The Cure of Human Emotional Suffering: The Truthful Thinking and Holy Desires of Jesus.

As we saw in Chapter 2, the world of the “ weed” represents the fallen human condition, a world dominated by deluded thinking, disordered desires, painful emotions, and abusive action. It is from this world of misery that Jesus came to save us, and bring us back into right relationship with Him in His world of the “flower”.

The spiritual journey can be thought of as the gradual transformation of the human person by Jesus from the state of the weed to the flower. This encompasses a complete change in our thinking, from lies to truth; a complete change in our willfulness, from disordered desires to holy desires; a complete change in our emotional state, from misery to peace, joy and love; and a complete change in our behavior, from abusive to loving.

Before we look more deeply into the wonderful, saving world of the flower, we must take a moment — the longer the better — to dispose our minds to radical change. This requires a mind that is open not closed. Jesus had no effect on those who were closed minded, sure that they were right when they couldn’t have been more wrong. This requires a heart that is soft, not hardened against all possibility of change. We don’t have to be gullible, but it’s helpful to be ready and willing and even excited to drop any thinking we now have which is not in accord with reality or Jesus’ thinking. Remember as we saw in the weed whenever you feel an afflictive emotion you can be one hundred percent (100%) sure that you believe a lie to be true — so look for the lie. I remember a woman in one of my first workshops who would experience certain afflictive emotions at work and then immediately say to Jesus in her mind “Where’s the lie, Where’s the lie?” Together they would spot the lie and quickly replace it with the truth. This woman made rapid spiritual progress, which changed her life and even her occupation.

With an open mind and an open heart, let us now enter the wonderful world of God, represented by the “flower”.

Truth: The Roots of the Flower

The roots of the flower represent truth, all truth. This includes scientific truths like the law of gravity on planet earth: if you drop a rock off the roof of your house, the rock will fall to the ground, not float up to the sky. And medical truths like smoking cigaretts is bad for your health. And the truth includes spiritual truths, like God provides all that we need (Mt 6:19ff) and the only way to be truly happy is to love others.

For purposes of this book, Jesus is the “way, the truth, and the life”, and everything he says is truthful. Jesus revelation of God’s truth will be the focus of this book. And God’s truth turns out to be very good news indeed.

God loves all of us intensely and unconditionally (although God doesn’t necessarily love everything we do); provides all that we need and wants to care for us forever; wants to give God’s very self to us so that we can fully participate in God’s life of love, and thereby enjoy God’s peace and joy so our joy can be complete. So God wants to give us complete happiness by giving God’s very Self and God’s way of life to us. When this process of transformation is complete, we are in Divine Union, the goal of every Christian.

In this state of Divine Union, we are fully in the flower. We know God’s truths (the roots) and believe them completely. Knowing and believing God’s truths naturally leads our willfulness to conform with God’s Will or God’s Holy Desires (the stem of the flower). This naturally leads to sharing in God’s love, Peace and Joy (the flowering portion of the flower). And naturally leads to loving action in all human encounters (the fragrance of the flower).

The flower looks like this:

Holy Desire: The Stem of the Flower

Once our thinking conforms to God’s thinking, by knowing and believing in God’s great truths (the roots of the flower), our willfulness begins to conform to God’s will (the stem of the flower).

For example, once we realize the truth that God loves us and everyone else, and wants us to love God and everyone else so that we can experience God’s joy, we begin to want to love others because it is in our own best interest, as well as the best interest of God and all humans. The holy desire to love begins to burn in us. And as we love more and more, the fruits of our loving begin to arise. The fruits of experiencing within us the peace and joy and love of God (the bloom of the flower). And the fruits of each loving action (the fragrance of the flower).

This very strong feedback, of being truly happy and living a truly meaningful life only serves to increase the fire of our holy desire to love, and to share in God’s mission of bringing about the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of love on earth.

God has given all humans a free will to use as we want. We can use our free will to go after the Security, Control, and Approval offered by the “World”; or we can use our free will to obey Jesus’ only command: Love one another as I love you.” If we go after the things of the “World”, we end up creating our own misery in the weed. If we go after obedience to Jesus’ commandment, we get to share in Jesus’ peace, joy and love.

Pleasant Emotions: The Bloom of the Flower

Our experience of this peace, joy, and love of Christ is true human happiness. Every human heart yearns for this complete happiness. But most of the time our deluded thinking deflects this yearning in the wrong direction; we think wrongly that we will be truly happy if we get the Security, Control, and Approval of the world. So we run after Security, Control, and Approval, and in the process create our own misery (this, of course, is the world of the weed).

But when our thinking and willfulness are in complete accord with Jesus’ thinking and will, we receive the joy of Christ, so that our joy is complete. Complete joy. Complete happiness. What you have always wanted. It is available to you right now. It just requires believing the Truth that the only way to true joy, the only way, is by loving God and neighbor.

Loving Action: The Fragrance of the Flower

When we are steeped in the truth of Christ, want to love as Christ loves, and experience the peace and joy and love of Christ, our words and actions are naturally loving. Loving kindness toward all people, and the entire environment, is the natural result of sharing Christ’s thinking, holy desires and joyful emotional state.

Life is now easy and enjoyable, even if we choose to be very energetic in the service of Jesus. Where others see “problems”, and “bad” situations we see wonderful opportunities to bring the healing touch of Christ. Your world has completely changed because we have completely changed interiorly. Jesus has now transformed us into a likeness of Himself. And we now have the compassion and wisdom to help Jesus to transform others, furthering Jesus” mission to bring the Kingdom of God to all.

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