Patterns of the Mind

[Rebbe]

PATTERNS OF THE MIND

Copyright © BRI/IMCF 2018 All Rights Reserved Worldwide by Les Aron Gosling,
Messianic Lecturer (BRI/IMCF)

Shalom Aleikhem! I would like to share some pregnant thoughts with all my 5000 FB Friends. Yes, I have reached my FB Friend limit in only a surprising eight weeks or thereabouts so at the moment I am busily engaged in some necessary "culling" procedures. Certainly, I hope my thoughts today will be of encouragement to all, yes even including some of my relatives who also happen to be among my FB Friends. What I wish to share today are some patterns of the mind that may not be entirely understood or grasped by some of us here.

It was Anne Frank who wrote: "Everyone has inside of him a piece of good news. The good news is that you don't know how great you can be! How much you can love! What you can accomplish! And what your potential is!"

John McDonald correctly assessed, "We have been endowed with the capacity and the power to create desirable pictures within and to find them automatically printed in the outer world of our environment."

Listen! Psychiatrists inform us that IMAGINATION is the SOURCE of our creative power. Carl Gustav Jung and his entire school certainly knew this; but when I speak of creative imagination, this imagination is not to be the imagination associated with delusion, but rather the imagination utilised positively as a BRIDGE across which one must activate one self's openness in order to hear what God has to say to us individually, to be quietly open enough to recognise what he desires us to achieve in life for Him. That BRIDGE connects our DESIRE to its REALISATION.

Frankly, while most Gentile Christians believe God has a special purpose for their lives, they usually never grasp what that is because they have not been trained to hear, to listen to, and to act upon the still small Voice that urgently agitates and constrains us within the human heart.

God has always sought to communicate His Presence and His will to humankind, ever since the dawn of creation. He loved human beings so much He eventually introduced Himself in the personality of His Son Our Lord Yeshua, and lived and died for us. Yeshua is God's final WORD, His Self-revelation, to humankind. In the Apocalypse, God reveals Himself IN Yeshua as Prophet, Priest, King and Saviour. Remember the Apocalypse IS "the apocalypsis [unveiling, revealing, disclosure] of Yeshua the Messiah" (Revelation 1.1). It is decidedly NOT the "revelation of the history of the church of the last 2000 years." That idea is utterly preposterous and entirely unworthy of our attention.

At a fairly recent Yeshiva our international student body concentrated largely upon the Lord Yeshua as the Image [icon] of God. And indeed he is. But we are also images of God, and in actual fact we are images of the Image of God. We discussed the Ten Sefirot of God and their role in the original Creation, and their appropriate existence in the basic form and structure of our own universe -- that which exists entirely INSIDE our heads. Psychiatrists and psychologists are all agreed that the Mind of Man is an awesome unfathomable field of consciousness and as much as we plumb the depths of our own personal realm (Conscious, Subconscious, Unconscious) of That Other ("in whom we live and move and have our being") we never seem to understand it or discover the location of its seabed. Particularly is this the case when relating to the human mind in its negative ability to perform deception. A prophet once wrote, "The heart [subconscious] is deceitful above all things, and wicked to the point of desperation," and then he added, "Who can know it?" (Jeremiah 17.9 Heb).

As we are the earthly "Image" of a heavenly God we must needs be understood as the reverse of all that God presently is. Look in a mirror. Your left side has become your right side (as you would view your image). We are the earthly negative of the heavenly positive. We are indeed a "little god." Our Lord Yeshua admitted the truth of this perception when he said "Have you not read in your own Scripture, I said, You are gods?" (John 10.34).

We are in truth the Microcosm of the Macrocosm. There is absolutely no denial of this truth, and it stands revealed in the biblical revelation itself. What is profoundly fascinating is the revelation that the Genesian pronouncement ("Let us make man in our image after our likeness") has enormous spiritual and metaphysical ramifications for each of us as the End of Days approaches. For, Our Lord Yeshua has said that we as his disciples (talmidim = students) will perform "greater works than [those] he accomplished" (John 14.12).

This will be accomplished by virtue of the fact that we were made in the IMAGE of the IMAGE of God. Consider what God shares with us about His own Mind (and remember that we are His reflection or mirrored image):

"Surely as I have thought, so shall it come to pass! And, as I have purposed, so shall it stand" (Isaiah 14.24).

Made in the creative Image of God each one of God's own Spirit-begotten children have the RIGHT and the ABILITY (according to the degree of decrease in ego-orientation) to carve out a destiny of service to our fellow human beings, especially those who are our brothers and sisters in Mashiach.

That which we desire desires us just as much. God promises to grant us "the desires of our hearts" (Psalm 37.4) as we DELIGHT ourselves in Daddy/Mummy God. The same Psalm recognises that even "the wicked" bring about that which they pursue (Psalm 37.7). When we "commit our way" -- our positive intentions, desires, creative yearnings -- to the Lord, and "TRUST" (have a confident reliance and dependency on) God to deliver that which we have imagined would be creatively useful to us (and in our service to others) [and please remember that these TWO fundamentals go hand-in-glove, indeed are inseparable] GOD THE FATHER/MOTHER OF US ALL IN WHOSE IMAGE WE ARE CREATED is MORE THAN eager to become our Provider/Provision sharing what He possesses with us. "God shall bring it to pass" (Psalm 37.5). The Zohar informs us:

"(God) is known and grasped to the degree that one opens the gates of imagination! The capacity to connect with the Spirit of Wisdom, to imagine in one's heart-mind -- this is how God becomes known" (Zohar 1.103a-b).

Through our BRI/IMCF Yeshiva lectures we have been introduced to the Divine Idea that God the Father created humankind in order for Him to discover, to explore, and to get to know, Himself. When God created Adam and the first man opened his eyes, God saw himself as His own mirrored reflection staring back in awesome wonder. God was LOOKING AT HIMSELF! Rav Shaul early grasped the essence of this notion (2 Corinthians 3.18).

Recall John McDonald's musings, "We have been endowed with the capacity and the power to create desirable pictures within and to find them automatically printed in the outer world of our environment."

Well, some of us have been so endowed. But why is it that some people can bring about, with little more than the gift of imagination, their desires in life in concrete material form and yet others seemingly repeatedly fail to do so? Could it be that those who fail were often chastised, sometimes rather brutally, when they were little children for the criminal act of "daydreaming"? Were these same children told over 250,000 times between the crawling period and five years of age -- "NO!" "STOP!" "NO! NO! NO!" "You mustn't!" "Naughty!" "Leave that alone." "You can't!" Smack, smack, smack.

I have often recounted an experience I had many years ago when I was on the road and I was eating out at a motel restaurant in the Outback where I was booked in for the weekend. A very well-polished family entered and took their seat at a table adjoining my own, so I was well within earshot. Both husband and wife were elegantly dressed, and so was their little son whom I believe would have been about 9 or 10 years of age. Amid animated light conversation, the waiter gave each of them a menu and the little boy eagerly scanned his. He had a grin written right across his face, and it was obvious to me that this outing was a rare treat indeed. When the waiter returned for their order the husband and wife responded and then the little boy started, "Please Sir, I'll have..." Suddenly an angry voiced father spat at the child:
"How dare you! You can't have what you WANT!!!!" The little boy's face dropped and he was sullen for the remainder of the evening. He never uttered another word. He simply ate the meal his parents chose for him and sat quietly, head bowed. When they departed he was left dragging his feet behind them. That ONE event in his life changed him forever.

Let's be truthful here. Most of our parents meant well, they had good intentions, but how many times have WE as parents built into our own progeny (by the age of five) an unhealthy negative mental attitude? A highly negative mental state of mind is the Mindscape partner of a mentally stunted, emotionally retarded, negative Self-image.

Small wonder we do not believe our own prayers will be answered affirmatively.

Albert Einstein said, "Imagination is more important than knowledge!" Another Jew, Jonas Salk, imagined himself to be a polio virus "doing what a polio virus does, thinking what a polio virus thinks. He said visualising this was a major step in his developing a vaccine that saved millions from being crippled by polio" (Mark Victor Hansen & Barbara Nichols, Out of the Blue, 1996, 179). Medically we know that 87% of our mind is visually oriented. We can begin to grasp our Lord Yeshua's words today as perhaps never before: "Greater things than I have done shall you do...."

What really is it that the Lord Yeshua is expecting of individuals gathered in the congregations of God around the earth in these last days? It is nothing less than to rise above their circumstances and to trust the Ruach HaKodesh to CHANGE them from rank carnality into "spiritually alive" sons and daughters of God the Father.

Nothing less than this! The same John who penned the Apocalypse wrote, "Listen! Look! Consider! What manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us that we should be called the children of God... Loved ones, NOW are we the children of God [yes, we carry the Father's DNA, we display the Father's love toward others, and we reflect Our Father's CHARACTER] and it does not yet appear what we shall be. But we do know that when he [the Father in the loving character-form of Yeshua] shall appear we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is" (1 John 3.1,2).

We shall see GOD as He is, just as GOD saw Himself in us when Adam was first created. We are destined to be mirrored reflections without flaw on that Day when Yeshua comes to gather us to Himself.

NOW we are experiencing the leading of the Ruach HaKodesh into all truth by the inculcation of which we shall become even MORE free than we are today. We have been called to liberty -- especially being liberated from our largely self-imposed limitations. The Day will come when we shall all have perfectly "the Mind of Christ."

-Les Aron Gosling

[Pamela]

I have been on a journey of late inviting the Ruach to have greater access to my mind and soul, and as a result, my flesh. The WORD HOPE has loomed large in my heart - without HOPE the people perish. I was losing hope that I could be truly transformed. That GOD truly called me to such great distinction at this time. It all comes down to us TRULY and TRUTHFULLY knowing that we know that we know WHO AND WHOSE WE ARE...as so incredibly and aptly said here in the words of Rebbe. IF we REALLY knew that we were each called to be an individual emanation of THE MOTHER/FATHER breathing forth our spirit-breathed imaginations into the collective tapestry...how could we not excel with the mind of CHRIST!? How much I understand the CRY: "Help thou my unbelief!" In "christendom" there are so many calls to "do, be, have" - in order to gain your position as a saint "worthy" of heaven or to receive the blessing of HIS mercy. They act as the disciplinary parents Rebbe spoke of dashing the limitless imaginations of all who come to their doors seeking freedom in Christ. (I do not believe this to necessarily be intentional except on the adversaries part). BUT GOD in the final analysis allows the Ruach to inspire the teacher to succinctly state the TRUTH of our calling into this current age of First Fruits:

"What really is it that the Lord Yeshua is expecting of individuals gathered in the congregations of God around the earth in these last days? It is nothing less than to rise above their circumstances and to trust the Ruach HaKodesh to CHANGE them from rank carnality into "spiritually alive" sons and daughters of God the Father."  

And in doing so, allow THE CREATOR to see HIS CREATION in action of HIS CREATION - GLORY TO GLORY! - It's time to TRUST... I pray for us all the silence we need to listen to the RUACH! Thank you Rebbe!