June 25, 2009

It has almost been 4 months since I have attempted this experiment of trying to keep God in my mind every minute of my existence that I am awake.

Overall I seem to have made progress. It is less "abnormal" and requiers a little less effort than the first week that I have attempted this, which was the first week of March.

Still, there is much progress to be made. I am still so very far from mastering every single minute from being in continual conversation with God in second person.

I am starting tos ee the frutis of the first 2 months of flat-out strenuous discipline of the mind. I ahve to say mentally, during Mach and April of 2009 my mind went under the most strenuous training it has ever went through in the history of its existence. 23 years of nto disciplining what my mind thinks of every minute all of a sudden to trying to drag its untamed/untrained/wild thoughts back into my control by yanking the leash of my thought patterns. I know that the path ahead is going to be hard as well. It ain't over yet. I am convinced more and more that this skill/discipline is somewhat akin to learning a new language, where one would completely deceive oneself if one thought he could completely master this in a few months. Maybe 10 years or more to have a pretty good grasp of it (though that does not mean one has exhaustively studied all the "Shakespeare" of the language yet, just like how an elementary school kid can't fully appreciate Shakespeare, yet is "fluent" in his mother tongue).

One source of motivation though, is the fact that I refuse, just refuse to abandon these past 4 months of spiritually disciplining my mind and let all this effort go to waste. After you've "been in the game" for this long (actually, it's not that long, but subjectively, trying to train every moment of everyday for 4 months), you just can't quit. You just can't!

One of the things that kep me motivated in the beginning was the fact that there were certain things in my life in the past, where hardcore discipline just proved fruitful after months of hard toil, seeing no results. Examples were breakdancing, losing weight, improving my English, and learning a second language after the age of 20. All of these pursuits, although I haven't fully attained the expertise leve of these pursuits, I have come quite a long way due to a long process of arduous discipline, where there were consecutive weeks and even months of seemingly "fuirtless"labour, only to see a big breakthrough after persevering a little longer.

Another thing that kep me motivated in the beginning was raeding the amazing accounts of Frank laubach's personal experiences of mystical intimacy with god during the first few months of his own hardcore disciplien of this experiment. The Holy Spirit gave me the desire to want such intimacy, closeness, and joy in God that I kept on trying through those suppoesdly "fruitless" days, and kept my hand to the plow.

I was a little disappointed though, when I didn't seem to experience the types of holy mystical euphoria that Mr. Laubach experienced with God himself in the first few months. As a result of realizing that, I learned two things. One was that in the beginning, I tried to picture Jesus beside me, present with me, while doing all my daily activities because I wanted to experience intimacy with Him. But I didn't necessarily focus on the aspect of being in submission to God the Father, learning from Jesus my teacher, and consciously trying to continually conform my character to Jesus'. This was a crucial, perhaps the main element, in Frank Laubach's first few months of this experiment. I only then raelized later on when I re-read Frank Laubach's accounts of his first few months of the game with minutes, is that he had constant submission and conformity to Christ as the main ingredient of his journey. It seems that seeking spiritual ecstacies with god, although wasn't something to be avoided, wasn't the primary thing he was looking for, and came as a by-product itself. Thsi really spoke to me, because god told me alter on, that Himself, and the holy joy/pleasures that he gives are not the same thing. And to lvoe the latter did not necessarily mean that I loved the former, and could even be a hindrance to attaining the former (an illustration taht helped me understand this, was that a husband loving his wife is not the same thing as loving the positive/fluffy emotions that the wife gives him, and that idolizing the latter could actually prevent the attainment of the former). A Dallas Willard quote sticks out to me when I am reminded of this: "If you love God, you will be happy, but you cannot love God by loving happiness. You have to love God and let the happiness take caer of itself. Happiness is a by-product." Since Frank Laubach was so focused on loving God, he REALLY got the by-product as a result.

Having said that, there were some moments (not a ton), where I did feel spontaneous joy in God. Now this is a very different type of "joy" that I experienced, relative to certain "superficial/happy-clappy.giddy" emotions (not bad in themselves) that one can easily get from hillsong concerts. I am not against those emotions. But I think that in relative comparison to these moments of experience a qualitatively different type of mysteriousnew joy were much, much deeper. They seem deeper than emotions. If emotions were branches of a tree, then this joy would be in the roots of it, under the ground. I don't have anything against Hillsong, in fact, I enjoy some of their songs. But I think they have limits in facilitating one's joy in God. They can, if you may, help you get "infatuated" with God. But they don't give you the types of experiences you get after toiling to build a relationship with someone, sacrificing, loving them at a cost, like a husband and wife. The qualitative difference int his type of "joy" compared to the rudimentary version is roughly representative of this new type of "joy" I experienced in certain spontaneous moments of practising this experiement.

Aside from joy, another positive effect on my life is just the growth of peace. Isaiah 26:3-4. My peace in God has grown a lot. I used to let things take away my peace from God before undergoing this experiment. Ministry results (how students were doing in respect to wanting to know God initially and deeper) used to have a profound effect on me in ruining my mood. But now, as I practise this experiement more and more, I am experiencing the peace that comes when things don't seem to be going right (in my human eyes), and when students don't seem passionate for God.

Also, it seems that I have a strange deeper love for strangers on the streets now. I see them as human beings with whole new "worlds" of themselves. it also seems taht God, in His grace, has been putting me in a favourable light to somem people that I either didn't naturally get along with too well, or were neutral before. This is something similar to what frank Laubach experienced.

What I thoguht was pretty immpossible before, keeping God in mind as I engaged int he use of language with otehr humans (speaking, listening, raeding, writing) is slowly becoming an actualized reailty. There were certain days where I would experience breakthoughs when it seemed somewhat like all of a sudden a new "power" was acquired after weeks of training/attemping, and I could considerably listen to another human in conversation, while keeping Jesus in second person at the same time! The same with reading books, that is simultaneously reading a book and practising the presence of God at the same time! I have to say though, these were followed by days of struggle later on to maintain these new enlightenments and breakthroughs of the skill of something similar to cognitivemultitasking. it seemed taht one day I would be doing good in practising the presence of God whiel processing language in interacting with other humans, then the next day, these "powers" would be completely gone! I am kind of encouraged though, that this progress is more like a three steps forward and two steps back kind of improvement process.

I still am far from completely mastering this. From even winning half o fth eminutes of my day (maybe not even a quarter, for I do nto calculate it that precisely). But I have gained progress since i first started.

I am devoting the rest of my life to mastering this art.