Ah-Man Spiritual Recovery Program

This Month’s Practice

• Notice negative thoughts without engaging them.
• Practice indifference when thoughts or provocations try to pull you in.
• Shift your attention to something simple, physical, and present.
• Return to inner balance before turning to prayer.
• Let humility, silence, and love guide your response.
Only Love,
Michael John

Third strategy for defending against negative thoughts, from The Moutain of Silence.

3. Prayer and the Need for Inner Balance

One would think that resorting to prayer while being attacked by negative thoughts would also be a resourceful action. Not so. At times, if one uses prayer when under attack by negative thoughts, it has something like the opposite effect. As it says in The Mountain of Silence, “It may lead a person to extreme psychic turmoil and to a loss of self-mastery. Old Paisios (an elder of Mt. Athos’s, an old sage/mystic) used to tell us that when confronted with a logismos, whoever resorts to repeating the Prayer very rapidly resembles a terrified soldier in the heat of battle. He holds his rifle tight to his chest, paralyzed with fear. To reassure himself that he is not afraid he repeats, Holy Virgin help me, Holy Virgin, help me. And he shakes from head to toe, sitting completely immobilized and unable to fight or even to breathe.”

Before praying in the midst of a troubling logismos/negative thoughts, we must first regain rational mastery over the situation. If possible, the first step is still indifference: do not engage the thought, do not panic, and do not let fear take over. Pray, but not from a state of panic.

In other words, when negative thoughts arise, regaining our reasoning and willpower is essential. We must return to level ground before we act. Otherwise, we become vulnerable to the very thoughts we are trying to overcome.

The Third Path To True Freedom:

Jesus, The Christ / Christianity
The season of Lent and all that leads up to and including Holy Week, is the summit of Jesus of Nazareth’s teachings. See last month’s newsletter. Lent begins with Ash Wednesday, reminding us, “Remember, thou art dust, and to dust thou shall return.” And “We are not our bodies or of the temporal world, but part of the Eternal Light.”
Jesus teaches us to turn away from sin—which means redirecting our focus away from the material world and its dualities—and to be faithful to the Gospel, which represents sacred scripture and not worldly influences…news, social media, etc.
True freedom, Jesus enlightens us, comes from within. He told us, His kingdom is not of this world, but within each of us. When He refused to liberate the people from Roman rule, many turned away, misunderstanding the nature of true liberation.
John the Baptist’s call to “Repent” was a call to look inward, to act from the world of Spirit, rather than the material one.
Turning inward means letting go of fear, greed, ego, and unchecked self-will. This journey, symbolized by Christ’s suffering on Good Friday, shows that our deepest fears have no power compared to the eternal reality of Spirit.
True Freedom is Unity Consciousness—seeing all beings as equal souls and transcending the pull of attraction and aversion.
At The Last Supper, Jesus’s words, “This is my body, this is my blood,” point to the unity of form and essence, teaching that all forms and all essence are one in Christ.
“When you see it all as Him, you stimulate the Him in all you see.” Jerry Thomas
This is how The Christ, Krishna, and The Buddha experienced the world—and how we can, too, when we earnestly follow their teachings, not just those that suit our preferences.
Be true to the Gospel and sacred scriptures.

Letting Go and Finding Inner Peace

While it is noble to serve others and protect our loved ones, a key lesson on the spiritual path is to let go of attachment to outcomes. We are called to act with compassion and integrity, then release control over the results. Harboring resentment or negativity toward those who differ from us only hardens the heart and blocks the Light from shining through.