"Does The Heart Have A Mind Of Its Own?"

 Chapter 16

                             LEARNING TO DISCERN FROM HEART

You have probably heard the saying “things of the Heart” well may I suggest that when you are at the computer, Google or search the internet for secular sayings that have the word heart in them.  Then check Bible Gateway.com  for the words “discerning heart.”  I think you will be surprised at how much more the heart is to both the secular world and the spiritual world.  The heart is more than just a pump.  Listen to this quote from writer author and political activist Helen Keller.  Helen was born deaf-blind.    "The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched - they must be felt with the heart."

As I mentioned earlier in the book when the police want to see if you are telling them the truth, they do not monitor your mind when putting you through a lie detector test.  They know as do we that the mind has thought and thought can manipulate the truth and the mind often lies to us.  We also know that our vision can be tricked into believing that an illusion is real as many of us have already found out.  Jesus makes a promise to his followers in the Gospel of John 14: 15-17  “If you love me, keep my commands. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever—  the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you."

The Sprit is truth and therefore the spirit doesn't lie, your spirit which houses itself in the heart is preprogrammed to speak only the truth.  

The Christian bible teaches us that God has given us a discerning heart to govern over us.  Proverbs 15:14 The discerning heart seeks knowledge, but the mouth of a fool feeds on folly.   I believe the Holy Spirit resides in your heart and that the spirit speaks not to the mind but to the heart.  When the spirit speaks through the heart it produces a sense of knowing.   All of a sudden the lights get turned on and you see the truth in your mind’s eye.   Sometimes it comes as an epiphany or a moment of great enlightenment.   It has been know to happen for people when they are baptised, or have a great spiritual experience.  Moses went to the mountain and came back full of the spirit.  This stuttering frail wretched man was transformed by the spirit and would carry the truth to his people until the day of death when he returned to womb of new birth. 

Your mind cannot comprehend this Holy Spirit because it speaks its own language.  The spirit speaks to the heart and the heart translates the truth into wisdom of knowing the Creators will.    Jesus spoke about this in John 16: 12 -15 “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear.  But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.  He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you.  All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.”

Here is where the battle for control over your mind and body become a real battle.    The mind, part of you human nature, doesn't want the heart, part of your spiritual nature to over influence you to the point that you begin to question its thinking.  The mind want to control.  The Apostle Paul writes about this tug of war between the human nature {sinful nature} and the spiritual nature {Godly nature} in his letters to church in the Galatians.  As I mentioned before you can read about this battle in Galatians chapter 5 of the New Testament.   Now I ask you, which of these two natures would you want to have control over your life, your human nature or your spiritual nature?

There is a councillor {spiritual teacher} named Ernie Larson who works with recovering addicts.  He has a phrase he uses quite often when counselling, he says it is our “Stinking Thinking” that keeps us addicted.  The mind produces this thinking to feed and re-enforce our ego. You might say that doesn't make any sense that our ego wants us to remain addicted.  Let us never forget that in order for ego to exist and remain healthy it will do anything to feed. Ego doesn't care about you it 's only purpose is survival.   It’s feeding does not have to make any sense or be positive.  We drink alcohol to make ourselves feel relaxed and good.  Yet drinking has the opposite effect and makes people uptight self concious and eventually sick.  Can’t you just see it, the broken homes, the deaths, and the awful feelings the morning after?  Ego doesn't care about you it just needs to be fed and it will create any kind of an illusion to do so.  Every once in a while Ego does something good because it can also feed on goodness as well.   Let us never forget that your Ego has a central purpose, survival. Why?  Because it knows that it is mortal and will do anything to survive.  

Your Spiritual Nature on the other hand doesn't need to survive, why?  because it is eternal it has no need to vary from the truth.      

                                                                "Spirit Song"