I try not to exclude myself, but like everyone else, I see it more easily in others than in myself: this tendency to nod one's head and still fail to truly reconsider. I hope the Author of Heavenletters will continue giving us specific advice on this particular issue.

I have often tried to think about why we find it so hard to let in new thoughts. It's almost as if we were shaking them off when we nod our head in agreement. Some more superficial part of us agrees, and so we don't notice that on a deeper level we don't agree at all. Nothing, it seems, can make a dent in our pet ideas, let alone cause us to give them up. Well, of course not. Who would abandon their pets?

Often there is not even a sense of having to defend our pets. After nodding, we simply don't apply what's being said to ourselves, we don't see the connection and there is no way to make us see one. I find this nodding (and smiling) and not re-thinking at all in people who are relatively happy, whereas unhappy people tend to get angry fairly soon when their pet ideas are challenged.

But analyses are not going to do any good for anyone. What makes us listen, what makes us take in what's being said? What makes us notice the inner sieve of preconceived ideas? What makes us notice we're not really listening and taking in?

There is a Heavenletter somewhere on how to read a Heavenletter. Since many things are repeated again and again in Heavenletters, perhaps we will hear more on how to read Heavenletters. I would love to. Opening a pathway for God's ideas to reach us directly must be a great thing. What if, until now, only a trickle of them has reached us through our known and unknown filters?

The Wind of the Spirit blows in life on the path you walk, sometimes from the south and it's hot, sometimes from the north and it's cold. Usually we don't notice the wind or know that it is one of the Names given to the Spirit of life. In the New Testament is is the pneuma and in the Old Testament it is the Ruaha, the Hebrew word for wind. Learning to bend comes as a life long lesson to us. This Letter reminds us to set our thoughts to learning how to be limber and yeilded to the mind of the Universe. It's a good thing to know and grow.

George

For some anything that is not in agreement with their thoughts and feelings is to be defended against. The thinking is wrong because the Mind is split.

I've learned and greet every new day with joyful expectance of the newness of life as God created. I'm learning to sift and watch my thoughts carefully to allow only the good ones.

You are not what you once were. You may never have been what you thought you once were.

Thank goodness for this and I start each new day anew and acknowledge You in everything.

I thank-You for giving me the strength to survive out of the past.

LIGHT and LOVE butterflies to ALL
Johanne

Jochen raises a fascinating question in his nicely phrased response to this letter: “I have often tried to think about why we find it so hard to let in new thoughts. It's almost as if we were shaking them off when we nod our head in agreement. Some more superficial part of us agrees, and so we don't notice that on a deeper level we don't agree at all.” I think there are answers to this question that start of from asking just what it is that is called “the past” in the body of this letter?

If only the “now” exists, what is “the past” that we are talking about here? Of course the events of the past are gone, but they do still exist for us in that they have left remnants of their effects in our mind. Past events are the basis for our present attitudes, our expectations, our habitual and accepted thoughts, as well as the subtle assumptions that are the support for the ideas we choose to entertain. The effects of these past events have become solidified as our worldview and the image of how we believe reality works.

Heavenletters present us with new thoughts constantly, and it is my observation that they do not mesh well with the mind structure that I just finished describing and which is our inheritance from the past. Entertaining new ways of thinking becomes a problem because our thoughts, beliefs and attitudes are not just a bunch of loosely held independent ideas, they are highly consistent with each other and interlock into a smooth system. We naturally reject what does not fit well. A new thought might resonate strongly with our heart but be rejected due to its inconsistency with this pre-existing mental structure. I think this is what Jochen is getting at when he says only a superficial part of us agrees with many of these new thoughts. Not that our heart is superficial, but our acceptance seems to be only a superficial acceptance since if doesn’t percolate easily down into the deeper levels of our belief structure. Not easily and not quickly.

I think even this analysis understates the difficulties in accepting radically new ideas. Not only do we personally hold this traditional worldview, but so does virtually everyone else we know. Our friends and acquaintances reinforce the old beliefs and will strongly discourage any ideas that threaten what our culture accepts as true. Beyond this, our cultural beliefs can also be said to be literally set in stone. They become the concrete and steel and glass of our buildings and roads, they are written into the billions of books in our libraries, and materialize in such things as our teacher’s unions, political parties and our laws.

If this thesis I present is accurate, there is a huge amount of resistance to the messages of Heavenletters to be overcome. It will be, though, there is much greater power in the Truth being conveyed. But the same messages do need to be repeated over and over again and we do need constant reminders. I think we also need to be patient with ourselves in the process. It will prevail in due time.

Love to all….Chuck