Driven Hearts

What drives a car? Is it not the engine? Is not the engine the place where motion is created? Is it not the engine where the ability to move and operate a car begins? Is it not the engine where all the details of electrical spark, fuel, and oxygen combine to result in the force to go?

Likewise, is not the heart of man or woman the engine of the body? Is the heart not what keeps the body's operations moving?

Can one not refer to another's disposition of mind, fundamental feelings, belief, or reasons for action as that person's heart. Effectually, is it not the catalyst, or reason for movement, action, work in any person?

Reflect on your own motions - works, efforts, in the course of a day. Do they not all originate from desires in your heart, your belief system created from perceptions developed from the sum total of all your experiences. Some actions practiced so long that they've become almost instantaneous and habitualized, but intitially, and even in the triggering cues of the mind processes, still irrefutably designed by what you believe or disbelieve.

Does not everything you choose to believe or disbelieve carry with it the same force to action and accomodation as the stroke of a piston in a car?

What's in your heart?

Do you believe you are of more value than others? Do you believe you are of lesser value than others? Do you believe you share in the same value as all others?

Do you believe that people with more money, better looks, more toys, more talent, more...., are more valuable than the people that have less?

Do you believe that a person's value is based on their actions? Do you believe that those that do things right are more valuable than those that do things wrong? Do you believe that right and wrong carry no value?

Do you believe that always being right makes a person more valuable? Do you believe that control and power make a person more valuable?

What do you believe value means? Value to what end? Money is only valuable when it is exchangable for another object of interest, but if I have all the money in the world but no access to food and water, that money is worthless. So, to what end is value defined for you? Is it defined for the moment, for pleasure, for profit, for learning, for growth, for humanity, for comfort, for what? Is not that which is of most value those things that keep opening new and greater opportunities for life and growth? Is that what you value? Shall we check?

Sometimes its difficult to clearly become aware of the answers to these questions because we are extrememly biased and don't honestly assess our positions. The fact that this state exists only proves that we are caught in a delusion. It only proves that we want things to be the way we want them to be; irregardless of the truth of how things work and the needful steps to be taken inorder to achieve what we need or want, if its attainable at all. This is why truth is freedom. Truth is not in the eye of the beholder. The truth on truth is that it is the existing reality of things and it stands independent and irregardless of whether we perceive it in its totality, a mere portion, or not at all. Progress is recognizing the truth of a matter and in full awareness acting in accordance with how things work. This is why truth sets us free. We are not subject to false beliefs which have not the power to deliver our anticipated and desired results. We do not wear out our lives and waste our energies for things that we cannot get. We do not damage ourselves by procuring what we want but through improper means and thereby incurring losses or damage we otherwise would not need suffer had we tended to the appropriate steps a truthful awareness would of granted us in our desired objective.

An awareness of the truth of things is most valuable indeed! But is that what we want in our hearts? Is that what drives us?

The beauty of planting a tomato crop is that it will not yield cucumbers. Neither will it yield watermelon, or bananas, or mangos. It will yield tomatoes. Likewise if we take a drink from the ocean we will not find the water to be sweet, it will be salty. What does all this mean?

Sometimes we have trouble seeing the truth of where we stand on certain issues, we believe ourselves to be one way, when in reality we act in completely contrary ways. Our actions however do not lie. They conform to the truth of our thoughts and feelings. They are the direct fruit of the seeds in our hearts. If our actions are salty then we are lying to ourselves by believing that we are drawing our water from a fresh water river. This is how we can become aware of the true seeds in our heart. It is the first step. Awareness of action, once mastered will lead us to an awareness of our feelings. Once we have recognized our feelings we can become aware of the thoughts which hold together our beliefs. Once we've exposed the core beliefs to our actions, we then can match them with the truth of things. Where they are in opposition we hold the great power of changing our thoughts which in time will reorder our feelings and consequently our actions and character.

Now we arrive to the fuel of the matter. In a car the engine is worthless if it doesn't have the proper fuel. In a body, take away food and water long enough and your magnificent pump will eventually cease pumping. In the heart of our minds it is the ideas we believe to be true that drive us. Recognize here that belief is a choice that one can apply to any information brought to our awareness, whether it is factual, purposely deceptive, accidentally misrepresented, inadvertently misunderstood, only a part of the entire portion, etc. etc. The great power of mankind is that we have the power to choose, we decide what information we will subject ourselves unto, we are agents unto ourselves, and then once we've made a choice, servants to that path's culminating outcome. So, where does the fuel, which keeps us on those paths, of belief come from? The fuel for belief comes from evidences, assurances, witnesses, testimonies, it is the substance of our thoughts and the value of proof we place on those ideas we hold firm in our minds. However, our minds much like some court trials are sometimes corrupt. For a desired payout or outcome we sometimes tamper with evidence, hold some evidences as inadmissable, still yet at other times we even fabricate and plant evidences that support a ruling we desire but which are untrue and unjust.

This is where an honest awareness and a firm mind is key. The ultimate and honest truth about truth is that it needs no defender or great lawyer. Truth is unrelenting. It is unchangeable. The truth will always result, it will always win out. And all deceipt and lies will utlimately in time be overcome by the truth of things. Truth is subject to no man. Man is subject to truth. So no matter how we handle verdicts in the courtrooms of our minds, the final judgement of life will result in compliance to the truth of all matters and to the misfortune of all those that are operating on untruths.

A young woman once jumped out of a second story window fully believing that she could fly. She fell and miraculously was uninjured. Believing she had not exerted enough belief and somehow had not laid aside all doubt, she went back up to the second story window and jumped again, this time injuring her ankles, and at that point she gave up on her foolishness.

What fueled the drive to believe? What set her into motion? The answer to that question - the ideas gained from stories of miraculous experiences from her church's scriptural accounts. These stories were attractive to her, the people depicted in the stories exercised supernatural powers that God had given them, and which she did not have, and she wanted to enjoy a similar power. She also had another thought, which had been presented by the popular culture of her society. The idea was that if you believe in something hard enough, you can make it happen. This idea was also attractive to her because it meant that she held the power to do whatever she wanted to do, and she liked that idea. It meant not having boundaries or limitations. Inherent to that idea was the fact that you don't need consent or permission from any authority figure who held more power than you do, you need not be restricted by anyone or anything, you need only believe hard enough. Ultimately and succinctly put, you become your own God or an extension of God.

Casting out all thoughts and feelings of warning and reason aside, she flooded her mind with the evidences that what she was attempting was attainable. The ultimate persuasion came in the memories of her own experiences where she had gained an awareness and understanding that God indeed exists. Knowing that, she trusted He could do this thing, if she only exercised enough belief in Him. Her firmly held assumption was always that God was in agreement with what she wanted to do and that He would be a facilitator to her strong belief. Quite frankly, she unsuspectingly fell under the delusion that if she believed hard enough, irregardless of God's will or consent, she could cause what she wanted.

Here an honest assesment would have saved her unnecessary physical as well as spiritual damage. The truth is that an all powerful being that has the ability to manipulate the elements at will could very well produce the experience this woman sought. However the truth of the matter is that this woman made herself out to be God and unsuspectingly put herself in a position, in her mind, where she could tell God what he would do. She never got God's consent or promise.

Bottom line, God never said He'd do what she wanted. The lie - she liked the idea that if she believed hard enough that she'd get her way. She believed she could lay claim to a power that was not her own by believing hard enough. That's why she went back the second time and jumped again. Having built a solid case in her mind, her only conclusion on her first failure was that she had not had sufficient belief. The truth however, is that no matter what she believed she never held the power, was never promised the power, nor was ever given the power to fly. The truth is that no matter how highly this woman felt about herself and her ability to manipulate God and his power, she was subject to his order and not the other way around.

Many people would take this last story and use it as evidence to prove that there is no God, however, that is a manipulation of information too. These people seek occasions to form evidences that suit their own preference and not the truth. The truth is that evidence, like statistics can be misconstrued and manipulated to support whatever desired proof one would be so inclined to try and establish. This however changes nothing to the effect that there are specific truths governing all matters.

Another example. A man in deep emotional and physical pain may convince himself that suicide is a way of escaping the pain he suffers. However, an honest and candid look at the situation would show that his conclusion is based upon an assumption. The assumption is of what death has to offer, and in truth carries zero proof in affording his desired end, peace and freedom from pain. The man has never been dead, he has never spoken to someone who has returned from death. Why would he think that death would offer anything different or the same than what he currently experiences? The truth is that he desires death to bring him peace and freedom from pain. His only firm thought - I know nothing of existance after death so there must be nothing after death. And nothingness sounds better than the somethingness I here suffer. The attractiveness of that thought with nothing substantial to refute it, like an overplayed commercial finally persuades the man that it must be true, and he seeks the imaginary comfort of ending his existance. But what if he is wrong?

How do we find truth? We can find it the inevitable way-thru experience. Or we can find it out from those that have endured experience and learn from them. Ultimately, and personally, I believe in a God in Heaven who is our Father and who seeks to impart truth to us as we allow it to enter our hearts and have place therein. The problem is that we love our fantasies all too often more than our future comfort and progress. We in essence are worse than the donkey that chases the carrot tied to a stick on his back. Though he never gets the carrot, at least his is real. We often chase carrots which don't even exist. Mind your beliefs. Recognize the actions they produce. Ultimately they will prove us friends to truth, or hypocrites who deceive ourselves into insanity. Insanity as described by believing and trying to get a desired specific outcome by methodically ascribing to incorrect, improper, and ultimately erroneous means. Means which can not give us what we want the way we want it.

What drives your heart and where is it taking you?