This week the Mindshifters group watched the second half of the Dr. Michael Ryce lecture titled: The Laws of Living. What struck me most this time was a comment that Dr. Ryce made about how the Love of Truth produces a tension in the mind which focuses the mind on input and shows the mind the errors of its ways.
I remember from another lecture where Dr. Ryce explained his interpretation of the bible passage that says something like, “The eye is the lamp of the soul, if your lamp goes dark, how deep will your darkness be”. Dr. Ryce explains that the ancient Aramaic when translated directly into English says something more like, Your perception is the light for your earthly life, and if your perception is distorted by anything, you will create and experience false realities.
These false realities will always cause you pain and discomfort, and disrupt your relationships. Dr. Ryce explains, the mind is an evidential device, it shows you whatever it is you tell it to show you. So if you believe someone else is wrong or has “wronged you”, your mind will show you the evidence that they are wrong. You will literally perceive things that never happened, or twist things that did happen so that they have the meaning you have instructed your mind to give you.
Dr. Ryce repeatedly reminds us that the only way to perceive things accurately is to first hold the condition of Love in the mind. If I hold the condition of Love in my mind, I will Love Truth and desire only to see the Truth of what is. If I hold a desire for anything other than Truth, or if I hold any energy other than Love in my mind, my mind will distort the data that it shows me so that I construct a reality which is based on some form of hostility or fear, and is false! If I desire to be right, the first casualty of that desire will be the Truth. My mind will arrange the data it shows me to prove to me that I am right, and others are wrong. The Truth of the situation is not changed, I am just not able to use it to construct my reality.
If I desire to be right, my mind will show me how I am right, and it will shut down my ability to perceive anything which would conflict with that conclusion. When I desire to be right, I am not able to accept help, insight or input from friends, family or mentors. It is only when I accept that what I perceive may be inaccurate or incomplete that I am willing to accept input.
The Love of Truth literally produces tension and attention in the mind which focuses the mind on input from actuality, and allows the mind to see the errors of its ways. I desire to Love Truth. I frequently forget that desire and replace it with the desire of the Ego which longs to be right.
One important way for me to know when I am in error, and have lost my focus on The Love of Truth, is that I begin to feel tension, contraction and discomfort in my body. Whenever I become aware of this I know that I am in error. I know instantly that I am focusing my energy on something other than Love of Truth. I know instantly that I have shifted my awareness away from the fact that:
We come from Love, we are made of Love, we are Love. Everything else is false.