JOIN THE ARAMATHEANS.

I know, it sounds like I just lost the last bit of reason I ever possessed (and you might be correct). This idea came to me at 2:55 a.m. while I was trying to focus on reciting my penitential rosary of Our Lady of Akita. My thoughts ended with the admonition: Do What He Tells You. Well, this is what I received, whether in the body or out of the body (St. Paul), I do not know.

THOUGHTS ABOUT EXPEDIENCY

My big focus these days is on how I can leave my treasures to those I care about after I die. Normally, money comes to mind as the only description of what treasures mean, or maybe property. You get the point. What I have to give at my age (and aging) at 85.10 years has nothing to do with matter or corruptible things, good as they might seem.

My treasures are the map of my life and how I gradually changed from a mere human who practiced the Catholic Faith to one who actually caught what Christ bought by dying on the cross, a ransom for the many. It took me a lifetime of wandering in the desert of my own making to find answers to questions I didn’t even ask, twenty years ago.

I did all of this by abandoning everything (my preconceived notions of what life lessons had so arduously tried to beat into my consciousness) to assume a way of life that, although rooted in the physical and mental universes, is the opposite of many of the values and treasures I had held as having meaning.

I discovered the map that brought all reality together. Not a “Theory of Everything,” touted by those who try to fit reality into a formula only mathemeticians know how to interpret, but one which directs me into the infinfinite universe that exists in the upper room of my inner self, a place no one thinks capable of housing the secrets of how to move to that next level of human evolution, one which only reason and free will can unlock, but one that contains only one key, one way.

I stopped worrying about whether what I was receiving was correct or made sense, and slowly moved to a place in silence and solitude where I just listened to the background noise of cosmic resonance, then did what I felt it was urging me to do.

What I heard that I was asked to share is contained in my 68 books and 1,240 blogs, my struggle to move to that next phase in our human evolution, one where reason and free will lead me there, but which is the opposite of all my human instincts and needs prompt me to hold onto.

This “corpus” of thoughts that come from my being in the presence of the Holy Spirit, just waiting for whatever comes, and then doing what Jesus suggests to me is my true treasure. It is a record of my 40 years of wandering in the desert of my own perceptions of what life is about, and miserably failing to find enough water to drink.

I LEAVE IT ALL TO YOU.

Whatever treasures I have, all that I have become, is bequeathed to you, the anonymous reader who might be challenged, as I was, to be more than mere human. I created 68+ books and 1,240 blog posts at https://thecenterforcontemplativepractice.org, so that you might have the opportunity to read my thoughts and then Do What He Tells You.

THE ARAMATHEANS

If you read any of my ideas about the depths humans can reach by moving inside of themselves to unleash the Holy Spirit, then make the World a better place by doing what He tells you to do as a result of some of these ideas. You become, along with me, an Aramathean. Joseph of Aramathea is the one whom the Romans conscripted to carry the cross of Jesus to His site of execution. If any of us, no matter who we are, what we are, how poor we are, how influential we are, or how much power we have over others, convert ourselves from our false self (mere humanity) to the true self using the power of the Holy Spirit. Christ gives to you His cross to carry as your own. From Baptism onward, you are no longer a human, although you retain all the externals of the race. You are an adopted son or daughter of the Father and heir to God’s own place of human fulfillment after you did.

The price of this is the abandonment of the way of the World (money, love, safety, security, power, dominance over others) to become one of the Anawin (the poor in spirit, always longing for God to empower them to dig for spiritual gold). This is the treasure you can take with you to Heaven after you die, but you must learn to dig for it while you live and try to overcome all the doubts and frustrations that come with being human. Each person is different in how we do this. Those who attempt this new way of life I call the Aramatheans, because only when we take up our own cross each day and use the power of Christ’s cross to sustain us do we have a chance to fulfill what nature intended before the Fall (Genesis 2-3).

Characteristics

• Aramatheans are those who subscribe to my WordPress blog at https://thecenterforcontemplativepractice.org and have access to all my legacy content. Choosing to do something with it is an act of your free will.
• Aramatheans are not a religion but those who long for it to that upper room of your inner self to sit in silence and solitude each day and listen. No sermons. No agenda. Just do what he tells you.
• Aramatheans are those who read how to listen to Christ “with the ear of the heart,” and then share what you receive from others.
• Aramatheans are those who hear the word of God and keep it.
• Aramatheans must “Have in themselves the mind of Christ Jesus.” (Phil 2:5)
• Aramatheans have a core faith community in which the Real Presence of Christ nourishes them in the Eucharist and through the Forgiveness of Sins, and in which they serve as stewards of the Catholic Church.
  Aramatheans pledge to be Penitential Catholics and to pray the rosary in reparation for their sins, for those in Purgatory, for the clergy and nuns who endure the Martyrdom of Ordinary Living, for the Catholic Universal Church, and for the World, and to follow Our Lady of Akita’s message.
• Aramatheans live each day, giving glory to the Father through the Son, in unity with the Holy Spirit, in everything that comes their way.
• Aramatheans long to spend as much time as they can in that upper room of their inner selves, just sitting with the one they love and Doing Whatever He tells them.
• Aramatheans seek first the kingdom of Heaven, and all else will follow.
• Aramatheans are the hermits of Faith, who use their joys and sorrows to be one with the crucified Christ and who daily carry that cross, in obscurity, unknown to anyone but Jesus, longing to be in the presence of the one you love.

I am asking Aramatheans to subscribe to my website, https://thecenterforcontemplativepractice.org, and to the Do What He Tells You. I leave it all to you to take it to the next level as only you can.

Copyright 2026. Michael F. Conrad, Ed.D., The Center for Contemplative Practice. All Rights Reserved.

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