Quote: From “Beyond the Vernal Mind” by Munia Khan

“To become a sparrow you don't have to be a crow.”

Thought for the Day: We have a mind-body problem, in that we think we have a mind-body problem. While Descartes is largely responsible for our modern thinking about a separation between our consciousness and our physical bodies, the concept has its roots in Plato and Aristotle. We especially suffer from this separation anxiety in the majority of the world’s religions: God is a separate entity from God’s creation, and humans are more separate from God than any of God’s other creations.

The Abrahamic religions betray this dualistic mind with their inconsistent description of our relationship with God. We are given an inferiority complex by their insistence we are fallen sinners who have been expelled from God’s presence because an ancient ancestor ate a piece of fruit in God’s garden, and like an angry farmer God chased us away. Disobedience is our great sin, and for that we have been punished and sent into the cold, cruel world. On the other hand, God promises to walk with us out of the garden. Later, God makes a covenant with us and forgives us. Then, God gets angry again and punishes us. Then, God once again forgives us. We are loved and shunned, loved and shunned, over and over again throughout the Bible.

Of course, these stories reflect nothing about the nature of God and everything about our struggle against the dual mind—and the ancient authors’ awareness of this struggle. What do you think the tree of knowledge of good and evil represents? It represents the dangers of the dual mind! They knew they were stuck, perhaps more than we, who have so fully accepted the idea of a mind-body connection, we no longer even stop to think if perhaps the connection is that they aren’t separate things.

We need to practice being of One mind, not two. We are the consciousness of God—mind and body are more than connected, they are inseparable parts of the whole. There is no separation between the physical and spiritual, there is only consciousness, and only one consciousness, God. It is this intense realization and acceptance that changes everything in Jesus’ life, and if we can accept this truth too, it changes everything in our lives and our world.

Prayer: I AM completely one with You, Holy Lord, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. All that I AM, You are, because You are all that I AM, every thought, every emotion, every concept, every muscle, every cell and atom of my being. Amen.