I was thinking this morning about actions and thoughts. Although I am not a Christian, I remember the teachings of Jesus taught in church from so long ago. The fact this passage floated into my consciousness today tells me it’s something that the Light and Sound of God would want me to address internally. The idea is this: the thought we hold consciously, is as though it were committed physically.
Jesus in Matthew 5:28, Jesus instructs1 that if a married person were to lust after another person, they are committing adultery.
This is bigger than a married man lusting, the point being made is that spiritually speaking: The thought is as the action. It has the same root.
In the physical plane we separate physical violence from mental. We even say it’s healthy to get our anger out by thinking a violent thought while punching a pillow or screaming obscenities in a room. The idea being, “better to get it out in therapy, rather than out in the real world.”
But is it better?
Yet Jesus said that thinking of violence, is like being violence. Thinking of sex, being sex. Is he correct?
Thoughts are the root Energy of Action
Absolutely, thoughts do not do the same level of harm on the physical plane. It may not feel like a break of marriage vows for a married person to thinking about their first sexual experience before they met their spouse.
It may not seem that wrong to imagine inflicting pain on a criminal guilty of horrible atrocities to innocents – after all, it’s just a thought.
The point of Jesus was that thought holds the same energy as the action. As spirituality is a interconnection of different forms of energy, the effect a thought has spiritually, is the same as an action.
In practicality: a fellow imagines stealing a car from a parking garage. He may never commit the actual act. It will always be a desire for the imagined thrill, but the thought causes a separation between God/Eck/Holy Spirit (the greater expression of Spiritual Source) and the individual. The separation is temporary and the connection restores when the person focuses attention on God once again.
Oscillation (From the World to the Higher)
I think most people, myself included, live and operate in a state of oscillation. Thoughts meander to lust, anger, pain, violence, then shift later on to God, then back again. Like all oscillation, there a force of resistance creates the oscillation. When resistance is powerful, it pushes in one direction, when the force is weak and overcome movement goes in the opposite direction. When momentum is lost to the force of resistance, another cycle repeats.
This force of resistance is an energy of the world. The world is filled with trigger. It’s like quicksand. As we start to rise above it, it shocks us with killings, injustice, political rhetoric, global crisis and we sink into the slime of the world. Perhaps it lures us with the bait of power, money, fame, desire, lust. Locking eyes with these things, our attention puts us back into the thick of it, we descend once more into the world.
Realizing our place in the world and the absence of spirituality, we break away from it. Once again focused on a spiritual path of expression, we find ourselves ascending away from the pull, only to be shocked or lured back down into the “darkly splendid worlds… wrapped in gloom.2“
Reincarnation
Not only do these oscillating patterns occur in our lives, they extend beyond our current life into multiple lifetimes. Through our karma, the return of our thoughts and actions repeats.
It is the macro cycle of oscillation. Victim, becoming victimizer. The lustful becoming the desired. The powerless lording power over others.
When I was a Buddhist my lama gave us all homework: “Go out and find an image of conflict this week. Look for an image in the news showing two people in conflict. Meditate and ask: ‘where did this person come from?’ then in time, ask the same question of the other person in the image.’”
Breaking the Pattern
I’m not sure how to do it yet. Yet the closest path to freedom from the oscillation that I’ve found, is Eckankar. By practicing the spiritual practice, sitting in contemplation are common threads in different paths, there is an emphasis on a spiritual power and attuning to that power in a personal way. Beyond that, the spiritual experiences of Soul Travel, Inner/Outer Mahatna, create a wholistic path that checks every box.
Chanting HU, while focused on the spiritual center, and filled with spiritual love, breaks the bonds of the world. Exploring beyond the body, into the realms beyond the astral, creates the confidence of the path. Meeting the Inner or Outer Mahatna, empowers members to break free of the world.
The people I meet in Eckankar are filled with smiles, love and empathy to a degree I have not readily seen. My hopes and belief in the path will someday turn into direct experience of the freedom. Thoughts aligned with spiritual action of Eckankar, breaking free of the return to the world.
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