressed by each age in the Church is different. There must be an unbroken link with the past, as everything is linked to everything else (even if we don’t know what that is). This assumption is another one of my mindsets.

THE LAST PHASE OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT MUST BE ENTERED BY INDIVIDUALS WITH A YES. The Christ Principle came to make sense out of a life without meaning and fulfillment. The problem with reason is that it can’t make it to the next level of our evolution with some help, just as life itself had a boost from the energy of God. When atheists, agnostics, indifferent humans, those who fail to even ask the question about the next phase of evolution or intelligent progression don’t see what I see (due to Faith or energy from God to illuminate that which is, with reason alone, in darkness), I don’t get angry. This is not a battle of who has the best god, me or you. It is about discovery and using an approach that Christ taught us that we are adopted sons and daughters and that our purpose in life to be fulfilled is to love God with our whole heart, our whole mind, and our whole strength and our neighbor as ourselves. (Deuteronomy 6:5 and Matthew 22:32ff) This makes perfect sense to be, although I confess I still keep reflecting on what it means. We have reason for a reason. We have free choice for a reason. Animals don’t have what our species had. It is when we accept a higher power than ourselves and abandon the worldly paradigms (money, fame, fortune, sex as an end in itself) that we rise to the next level of our evolution, that of being fully what it means to be a human and adopted son and daughter of the Father. This way of thinking informs how I look at reality.

HEAVEN AND HELL BEGIN WHEN I AM BORN. Baptism gives me the grace and tools necessary to survive the minefields of walking through life in the physical universe without being blown up by Satan by the enticement that whatever I believe must be true because I am the center of my universe. Ironically, I am the center of my universe, and heaven is when I abandon my human inclination to actually fulfill them by rising to another level as a citizen of the kingdom of heaven on earth. Hell is those bad choices that lead to bad results for this adoption. We are born into a default where sin is the automatic pull on our humanity. Baptism breaks that hold on our nature and restores us to have a choice between good and evil (just like Genesis Chater 2-3). Heaven is those choices that I make to give God the power, my kingdom on earth, and the glory that is due Him by being God, through, with, and in Christ with the power of the Holy Spirit. I use this mindset to keep focused on my humanity, while original sin keeps exerting pressure on me to abandon this cross as being irrelevant. My Heaven begins now and continues with all those linkages I make to The Christ Principle. My Hell would be those choices I made that, like Adam and Eve, failed to create a human that has been redeemed by the Blood of the Lamb.

EACH DAY IS A LIFETIME — I begin each day anew, starting over. Yesterday’s prayers and sacrifices are for yesterday. Today, I seek God in whatever I do, and how I think (these mindsets plus others) and just relax about sitting on a couch in my upper room and talking with Christ about things that matter to me. Meditation is when I reflect on a passage of Scripture in depth, contemplation is when I sit there and Christ gives me His opinion. Each day, I have the opportunity to move beyond where I am now, called capacitas dei, or Christ must increase and I must decrease. Growing deeper each day in my experiences in knowledge, love, and service comes naturally since I am made in the image and likeness of God. God doesn’t have an image as humans imagine. God is pure knowledge, pure love, and pure service. God shares that with all of us through the mediation of Christ. Christ alone is the way, the truth, and also the life. These are some of my mindsets.

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