Quotes About the Mind

Directives

[T]he mind must be renewable. To have your mind renewed, you must realize that you have a greater foundation than the mind, and you must reclaim your relationship with this foundation, which is your relationship with Knowledge.

Gain access to Knowledge and you will become free of the mind.

• Greater Community Spirituality, chap. 13, pp. 151, 152

Short Quotes

...your mind is a fabulous instrument of communication. It can comprehend the past. It can plan for the future. Indeed, the mind is a great membrane between your wordly existance and your spiritual reality.

• The Gift 3/31/07

Between the life of the mind and the life of the heart there is a great gulf, a huge chasm, with no apparent bottom. The distance between the two seems insurmountable. Yet there is a way to bridge it.

• Living the Way of Knowledge (Chapter 4, The Pillar of Health)

The Personal Mind

...The personal mind ... seeks to use everything for self-assurance, self-glorification and self-protection because it is weak and vulnerable and has no foundation in life.

• Greater Community Spirituality, chap. 14, p. 167

Long Quotes

Your mind is different from your True Being, and as such it is ultimately a vehicle for Knowledge. This is its highest function and highest service. To be a vehicle for Knowledge, the mind must be fresh and renewable. It must be able to think clearly and freely and be able to rethink or recreate its thoughts. It must be pliable and open, accessible to new experience, open to new thresholds of understanding and willing to release its own ideas in order to gain a greater perspective and a greater Wisdom at every important thresthold of life.

With [a foundation in Knowledge], the mind can become a vehicle of great service, a marvelous instrument of communication--a medium between your Ancient Home and the world in which you now live.

• Greater Community Spirituality, chap. 13, pp. 151, 152

The thinking mind must constantly be stirred by new experience and by adaptation to new experience and new understanding in order to be vital and capable of learning. It is like stirring concrete. If you do not keep stirring it and adding water and new things to it, it hardens. And once it hardens, it can only be broken.

People who are learning and living The Way of Knowledge are constantly being renewed and refreshed because they are close to life, and they are close to Knowledge. Their thoughts change, grow and evolve. Their ideas change, grow and evolve. Their conclusions change, grow and evolve. They can do this because there is something greater. There is Knowledge, the dynamic force of life within you, within the world and within the Greater Community as well. Knowledge brings you to the edge of life where you have to learn and adapt, communicate and contribute. This keeps you young, alive and close to the heart of life. Your mind, then, becomes constantly relevant to the present and is able to prepare for the future.

• Living the Way of Knowledge (Chapter 2, The Four Pillars of Life)

Metaphors

The mind must be free. It is as if your house were stuffed to the ceiling with all the possessions you have ever owned--everything--and you had not thrown away anything. It is all in there, things great and small, filling your every room and hallway. And you say, "Well, I want to bring new things into my house, but there is no room. I want to create a new feeling and atmosphere in my house, but there is no space for it." Everything is cluttered, and you house becomes increasingly uncomfortable. Your experience of being in it is imprisoning, and you find yourself spending all of your time maintaining all of these possessions.

Your mind is like the house that you live in, in the world. It is filled with whatever you put there. It is the place from which you look out into the world. It is your shelter and your protection. It is the place where your spirit generally abides. However, if your house becomes too cluttered and too uncomfortable, Knowledge will not abide there. Then, you will find that you are living in a relic of your own past. You will feel like you are a museum keeper, someone who is taking care of old things.

It is like an orphan child who must fend for itself until it finds a safe parent or guardian.

• Greater Community Spirituality, chaps. 13, 14; pp. 157-58, 171