Overview and Summary of the Spiritual Journey

Jesus’ first words of His public ministry were: “This is the time of fulfillment. The reign of God is at hand! Reform your lives and believe in the gospel!” (Mk 1:15).

This is Jesus’ call to all of us to allow Him to completely transform us interiorly; to conform our hearts and minds to His heart and mind. This is Jesus’ invitation to come into divine union with Him. If we accept his invitation, we set out on the spiritual journey in earnest. This journey is a life long process of changing our thinking, our willfulness, our emotions, and our behavior. It is a journey out of the fallen human condition, and back to the reign of God, which prevailed in the Garden of Eden before the fall of Adam and Eve. Therefore, it is a journey out of the misery of the fallen human condition, and into the joy of Christ. Let us now look at how we can cooperate in Jesus’ transformation of us.

The root cause of the fallen human condition and the emotional misery it creates, is faulty thinking. Faulty thinking like: “I am a more worthwhile person if I have a lot of money”, or “I am a more worthwhile person if I do things well – like play basketball well”, or “I am a more worthwhile person if other people approve of me”. These are all lies, and if a person believes a lie to be true, that person gets in trouble very quickly.

For example, if a person believes it is true (when in fact it is a lie) that they are a more worthwhile person if they have a lot of money, then a great desire for money immediately arises in that person. Notice here that faulty thinking immediately and without any effort or intention gives rise to excessive or disordered desire. Human thinking directly affects human willfulness.

The presence of excessive or disordered desire in a person leads directly and inevitably to emotional suffering. If a person has an excessive desire for money, they will try to obtain and keep as much money as possible. But it is not easy to obtain and keep a lot of money in this world. Thus this person is likely to feel frustrated, anxious and angry as their desire for money is continually frustrated by reality not cooperating sufficiently with their excessive desire. Even if they obtain a lot of money, which is unlikely, it is never enough to satisfy their excessive desire, so they are never at peace. And then if they lose any of their money, it is especially painful as they attempt to cling to it.

This is the cause of human unhappiness then: deluded thinking leading to excessive or disordered wanting, leading to painful feelings when the wanting is not fulfilled in our day to day lives.

This can be summarized in the form of a weed that can be found in most gardens.  The roots of the weed represent lies. The stem represents excessive or disordered desires.  And the flowering portion of the weed represents painful emotions. In addition, as we will see, the fragrance of the weed represents abusive action, that is, words and actions which are not loving.

The weed then, looks like this:

The human mind then, can be seen as a chain reaction, operating in a similar way to the way a weed grows. The weed first sprouts roots; then the stem grows, followed by the flowering portion of the weed. Once the flowering portion blooms, a fragrance is given off. In a similar fashion, the human mind starts with thoughts. If the thought is untrue, but believed to be true then we have the roots of a weed. The deluded thought then gives rise to an excessive or disordered desire (the stem), which in turn is the direct cause of emotional suffering (the flowering portion of the weed), which occurs when the desire is continually frustrated. Then the emotionally upset mind acts out its content in abusive words and actions (the fragrance of the weed).

For example, suppose a person were to believe the following lie to be true: “I am a more worthwhile person if other people approve of me, and less worthwhile person if other people disapprove of me.” Believing this falacious statement to be true will immediately give rise to an excessive desire for approval. That desire sits there like a land mine until someone steps on it by criticizing the person. Then it explodes in painful emotions of anger, hurt, sadness or depression. Then, in a state of anger, for example, the person lashes out verbally at the person who was critical.

The “weed” then, is one way to look at the fallen human condition. But how do we get out of this painful mess. The way out, our salvation, comes through Jesus, the messiah and savior.  Jesus is “The Way, The Truth, and The Life.” We must allow Jesus to transform us interioraly one concrete experience at a time. We must allow Jesus to change our thinking from lies to His Truth. We must allow Him to transform our excessive or disordered desires to His Holy Desires. We must allow Him to transform our very painful emotions to His pleasant emotions of peace, joy and love. And finally we must allow Him to change our abusive words and deeds to his loving words and deeds. In other words, we must allow Him to draw us into His world of the “Flower.”

In the world of the Flower, the roots represent “Truth”, the stem represents “Holy Desire or God’s Will”, the flowering portion represents “Pleasant Emotions”, and the fragrance represents “Loving Action”.

How do we move out of the misery of the weed into the joy of the flower. We do it one specific, concrete human experience at a time.

Whenever a painful emotion occurs within us, we start the process. Painful emotions should be a red flag to us, for it always means we have a spiritual problem (we are assuming here that the brain is functioning normally; if the brain is not functioning normally, you need to see a doctor for help).

Step 1: Briefly explain to Jesus the concrete specific situation that triggered pain.

Step 2: Tell Jesus what you said or did in reaction to the situation. (Fragrance of weed)

Step 3: Tell Jesus the emotion(s) you experienced as precisely as possible. (Bloom of weed)

Step 4: Tell Jesus what you wanted (or did not want) in that situation. (Stem of weed)

Step 5: Tell Jesus why you wanted what you wanted (your thinking). (Roots of weed)

Step 6: Ask Jesus to tell you His thinking about your situation, which will be different from you thinking. (Roots of Flower). This may come to you quickly or take some time.

Step 7: Once you receive Jesus’ truth, you must believe His truth 100% for spiritual transformation to occur in your mind. (Belief, Faith, Trust in Jesus and His truthful gospel.) For a period of time, your former fallacious thinking will battle with your new truthful thinking, until the Truth finally wins out.

Once you believe Jesus’ truth, the situation which triggered the painful emotion will never trigger that emotion again. In its place you will probably notice a certain peace or calm instead of the upset. One less weed in the garden of your mind.

Let us look at an example of how this would work. Mary bakes a cake and shares it with her friend Sue. Sue tastes the cake and says “it tastes a little dry; I think you may have baked it too long.” Mary feels irritation welling up in her but says nothing. Later on, when Mary was alone, she decides to take this situation to Jesus, because she felt her irritation was way too intense for such a minor incident over “the stupid cake”, as her thought went.

Step 1: Mary explains the entire incident in detail to Jesus.

Step 2: Mary remembers that she didn’t say or do anything in response to the criticism.

Step 3: She and Jesus look at her emotional reaction. As they do she again feels the emotion and realizes in all honesty that while it started as irritation, it quickly became real anger. Both Mary and Jesus agreed, so she wrote down “irritation and anger” next to the flowering portion of the weed.

Step 4: Up to this point Mary really had no idea why she had become angry. But now she and Jesus looked at what Mary had desired in that situation. After briefly talking to Jesus about her desires, Mary discovered she had really wanted Sue to compliment her and not criticize the cake. The more Mary and Jesus looked at her desires, the more Mary came to see that her desire for approval was very intense, as was her mirror desire not to be criticized. Mary was quite shocked by this discovery, but also happy to learn of it. Jesus also seemed happy at Mary’s discovery.

Step 5: Mary and Jesus then looked at Mary’s thinking. Mary had no idea what thinking would give rise to such a strong desire for approval. As they looked together at Mary’s thinking, and talked about it, Mary came to see that she had always felt she was a more worthwhile person if someone complimented or otherwise showed approval toward her; and had always felt less worthwhile if someone criticized or otherwise showed disapproval toward her. Mary realized this is why she wanted approval, not criticism. After Mary and Jesus discussed it further, they agreed to summarize Mary’s thinking as: “I am a more worthwhile person if other people approve of me, and less worthwhile person if they disapprove of me.” Mary wrote this down next to the roots of the weed, and gazed at it. Again Mary was shocked that she had been thinking that thought for years and never knew it. Mary also was beginning to realize that the thought was not true at all, but she still felt somewhat confused.

Step 6: Mary asked Jesus what He thought about her thinking, and laughing added, “ You can tell me the truth, even if its criticism. I won’t get angry.” She waited in silence for a couple of minutes, hoping Jesus would let her know. Then a thought came in her mind: “You are sacred and wonderful just the way you are.” And a little bit later another thought: “ I love you unconditionally.”

Step7: Mary began to weep but was still a bit confused. So she said to Jesus: “ But I do mess up. The cake was dry. And I yelled at my husband the other night. And, as you know, there are many other things.” There was nothing but silence. It seemed like a long time. Then a thought came to her: “I love you no matter what you do. I don’t always love what you do.” This made a lot of sense to Mary. She strongly felt it had come from Jesus, and she believed it completely. Mary checked her emotions, and found the irritation and anger were gone, even when she reviewed the cake incident in her mind. To her surprise she found a calm and a joy bordering on giddiness. Mary felt a new freedom and thanked Jesus profusely for His love and help. And she noticed how good it felt to be thankful.

This concludes a brief overview and summary of the spiritual journey. The following chapters will delve more deeply into each aspect of the journey.

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