|
|
Series:
|
A Man of the Field Forming The New Church Mind In Today’s World
Volume 1: Reformation The Struggle Against Nonduality
Volume 2: Enlightenment The Spiritual Sense of the Writings
Volume 3: Regeneration Spiritual Disciplines For Daily Life
Volume 4: Uses The New Church Mind In Old Age
By Leon James October 2002 (draft 17a)
Author information appears at the end. This document is in the process of being revised. Please note the draft version marked on top. To print this document, see Printing Note at the end.
A “field” means doctrine (AC 368) A "man" signifies faith and truth (AC 427; 4823)
Volume 3 Regeneration Spiritual Disciplines For Daily Life
Chapter 3 Additional Regeneration Disciplines
Table of Contents
Access other Chapters and Volumes here: Additional Regeneration Disciplines 2. Laundry And Housecleaning Disciplines 3. Daily Disciplines Of Studying The Writings 4. Monitoring What’s In My Mind 5. Monitoring What’s On My Face 6. Monitoring What Are My Eyes Doing 8. Conjugial Grooming Rituals. 9. The Discipline Of Junk E-Mail 10. How To Handle Junk Phone Calls 11. The Spiritual Discipline Of Eating Half-Portions 12. Arrival And Departure Rituals With The Wife 13. The Spiritual Discipline Of Colon Cleansing 14. Acknowledging The Lord’s Co-Presence 15. Talking To The Lord Is To Apply The Letter To The Letter 16. Rational Consciousness Of The Lord Now Conjoins 17. Rational Consciousness From Applying The Letter To The Letter 18. So Far As The Lord Is Present, So Far He Speaks With The Man 19. Cleanliness And Health Disciplines 20. Not Detachment, But Right Attachments 21. Self-worth, Self-esteem, Self-efficacy 22. Remains Are The Cornerstone of Self-worth 23. Shunning The Rage-Depression Spin Cycle
Access other Chapters and Volumes here:
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/nonduality.html Every
spiritual truth in the Writings
Chapter 3Additional Regeneration Disciplines
It is said in the Word, that everyone shall be judged according to his works; for the end, or the love of his will, and the cause, or the reason of his understanding, are together in the effects, which are the works of his body; thus the quality of the whole man is in them. (ISB 7)
These are briefer treatments of additional spiritual disciplines for helping to form the New Church mind in ourselves. It will be easy for you think of new ones that suit you. If you’d like to share these anonymously, please email me at leon@hawaii.edu and I will include them in this list. It would be helpful if you added an explanation as to how you’re making it a religious discipline.
Always do your work as if TV cameras are all around, recording everything for all to see. It’s an issue of “truth in advertising” regarding the reputation you enjoy as someone who has respect for others. Do not touch their food with your hand, pretending you used a serving spoon. Do not give them a drink from a bottle you drink from. Etc. Volunteer to take over certain things on a permanent basis so that people depend on you for it. Examples:
q Washing all dishes after meals. q Washing pots, utensils, counters, etc. while someone is cooking or afterwards. q Preparing lunch bags for others. This includes shopping for the ingredients. q Be responsible for maintaining and adding items to the weekly grocery shopping list. q Go shopping with whoever does it for the family and help find and carry things. q Volunteer to prepare meals and insist on cleaning up after yourself. q Offer to mop the floor when needed (extend the offer to vacuum the carpets). q Etc.
After several years of the discipline of washing the dishes and cleaning up the kitchen, I find amazing mistakes and ignorance about basic things in my willing and thinking. Recently Diane pointed out that I’m doing the last wipe of the pan with the sponge before putting it away. What about contamination by the sponge? I denied that the sponge is contaminated by bacteria since I squeeze it dry under running water with each dish. After seeing that I’m continuing to disagree, she fetched the hydrogen peroxide bottle and I poured some on the sponge, just like we had seen it done on TV. It bubbled and frothed! The truth of the evidence convicted me! I apologized to her with a kiss and she walked off no doubt in conjugial victory. Since that hour I use a paper towel for the final wipe off and wash the sponge itself at the end of each use. How could I be so blind as to assume that the sponge itself needs no cleaning?
2. Laundry And Housecleaning Disciplines
Doing it Folding the clothes the way she wants it and while they are still warm Knowing where they go in the drawers
3. Daily Disciplines Of Studying The Writings
Our ability to cooperate in our regeneration requires that we study the Writings as often as possible. I believe that daily study is necessary. Find different way of doing this. For instance:
q Read the volumes systematically so that you get through each Work, one by one, from the first page to the last. Keep a marker so you can start each time from where you left off. The point is not how fast you can get through but whether you do it daily.
q Keep a note book or cumulative folder with your thoughts as you read, or when you’re done, or at any time you’re inspired by an idea. Mark it with a reference to the Number in the Work so you can go back to it when you want to.
q Consult your notes and make summary statements. Try representing the content in the form of lists, tables, and diagrams. Use your school literacy to do an effective job.
q Learn to use New Search, either on your computer, or on the Web. Spend time searching the Writings by subject or topic. Do it until you’re skilled. Try to enjoy it or else, act like you do. Use your skills to study and develop topics of interest.
q If you read articles and collateral works about the Writings, check the references to the passages—are thy really relevant and do they actually support the claims being made?
q Acquire audio books of the Writings (General Church Recording Library) and practice listening under appropriate conditions. I found that it’s excellent for listening during my physical workout, in waiting rooms, on airplanes, while driving, and especially when going to sleep.
q Enroll in group study and lessons about the Writings.
4. Monitoring What’s In My Mind
We do not know accurately what’s in our mind until we monitor ourselves by taking systematic samples through self-witnessing. Some cumulative record of these samples needs to be kept in some form—notepad, audio recorder, form sheets that list items you can circle, etc. These records should specify how many minutes you spend thinking and daydreaming about various subjects, and in what way—e.g., with anger, with denigration, with compassion, with humor, etc.. Also, what are the topics you discuss with others. Also, how many minutes you spend watching TV and movies, and what type of content it has. Also, how much time you spend with your wife doing what specific activities and talking about what specific topics. Also, how many times certain events occur: a fight with her, a disagreement, having a good time together, how many you made her laugh, how many times you kissed her, or praised her, and the like.
Obviously this is not an easy or insignificant task in terms of involvement and effort. One way to make it more manageable is to specialize in certain topics or activities depending on what seems to impede your progress in conjugial union. It may be helpful to share the data with your wife so that she can give you her advice.
5. Monitoring What’s On My Face
The Writings reveal that the face is a mirror of our thoughts, feelings, and mood. For example:
The face, with the ancients, signified internal things, because internal things shine forth through the face; and in the most ancient times men were such that the face was in perfect accord with the internals, so that from a man's face everyone could see of what disposition or mind he was. They considered it a monstrous thing to show one thing by the face and think another. (AC 358)
The “disposition” of the mind in the celestial or regenerated individual projects itself by correspondence to the physical features of the body and face. While we are regenerating in the physical body we struggle to hold in aversion our inherited “face” which denotes the evils and falsities in our unregenerated mind. It makes sense therefore that we watch our facial expressions so that we can become conscious of what our inherited evils are (CL 202).
As I got older (I’m now 63) my face wants more and more to settle into a few caricatures of my uncles and cousins whom I haven’t seen for decades. My wife was the first to sound the alarm when she briefly met one of my uncles in his 50s and afterward began noting that my face made certain expressions that were almost identical to those of my uncle. As is normal for me to do, I dismissed her idea. Of course there is a resemblance—I noted that myself, but I rejected the notion that my expressions were a near copy to his. After all, I was modern, educated, enculturated, and he was still somewhat from the old country in his ideas and orientation. Nevertheless, as my wife kept up her conjugial anti-face campaign, I started looking at my face at other times than the morning shaving routine.
1. Look at your face in the mirror. Completely relax it. This takes a little while. Tell yourself what our Yoga always says in rest pose: “Let go of all muscles that create expression. Let your flesh fall off your bones.” Observe your face at rest. Monitor your reactions and thoughts. Repeat this exercise on different days for awhile. It will give you a baseline familiarity for your facial expressions.
2. At different times of the day, look for opportunities to see your face. When you’re in the bathroom, or other place where there are mirrors around—department stores, restaurants, restrooms. You can also carry a mirror, of course, though the size limits the view to a portion of the face. Doing this will allow you to get to know what your face is doing. Others see it clearly so we need to know what others can see. This is called objectivity on oneself.
3. When you have occasion to look at your uncles and cousins monitor their facial expressions by being conscious of them rather than merely being reactive in sudden memory (see Chapter 8 Section 1).
Get to know their expressions so that you’ll be able to recognize these expressions in your face. You can have a similar focus when you see photographs or videos of them. Explore the kind of emotions you experience as you recognize yourself in them and them in you. At first I was sort of proud and reassured. It gave me a belongingness, and upon occasion I might even feel some close connection and love for them. But this was followed by a feeling of embarrassment when I became educated and enculturated and was inspired by the feeling to put my origins behind me and to be the new modern man. I thought I had put them away from me, until my wife started telling me that my face was them.
4. Search the Writings and talk to the Lord about your face. There may be a difficult conflict for you to overcome here on account of our inherent attachments to family and race. There is a nonduality to fight and get out of the way of regeneration. This is the corporeal idea expressed in popular logic as “blood is not water.” Every institution in our society raises family loyalty to a virtue and patriotic duty. And this is indeed commendable. But in the New Church mind. more needs to be added to this picture.
First, familial ties are for the most part not recognized in the afterlife (AC 3815[2]). Parents do not know their offspring and vice versa except at initial stages of arrival when we are still in the external natural memories of our life in the physical body. And this makes sense because everyone can know that their thoughts, opinions, feelings, emotions are often not like those of their parents and family. Hence conflict, disputes, and anger, which are quite common. Since our interiors are therefore different and even opposed to our family members we are not going to be with our families in the afterlife where only those who are interiorly similar can be present to teach other (HH 193).
Second, the Writings reveal that the hereditary line is totally mixed so that we inherit and pass on innumerable evils that tie us to the hell societies in everything we do all day long (CL 202). From our families hereditarily we only have the infernal and the animal (AC 1438). Anything genuinely good must be acquired for ourselves by rebirth and regeneration. You might be vexed at this and naturally think in protest: “But what about the good things I have from inheritance? Like my desire to be a perfectionist. My compassion for people in need. My loyalty to religion and patriotism. My muscular body build. Most of us in our family have these things.” Perhaps. But in any case we need to remind ourselves that whatever good we receive from any source is not from that source but from the Lord alone. Therefore we ought not to attribute spiritual value to what we inherit in the unregenerate natural mind.
These two important points allow us to free ourselves from the bondage of the family face, to the extent that we take them to heart. This means monitoring when we are prejudiced on some issue and automatically favor our family or our race. We must systematically undo these harmful connections in our mind. They are harmful because they impede our regeneration. The target goal in our regeneration is to leave all that is in our mind from natural sources, and replace it with things from spiritual sources only. Then our external mind, still natural, will be in the Lords’ order and obedient to spiritual affections.
When our mind reflects our spiritual affections, our face is no longer similar to our inherited family face. It is a new face to go with the reborn character. This new face is celestial and is similar to the faces of the angels in the heavenly society in which you live (AC 4797; HH 47).
Remember that your face-control program is going to be successful to the extent that you let your wife give you feedback at any time she is moved to do so, and then only to the extent that you take her feedback to heart and do not dismiss it as exaggeration or imagination. This I have been guilty of for years.
The face is an external vessel for representing the mind’s life and spiritual orientation. It stands to reason that building a new face for yourself ought to go together with building your reborn character. Further, as the face solidifies with age into family caricatures, the new spiritual affections we are trying to foster have nowhere to settle, and like Noah’s dove must return to the Ark unable to find dry land to settle on (Gen. 8:6-9). The solidified family face impedes our regeneration. Wives whose conjugial has been nurtured by the husband, sense and know all this about them. They know from the Writings that their husband in heaven is not going to look like her husband looks now: as he scowls at her, or tightens his lips in anger, or clamps down on his teeth tightening the cheek muscles, with eyes that are cold with self-determination, lips that purse in arrogance and derision. She knows this is not her celestial husband but a devil who has hijacked her husband and speaks to her through him. How tenderly she longs for the day when her husband begins to change his face and starts looking like he is truly hers, not his family’s. This is the Divine commandment that a husband leave his mother and father and cleave to his wife, that they might be one flesh to eternity. (AC 5354)
Similar things as were said concerning the face need to be applied to the way we laugh, the way our voice sounds by which it is recognized by others, and the style of body activity—gestures, posture, sitting position, and moving.
6. Monitoring What Are My Eyes Doing
Everyone knows the old adage that the eyes are the window to the soul. It is preserved in our linguistic socialization so every individual is cultured into that idea. In our unregenerate state we do not know what kind of a window this is. We imagine that it’s like partition between two places, one called the soul and the other called the eyes. We realize that eyes are out there in the open while soul is in there, hidden from observation. Yet somehow by looking at the eyes, we imagine, one can see into the soul. These are natural ways of thinking about it.
But when we gain in understanding of the dualities in the Writings we realize that there must be a correspondential relation between the soul which is in the spiritual world and the eyes which are in the natural world. The eyes react by correspondence to what is going on in the soul. This is why we can say rationally that the eyes reveal to outside observation what type of willing and thinking is going on in the mind. Have you ever tried to look at someone in the eye and see what they are willing and thinking? My own observation has been that this approach yields almost no results. I cannot know what another is willing, intending, thinking, or reasoning no matter how much I stare in their eyes. The closest where I do have some success is babies and infants.
So there must be another way of understanding the statement that the eyes are the windows to the soul. The solution lies in thinking about our own soul and our own eyes rather than another’s. Yes, our own willing and thinking is very obscure to us, we hardly know a very tiny fraction of one percent of it. This is not very much. For instance, if we think two thoughts per second, say, and are awake for sixteen hours, we’ve had about xx thoughts on that one day. How many of them do we know what they were? Very few. And fewer for yesterday, and how much the year before, and the decade before? You can see that we get to know a tiny fraction of one percent even when we have an introspective personality. So we must conclude that our willing and thinking is largely unknown to us. This is why it is referred to as the “unconscious” or the “subconscious” (xx).
Now back to our eyes. It’s a feasible task to monitor our eye movements for brief periods. We can do this more easily than we can witness our willing and thinking. Now the old adage applies perfectly: monitoring what my eyes are doing reveal to me what I’m willing and thinking.
I have found this to be an informative discipline in some specific situations. I have gained more specific knowledge of my unruly affections and imaginations. When I drive my eyes used to constantly rove around to pick up things of interest—what other drivers are doing, what they look like, what expressions they have, what they are doing with their hands. When a car passes me I had to look to see who is doing this to me. When I passed a car that was moving slower than traffic, I had to look at the driver to see who is this person doing such an annoying thing. As I used to walk to my office from the parking lot, my eyes roamed around at will. Whatever I had an affection for, the eyes were obedient in delivering it to my attention and focus. Passers by: I would look at their body parts, their clothes, the condition of the clothes, the folds on the clothes, the shape of the fingers, the kind of shoes they wore—everything that I felt a delight in.
In restaurants my eyes would focus and stare at how people put food in their mouth. It seems that I had an endless collection of affections that were satisfied through control of the eyes. My wife would have to remind me from time to time as we were sitting at table: “Honey, you’re staring.” I was embarrassed, but only for a moment. Mostly I was fascinated by the difficulty I had in controlling my eye movements. I asked how she accomplished it and she answered that she had to train herself to accept the idea that it was rude and an invasion of privacy. “Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.” I’m still working on the problem, at age 63.
When I was in my adolescence there was a song popularized by Dean Martin that had a refrain: “Standing on the corner, watchin’ all the gals go bye” etc. This was a delightful idea to me. I used to pick dark sun glasses to wear so that I can willfully look at whatever I pleased without being detected. Instead of shame, I felt power. I was my own god. I was alone in my mind. I was the ruler in that domain. I did what I pleased. Then in my early forties I began to read the New Testament as a book of God. And I was amazed to read in there that what I did in my mind was no different from committing adultery with the body. Until then my colleagues in psychology encouraged their clients in adulterous fantasies which they claimed are beneficial for a healthier or zestier sex life for married partners who did not cheat on each other. But mental pornography and fantasy adultery was not considered cheating. But now, since the Lord commanded it, I knew I had to reform. And then I discovered how difficult it was to keep my eyes from being taken over by illicit affections.
The mere conclusion in the mind, that adultery is not sin, renders a man an adulterer; - [shown] from those things which have been said on this subject in The Doctrine of Life. Every conclusion in the mind constitutes endeavor in the body, which is the essential act.
I told adulterers, that, in heaven, there is perpetual potency; and they said, if they had known this in the world, they would never have committed whoredom, so that they might come into heaven. But I said, that, in heaven, it is permitted to love only the married partner, in hell to commit whoredom at pleasure; [and I asked] whether, in this case, they would wish to be in hell, or in heaven; but I was unable to extort a reply from them. (SE 6110)
I continue my struggles by which I can corroborate the statement that my eyes are a window to my affections. I discovered thereby many disorderly and evil areas in my mind. Besides scortations, as mentioned above, I became aware how critical my thoughts are, moment by moment, as I’m in the company of others. For instance, as I sit in the doctor’s waiting room, my eyes detect something about somebody and my affections respond with criticism, ridicule, envy, superiority, arrogance, lack of compassion. The eyes are responding to the affections, and these come to my awareness through the thoughts they produce. Now I assess those thoughts and I find them disorderly in various ways, depending on the unregenerate affection.
By keeping a record of your eye movements and the affections and thoughts that accompany them, you are creating a map which is the spiritual geography of your mental landscapes. Now you are armed to be effective in your regeneration disciplines.
So far as anyone indulges in the lusts of the flesh. He is a beast and a wild animal; but so far as he takes delight in the desires of the spirit he is a human being and an angel (TCR 328)
It may seem far fetched to discuss this familiar phrase as a spiritual discipline. But recall that EVERY natural event or act comes into existence by means of the spiritual event or act that corresponds to it. A stone cannot fall, an atom cannot whirl, an earthquake cannot happen without the spiritual cause within it, to which the natural event corresponds. Similarly, you could not raise your hand to the mouth, could not swallow or digest something, could not put on your pants, were it not for the spiritual event to which these little actions correspond. Think of this amazing scientific fact! Every movement of your tongue, eyes, and fingers—which are active every second, are nothing but natural effects of a spiritual cause that is within them as cause is within the effect, or, as cause is prior to the effect, since what is prior in successive order is within in simultaneous order (xx).
So then, now consider, the familiar thought of “holding in my stomach.” The act of holding in the stomach requires a spiritual cause. For instance, when I was in my college student years in my early 20s the self-regulatory thought of “hold in your stomach” was motivated by corporeal vanity. I saw in my mind images of body-building models from magazines and movies. I was too naive to realize the role of editing in movies and photographs, and compared my stomach, thighs, and biceps to theirs, coming far short to what I thought would be attractive to the girls who then would find me irresistible attractive, come up to me saying, “O can I touch your firm stomach.” How insane the unregenerate man appears from hindsight!
In my 30s and 40s my motive for holding in the stomach had risen from corporeal to sensuous. It felt better when I had strong abdominal muscles. Also, my clothes had a better fit. And I could lift things or stand erect without feeling exhausted or hurt afterwards. In my 50s and beyond my motive became natural-rational. I saw a bulging stomach as the sign of a spiritually insane lifestyle. In our youth we hold in the stomach out of self-love and the desire to be admired and found physically attractive. When we get married and grow middle-aged, men no longer care about their physical attractiveness as much as other things and “let themselves go.” This means they let their stomach bulge, an act of letting go of physical discipline, thus of a healthy lifestyle. Our stomach is therefore a sign post, a signal of our spiritual life.
The stomach reflects and represents the order or disorder in our natural mind. Such as is the willing or thinking we do every day, such is the stomach from without and within.
The stomach represents our natural mind. From without it represents our lower mind—corporeal and sensuous. From within, the stomach represents our higher mind—the natural-rational mind.
The world of spirits, which is in the midst between heaven and hell, and into which every man first comes after death, and is there prepared, corresponds to the stomach, in which all the things put in are prepared either to become blood and flesh, or to become excrement and urine, the latter having a correspondence with hell, but the former with heaven. (AR 204)
The expression “holding in the stomach” refers to the outside of the stomach, hence the lower mind. To “hold in” the lower mind means to control it, to manage it, to compel and coerce it to obey the higher rational mind. The expression “to let it all hang out” means the opposite of “to hold in your stomach.” One voice is from hell, the other from heaven. Those in the hells who are connected to our natural mind congregate at our stomach and act into it. The passage above indicates that the stomach is a correspondence for the spiritual world, and especially the portion of it where we first arrive, a few hours after the time to the physical body has been broken by the Lord.
The passage also points out the parallelism between the body’s duality of “to become blood and flesh” vs. “to become excrement and urine.” The expression ““to become blood and flesh” signifies to be regenerated for life in heaven. The expression “to become excrement and urine,” signifies to remain unregenerate, such as one was born, that is infernal. To put things in our stomach therefore represents to acquire ideas and experiences in daily life. As the popular saying goes, “Garbage in, garbage out.” A protruding stomach cannot be held in despite determined effort. The spiritual cause of the protruding stomach is the state of disorder of our natural mind. It is filled with nondualities that allow and permit the protruding stomach. For example, men of renown in society are admired for their accomplishments equally whether they have a protruding stomach or not.
This shows the operation of the human level of thinking which is in the lower or external mind. Here, the spiritual does not exist. Not even the moral, since moral thinking and concerns about God and the afterlife, are rational concerns. These concerns operate only in the higher self, or higher portions of the natural mind called the natural-rational mind.
The relationship between our afterlife and holding the stomach in, becomes obvious when we consider the correspondences just discussed. In order for stomach-control, outward and inward, to become a regeneration discipline we must apply the Spiritual Doctrine we extract from the Letter of the Writings to it (see Volume 2). Stomach-control must first be acknowledged as an image of our regeneration. What it takes to control the stomach is the very thing that is needed for regeneration, namely, the application of the Letter of the Writings to our willing and thinking all day long.
To control the outward appearance of our stomach we need to undergo reformation, and to control the inward content and operation of the stomach we need to undergo regeneration. The outward control of the stomach represents the control of the outward mind, which is called the organ of understanding (xx). As described in Volume 1, reformation is the activity of rearranging everything in our mind from nonduality to duality, using the Writings exclusively as the defining meanings. This application of the Writings to our beliefs and reasonings creates a new natural mind that is like the stomach Adam and Eve had in their pristine earthly paradise, prior to their disobedience. This is not a protruding stomach but an aesthetically pleasing one, shaped to maintain the ideal human appearance and anatomy.
the human body is a perfection of rational creation. The Lord’s infinite wisdom designed the human body and the Lord’s infinite power keeps its created form, as evidenced by Swedenborg’s observations as to the beauty and perfection of the appearance of angels. Angels have a spirit-body that is the ideal for the perfect physical body on earth. An angel’s stomach does not produce any waste! The gross eliminations of the physical body are not a necessary part of life that has been tied to the physical body by creation. If the human race were to return to regeneration, and have offspring as regenerated parents, the generations of the future will be celestial minds, and they have an ideal physical body—ideal and perfect in appearance outwardly, and in operation inwardly. Thus there ought to be now waste, and the environment will offer no substances for producing waste, as it does now.
What we put into our stomach is a spiritual decision that has consequences to eternity for our personal fate.
Is this not a scary thought, given the lifestyle of our culture today?
Controlling what we eat and holding the stomach in successfully, are very important regeneration disciplines for the formation of the New Church mind.
The method of self-witnessing is essential for success given that everything in our lower self, as aided by the forces of the hells, oppose our attempt to gain control over the outward appearance and inward content of our stomach. The stomach belongs to heredity. Initially. And our task is to wrest it from this infernal enrooting. We can win only with the help of the angels that the Lord sends to rescue us and deliver us from this hereditary and cultural entrapment. But angels can only enter and empower rational loves.
Therefore we must first acquire rational loves through reformation. This is represented by controlling the outward appearance of the stomach. We do sit ups. We buy exercise machines. We run. We dance in aerobic groups or to a video of it. These are the sensuous attempts from the sensuous mind that is above the corporeal mind but below the rational mind (see the anatomy diagrams of the mind in Volume 2). The corporeal mind doesn’t wish to control the appearance of the stomach by means of exercise to build abdominal muscle and by means of burning calories to trim the stomach from its unsightly and deadly glob of fat, accumulated by eating excessively of dead animals and sugar products. Instead, it makes more sense to the corporeal level of thinking to take drugs, to have liposuction, or the surgical removal of portions stomach or the stapling together of its parts. The corporeal mind is averse to discipline, while the sensuous mind loves discipline.
Rational loves are above the sensuous. All spiritual ideas begin in the rational mind. Ideas have love within them and in fact, are nothing but the outward from of love (xx). Rational loves are ideas within which angels can enter and empower us to control the natural mind. Every sentence and expression in the Letter of the Writings, is a rational idea. They are natural-rational correspondences for spiritual ideas. The angels that empower us to control the stomach depend on finding an entry point into our mind, and this entry point is constructed out of natural-rational ideas WHEN WE CONSIDER THEM CORRESPONDENCES.
This I consider to be most important and critical, as you can see by my capitalizing the idea!
This subject is discussed in detail in Volume 2. Here we only need to make the connection to stomach control as regeneration discipline.
Why is it so crucial that we consider stomach control a correspondence for a spiritual event or idea?
First, this is the condition for a discipline to be a regeneration discipline rather than a natural or moral discipline. The spiritual can only be understood in rational ideas, and rational ideas are laid down in the natural-rational level of understanding. Our understanding of the spiritual cause of any natural event depends on understanding rational correspondences (xx). There is no other way the Lord has provided. We cannot climb up to the moon on an airplane, balloon, or upward moving air current. We cannot have a spiritual understanding of spiritual topics except by understanding correspondences. So the first step in creating a regeneration discipline out of holding in the stomach, is to see it as a correspondence.
I have discussed above what the stomach corresponds to, and what holding in corresponds to, both in terms of control of external appearance and inward content or operation.
For decades now I have exerted stomach control as a regeneration discipline. As the years pile up I have a deeper rational understanding of my struggle and victories. To be effective, I need to think about the correspondence of what I am doing in my willing and thinking around the stomach. For example, when I clean up the kitchen after serving a meal, my wife sometimes has one or two bites left on her plate. In the early years I thought this was ridiculous—Why not just finish it off. This “Garbage in, garbage out” philosophy I had from inheritance and upbringing. Now as I think of correspondences, I admire her rational stance. It is like that of angels who eat the most delicious foods instantiated by the Lord on their tables—never to full stomach, which they consider a gross involvement of the mind and not at all compatible with the celestial state (xx).
After I stopped denigrating her for her celestial behavior, I still continued to practice the “Garbage in, garbage out” philosophy of eating, and popping the bites into my mouth before holding the dish under the running water. I’m aware of the shamefulness or spiritual opprobrium of this habit, as shown by the fact that I sometimes turn around as I’m about to do it, to make sure no one is watching me. I hate the thought of my looking that way, stuffing my mouth with wet hands, eyes darting like a vulture in the air to see the next bite I can pop, or like a dog of the prairies sniffing the air for carcass. Sure enough, I’m 10 lbs. overweight. Right now as I type this, my mind is searching with the ceaseless search for food, for snacks, for something to place in my stomach. My stomach is trying to gain control over my mind even as my rational tries to gain control over it. It s a battle for the soul, that is, for my fate in heaven or in eternal hell.
One of the rational strategies I use to control my stomach is the discipline of half-portions, discussed elsewhere in this Section. Another involves substituting a healthy low-calorie snack for chocolate, ice cream, cake, cheese, or leftover chicken and pizza. I like fruits and nuts as worthwhile and satisfying substitutes. I learned from my wife to stop buying larger and larger sizes in pants and underpants. Let the discomfort of their tightness be a constant reminder and motivator to stop stuffing my stomach.
The most important strategy I discovered is superior to all the diet programs in this country, whose populations spends many billions a year on controlling the stomach—and without any lasting success. What I discovered is this rational truth: To control my stomach I must value being hungry.
A very obvious scientific and practical principle, but not followed. Instead the opposite principle is followed, namely, how not to feel hungry.
Feeling hungry is aversive, unpleasant. From inheritance and upbringing I have developed a panic button which gets pushed at the first sign of feeling hungry. I start looking around thinking “I could eat something.” It’s animal. So I had to undergo reformation regarding the feeling of being hungry. From it being an aversive experience, I had to engineer feeling it as a good pleasant experience. When I feel hungry I reinforce my lower self by saying, “Good. I’m losing weight right now. Thank you Lord.”
And so my struggle continues. Stomach control is the very symbol of my regeneration. My willing and thinking in relation to my stomach control struggles, seeks to be rational and spiritual by thinking of its correspondences in as much detail as possible. Sometimes you’ll need to keep a record of what you put in your mouth in the course of the day. Also, what your emotions and thoughts are prior to eating something, during eating, and afterwards.
Monitoring what our mouth is doing while eating is a very important aspect of holding in the stomach as a regeneration discipline. My wife eats slowly compared to me. My plate is cleaned off as she gets through half of it. Therefore what she does with her mouth and mine while eating are very different. The Doctrine of the Wife requires me to love to act form the wife more than from self (see Section 1). It’s not compatible with my Doctrine to love mouth activities that are contrary to her loves. Will I be able to share a table with her in her heavenly mansion? Not if I love to do with my mouth one thing and she is aversive to it, or loves another thing. For instance, I love to swallow a larger bite than she does. My observation of this has revealed that I have a unregenerate corporeal affection for greater pressure on the walls of the throat and the back of the mouth cavity while swallowing. She has learned to give that up as not comely and heavenly.
Many such details in our daily corporeal routines need to be monitored, identified, analyzed, deconstructed, judged, inhibited, and at last, detested.
Look for opportunities to hang around while your wife gets dressed. It’s an awesome ritual that is fascinating to observe with respect and friendship. It allows intimacy and discussion on clothes, etc. This is on her mind, so it should on yours too, don’t you think—in view of all that has been said about sweetheart rituals? (see Chapter 9 Section 7). Then if you’re there, doing nothing, just hanging around her, she will say to you “Zip me.” That’s your victory, savor it, for she has elected you to intimate friendship, so precious from a conjugial wife.
The same applies when she gets undressed. Hang around, be pleasant and light, don’t introduce topics—let her choose all the topics when you hang around her. But be animated and interested in your responses. Your victory will come when she says: “Unzip me.” What a privilege! If this seems a bit exaggerated, you don’t have to trust that opinion. Perhaps it seems strange because unfamiliar, or perhaps some prejudiced assumption wants to nix the idea. Do not be deterred, but valiantly let your rational loves dictate what your sensorimotor behavior will be. Compel your lower yourself to obey since it has no vision of a rational reality such as is described in the Word of the Second Coming. What does this lower self know about conjugial love except as something to be ridiculed or feared?
9. The Discipline Of Junk E-Mail
Most people I know use email. The volume of increase in exchanging messages is astonishing. Tens of millions of people send out billions of messages to teach other daily. Business minds are finding all sorts of ways to use this steady exchange traffic so that their many email messages enter your mailbox daily and hourly. Now it’s up to you what your move is. Some are good moves, some are not.
One is to read everything, then decide to answer, delete, or save in a folder. The second is to look at the Subject line and delete without looking at the messages whatever seems like “junk” mail, as these unsolicited and illegal messages are called. This choice is better, while the first contains risks you need to be aware of.
One type of risk is a colossal waste of time. Another is that you fill your external mind with scortatory images which many of the messages contain. Your rational mind is then going to have to fight against and eliminate these scortatory images. To do so is a Divine Commandment and is a necessary part of our required regeneration (AE 734). This is because every scortatory image is from hell and if we delight in it in any way, we are tied to that infernal society where the scortatory delight issues from in endless billows into the natural mind, and pollutes it. This makes it much harder to regenerate, and from a ”light burden” it becomes heavy to bear (Matt. 11:30, AC 905). It makes sense therefore that we would want to protect our outward mind from unnecessary exposure, more than what we actually have no choice about. Here we can delete using the Subject line as clue. And in a few cases where it is ambiguous and you rather check, do so, but do not read, just check.
Another risk is to expose yourself to all sorts of business deals and investments that you then have to figure out what to do about. This is relevant to those who are active on the Internet in various ways. In my case I have an active presence being the author of a book on Road Rage which frequently puts me and my wife (the co-author) in news articles whenever the topic is discussed around the country and the world (see Note 17 at end). I’m known on the Web as DrDriving and receive dozens of email daily. I have to sift through what is a request for advice (“Dear DrDriving”), what is junk mail, and what are business propositions. I’ve become skilled in not reading more than what I need for each message.
Here is one example of an email I received this morning:
Subject: Please Reply (Help)
Pleading for your help!!
Dear Dr. Leon James, Following the sudden death of my husband General Damu Taraba the late former head of state of Nigeria in August
My finger hits the delete button at the word “August.” The total amount of time the message was on the screen was about two seconds. As the screen changes I catch in the corner the words “300 million dollars.” When I first got this kind of letter I read most of it, but subsequently, I delete all others like it as quickly as I identify them. Pretty soon one gets to recognize the various types of junk mail, especially if you monitor the process analytically. You can simply assume that every junk email or “spam” message is about getting money from you. This is the bottom line purpose of all spam. Millions respond to spam, which is what keeps them coming. It’s a business balance sheet issue. Therefore we need to develop a spiritual discipline to keep in check the normal and cultural attraction we feel towards an offer which seems will bring us financial benefit.
Here is just a sample of the spam I got today that I automatically delete after reading the Subject Line or part of it. It takes me less than one minute to process 40 or 50 messages in this way:
Don't get caught by rising interest rates. Growth Stock of the Week: (OTC BB:GTWY) Returned mail: User unknown For Parents who buy School Uniforms for their kids Give me a call Looking for some CHEAP videos? Rebuild your credit with Gold LOSE WEIGHT NATURALLY! No Spam! No Pop-ups! With a FREE NowBox. Leon James / Status: Winner Leon, New Human Growth Hormone Releaser, as seen on NBC, C Leon, Master many popular computer programs in less than 1 Perfect Golf Gift for Dad Joke Email - The Morning After the Night Before.. Unbelievable Prices On Cell Phones And Accessories Reply Requested {thisisjustfor4u!} Leon, Your Credit has been Approved! $150 Free!! Play Now! Attract The Opposite Sex Instantly! URGENT ASSISTANCE NEEDED Look, my beautiful girl friend Your Disney Vacation Awaits! Viagra Delivered See The Sexiest, Naked Celebs Here !! Your Free Amateur Videos Something different!!!
There are several steps to take in order to turn email behavior into a spiritual discipline. First, you need to work out in your mind in what way this is a religious issue. This is the first step for all spiritual disciplines discussed in Volume 2. The nonduality view is that “It’s theoretically possible that at least one or more of these offers could be genuine or would be worth taking up.” This belief is what I would call “the con” which was portrayed in the movie The Sting (xx). This belief is what keeps spam going. So let’s leave spamming to the industry, and let us make a rational decision in freedom, that we are not going to ever respond to anything when it comes to you in that modality or arena. This is a behavior rule that protects us from invasion and trouble.
But there are other aspects to email use that can be placed under discipline. People are relying on email communication more and more so that it enlarges the scope of our daily self-witnessing opportunities (see Note 20 at end). When I compose an email message I remind myself to keep in mind the highest use in the exchange—which is to love my neighbor. This means first and foremost that I am to avoid doing evil to the neighbor. Nothing I write should give offense or express any negative emotions or intentions. If I decide it is incumbent upon to answer a message I remind myself to do it fully. What is it that the neighbor wants to know—I must give that information or point to where the information can be taken from. When I have to write email about a service problem (e.g., tracking an order on Web shopping) I must suppress the desire to complain or use any strong language that merely shows how a person feels and doesn’t contribute anything practical to the exchange. Email venting is to do harm to the neighbor.
I also remind myself that I have to present enough information, not too much, not too little. It often helps to answer various pieces of an issue separately—marked by blank lines or a separator line (I like to use all +++++ as it reminds me of the cross, and the Lord). It also helps to copy and paste selected pieces that speak to the relevant portion. I resist the easier way of merely pasting or retaining the entire message at the bottom. I do this also, but then in addition, I select and paste just the relevant portions in the reply, as I address them. When you choose the “Include Reply” it pastes the entire message up front. You can then delete the portions as you go along, making sure you answer all points.
10. How To Handle Junk Phone Calls
I have a firm policy with telephone calls. I quickly establish the purpose of the call (“Who do you want to talk to? Can I take a message? What is this about?”). I do not respond to “Hi, how are you today?” I get to the point within seconds: “I’m very sorry, but we do not accept telephone solicitations. Please send it to us in the mail.” The salesperson at the other hand sometimes accepts this, sometimes attacks from another angle: “We are not selling anything. We just want you to know that you can upgrade…” At this point I know I need to be very categorical in order to be effective: “I’m sorry to interrupt you. But we do not accept telephone solicitations. Please send it to us in the mail.” With some salespeople even this second insistent repetition does not get them to quit. My limit is one more time, and then I hang up.
I have the occasion to monitor myself with these phone calls several times every week. My wife said after one of these calls that I sounded pretty mean. I was taken aback (as normal for me). My first reaction to her observation: “I was not impolite. These people are sharks. They just put on the nice person act for a few seconds, and if they perceive they won’t get to me, they become nasty and even say profanities as they hang up on me. So I’ve got to be pretty forceful and unequivocal, don’t’ you think?” I felt myself justified in not loving my neighbor. Was this a case of me not loving my neighbor? I reflected and consulted the Lord’s Word. I asked the Lord: “Lord enlighten me about this.” And the answer that came to me was that I consult the Lord’s Word for only there will He speak to me about answers.
I read passages in the Writings about loving the neighbor and how to do that (see Chapter 6 Section 7). I then clearly saw that my wife was wise in her observation. She was telling me not to be mean. She perceived I was, and she knew from her wisdom that this is an infernal act. She intelligently figured it out that I can achieve my goal of effective junk call management by being nice rather than mean. Being mean was not part of the effectiveness. So now I saw her real message: Get rid of any behavior that is mean to people. I saw that this was the religious motive. I saw that this is what the Lord said to Peter who had asked Him how many times one should forgive the neighbor:
Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?" Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times. (Matt. 18:21-22)
From this comes the signification of the number "seventy" which comprises seven ages; for an age, in the Word, is ten years. When anything most holy or sacred was to be expressed, it was said "seventy-sevenfold" as when the Lord said that a man should forgive his brother not until seven times, but until seventy times seven (Matt. 18:22), by which is meant that they should forgive as many times as he sins, so that the forgiving should be without end, or should be eternal, which is holy. (AC 433)
And so: When I’m being not nice to junk phone calls I’m being mean. And this is infernal. And it cannot be justified by their behavior or intent—as clearly said in the passage above. Therefore I have no other choice but to be nice even as I continue to be effective. Now I have the religious motive and the discipline is spiritual. I continue to struggle. Further, I extend the practice to other areas, like phone calls by students “who should be emailing or asking in class.” I can see that whatever I’m thinking about the “foolishness” of others, there is no justification for not loving the neighbor. I cannot allow them to control my religious duty. The love for one’s neighbor cannot be lifted or suspended, but it needs to be accommodated to each situation rather than give everyone the same treatment (see Chapter 6 Section 7). No one deserves insults or rudeness, and so I must find ways of being nice but firm. Even in the worst case scenario when I have to hang up on the caller, there is no need for me to feel anger or annoyance, or to do it by adding a verbal insult. “Sorry I must hang up now.” is adequate enough.
There are many opportunities through an average day to keep relearning this lesson. For years I carried a tape recorder in the car and spoke my thoughts aloud behind the wheel (see Note 17 at end). I was quite amazed at how I sounded on the tape when I played it back—blasphemous, insulting, critical, denigrating, fault-finding, prejudiced, irrational, emotionally unintelligent. I knew I had to change and wowed to become a reformed driver. I first used secular methods of self-modification from my field of social psychology. My success was limited. I reduced overt expressions most of the time since I became convinced I was flirting with dangerous situations. One never knows what the other driver is going to do if you enrage him. More than one thousand drivers are seriously injured every year in road rage violence in the U.S. So it was prudent to keep it to myself. But I knew I had to reform my attitude and my thinking, not merely my overt behavior. My internal reformation as a driver began when I made it into a matter of religion.
What gives me the right to denigrate my neighbor? The Lord commands that we forgive as often as the neighbor sins against us (see Chapter 6 Section 7). This means that I’m hating the Lord when I’m hating the other driver. And I won’t pretend that these things are anything but hating: “I’m only retaliating when provoked” ,“I’m only defending my rights” , “I’m only thinking it so I can feel better” , “It’s just the way it is in traffic, a hell hole” etc. If I lapse in any one instance, I must repent and resolve to avoid it. But I must not allow it as an exception. Not one such affection against the neighbor can be kept if one steps through the heavenly gate. So I must keep struggling. Striving to be a reformed driver is to remain a religious discipline with me.
11. The Spiritual Discipline Of Eating Half-Portions
A Christian email correspondent who was reading the Writings (somewhat) asked me what sins he can keep and still go to heaven. My answer was none. Take for example the question: Can I go to heaven if I’m overweight?
My thoughts led me to this: It must depend on the motive or purpose. Every affection that is not from heaven, without a single exception, cannot enter heaven which is protected by the substances involved.
To no one who enters the spiritual world is it denied to ascend to heaven; but when one who is in the delight of hell enters heaven his heart palpitates, his breathing is labored, his life begins to fail, he is in anguish, distress and torment, and he writhes like a serpent placed close to a fire. This is so because opposites act against each other. (DP 324)
Every affection is either from heaven or from hell (TCR 115; AC 904). The infernal affection cannot enter into the sphere of heaven any more than a small brick can enter into a larger brick and occupy the same space with it. The spiritual coils of fiber that make up an affection are either turned one way called the heavenly way, or turned in the opposite way, called the infernal way. Ask yourself: is being overweight from heaven or from hell? It is from hell because it is disorderly, hurtful, and opposed to a heavenly personality.
Clearly then we cannot enter heaven if we are overweight when we retain an affection for being overweight.
It is said in the church that no one can fulfill the law, and the less so since anyone who sins against one commandment of the Decalogue sins against them all. But this conventional maxim is not as it sounds; for it is to be understood in this way, that anyone who purposefully or deliberately acts against one commandment acts against the rest, since to act purposefully or deliberately is to deny altogether that the action is a sin, and anyone who denies the existence of sin regards it as nothing if he acts against the rest of the commandments. (CL 528)
Look at yourself in the mirror and look at the numbers on the scale and compare them to what they should be for a man your build. The excess in pounds is called being overweight. Consider that what you know about being overweight—that it is unhealthy and makes you sick and less able to function effectively. The Lord commands us to be prudent (Matt. 10:16). Thus, you have no choice but to shed the extra fat and to work them into muscles that are useful and healthy. But how? Millions of Americans spend billions annually on services for losing weight. Surveys indicate that most weight loss is quickly regained and the national mass of fat on people is increasing to the detriment of the nation’s health and happiness.
I was overweight since my days in college. I went through several weight-loss / weight-gain cycles. But I was able to break this cultural pattern when I made it into a religious discipline. I first acknowledged that infernal affections will keep me from heaven, even one infernal affection, as long as I consciously went along with it without constantly fighting it. This one infernal affection will cling to my spiritual mind at the entrance of heaven, and keep me from entering into its sphere. Then I got scared. So I was going to get myself with the range of the a medically recommended weight for my built. I lost the weight and from a 200-lb. overweight man with slacks size 42 I went to a 160-lb. man wearing size 32. And I’ve kept this shape for the past ten years without any relapse.
I use two techniques that work. First, to never give up managing and feeling fully responsible for my weight. This I maintain as a Divine Commandment for the Lord commands us to be prudent in all things (xx), and to be overweight is not prudent. Second, to eat half portions.
This is the simplest of all diets since you don’t have to change what you eat if you’re already eating healthy, as I was. My problem was that I was “feasting every day” and eating more frequently than was necessary. So merely by compelling myself to eat half the normal plate, I started losing weight steadily. At home, it’s a matter of serving half a portion and not having seconds or things on the side during preparation (I’m the cook and clean up man). In restaurants, my wife and I learned to stop after one-third of the plate, then request it to be packed. This is a great boon to a short-order cook like me as it gives us two more fine meals on the next two dinners at home, with my job being merely to add some fresh steamed vegetables.
Portion control is to be exercised in all things we place in our mouth. We love ice cream and double-double chocolate cakes and brownies. Portion control means two bites freely enjoyed, and then we must ask ourselves whether it’s time to quit. The essence of control is to avoid going overboard, since the corporeal self wants to keep going. It feels like tearing yourself away and it is painful. But the rational mind looking down marvels and laughs at this corporeal slavery. Thus control is retained in the mind and our regeneration proceeds unimpeded.
Once in a while we lapse or slide back and either alone, or in company, we break all the rules and eat all that we feel like, giving in to the delicious slavery. After that it’s crucial that you compensate on the next day or two and eat less than the usual half-portion. This keeps your weight down and teaches your corporeal self that you’re in control after all. Compensatory eating combined with half-portions is an effective program of permanent weight control.
But this is not all. I had to follow a self-witnessing discipline to monitor not just how much I ate but how I ate. All sorts of infernal affections are associated with overeating. I observed such things about myself. For instance, I would eat as I walk, which is dangerous because food particles can get stuck in your trachea. So I had to control that. I would put food in my mouth before I swallowed what was there, increasing the rate of eating. And especially, I noted as I was trying to resist the habit, the sensation I received from swallowing a large amount going down “the gullet” was more delightful than small bites. This attachment is infernal because corporeal without obedience to the rational. I had to learn to eat like my wife who had taught herself these things while a young woman. She will not eat that last bite on the plate if she judges she had had enough, whereas I want to throw it in my mouth instead of the garbage. I feel a sense of regret letting go of it. It’s a delight I will not have—says my unruly corporeal self.
Eating slowly and chewing well must be combined with eating half-portions and compensating for each occasion of excess. The appetite control in food behavior becomes a religious discipline that puts us well ahead in our regeneration.
12. Arrival And Departure Rituals With The Wife
Remember what it felt like to see your girl when you were in love and dating her? That should be the baseline level for how we must treat our wife if we are going to make progress in conjugial union. If you are home and your wife arrives, be prepared for this momentous event. For a few minutes prior to her arrival walk around the house and arrange things into proper order, the order she picks when she is at home. Every room should be orderly and clean. Be sure this includes yourself—shave, wash your body, clean your mouth, put on clean clothes. If others are also in the house, prepare them for the arrival in a similar way. Then wait. Look for her to arrive. When you hear the car or see her walk closer or she opens the door, be there. Do not be engaged in some activity so that you have to interrupt it and then turn your attention to her. Jump up and greet her at the door.
Do not block her way at the door by standing there. Do not hug her before she is ready for it. Observe carefully what her usual routine is when she arrives. Do not make comments about her being late or about her not calling or about her being away for so long. Do not inundate her with house topics, messages, or schedules. Understand that she needs to transition.
A wife is a complex human thing. When she leaves the house she has to set her entire existence and inner readinesses to a different level or measure. A wife outside the house has to protect herself from strangers and strange events and topics. When she arrives home it takes a little while to undo, unwind, and soften up. She has to make herself vulnerable again and available to her husband and children. This takes a little time. She does the unwinding by going through her normal arrival rituals. Do not interfere with them. Part of this unwinding ritual is to have you around without your active input. She doesn’t want you to walk away and go do your thing. She wants you to accompany her with a cooperative, helpful, and pleasant disposition.
She goes from room to room, inspecting and doing. She asks a few questions—make the answers informative but brief. Details, later. She makes some comments—Why didn’t you do this or that. Never get defensive or offensive. Let her say it. Give her leeway. Smile a lot and nod your head. Keep explanations at a minimum. Act like she is your sweetheart and you’re so happy again. Help her with her clothes, if she asks, otherwise just stand or sit there, and admire.
Slowly but steadily your wife reconnects herself to the house sphere, to you, and to her children and pets. The arrival ritual is then over.
Now the departure ritual. When she leaves the house and you stay home, arrange your activities so that you are “on call” as she starts to prepare. Do not ask her when she is leaving. Do not ask her are you going to do this or that, are you going to take this or that with you. You can help her by doing these things in a subtle way. Only intervene when there is something obviously wrong or she miscalculated or forgot. Do not let her fall into mistakes or mishaps. Save her by monitoring in the background and noticing.
Be with her as she gets dressed, but do not be in her way. She likes to consult you about her clothes. Be helpful, sincere, knowledgeable. When she is ready to leave the house, be there. Hold the door open for her. Kiss her, bless her, and tell her you’ll miss her and will be waiting eagerly for her return. As she walks away or as the car drives away, wave at her. As she disappears in the distance or around the corner, bend your body out of shape so you can catch one last glimpse of your beloved.
As you walk back inside, you will feel good, complete, right, happy. This is what she gives you for what you give her.
13. The Spiritual Discipline Of Colon Cleansing
People who have been both cruel and adulterous like nothing more in the next life than filth and excrement. To them the stink of these is most sweet and pleasant, and they prefer such odors to all other delights. The reason why lies in their correspondence. Those hells lie partly beneath the buttocks, partly beneath the right foot, and partly in a frontal direction, deep down. These are the hells to which the path through the rectum leads. Once a certain spirit was brought there, from where he spoke to me. He said there was nothing else in sight but latrines. Those there talked to him and led him to various other latrines, which were very numerous there. (AC 5394)
The discipline of oral hygiene and flossing was discussed in several sections in this chapter. The discipline of enemas is even more prone to our resistance, given our cultural training. Yet the practice of medicine is based on regular and repeated assessment of body fluids and excretions. Part of my yearly annual involves giving them urine, blood, and stool lab samples. Enemas are a limited part of the practice of modern medicine. They are used prior to certain procedures such as colorectal inspections, childbirth, certain types of cancers, and some others. But they are not on the recommended list of home hygiene. All sorts of legends and superstitions adhere to it, like the idea that your intestines will get used to it and stop working on their own. Another is that it depletes the good bacteria culture in the colon, leaving yourself open for infections. Also, that it is painful, gross, embarrassing, etc.
I have been practicing the discipline of a weekly enema for many years. It is a religious discipline because I connect it to my hygiene duty. I must keep my body clean, my mouth clean, and my colon clean. They stem from the same motive of the prudent servant who takes care of the body’s health. I have spoken many times about it to an expert in the field: a colonic therapist whose services I have used every six month for the past 30 years. A colonic introduces water into the upper regions of the colon and intestines and requires a machine set up and operator. An enema is self-administered using an enema bag sold at drug stores. It takes about 45 minutes to complete an enema from beginning to end.
After the water is introduced by gravity flow, it is let go on the toilet. Out it comes along with much fecal material. It is advisable to flush repeatedly so that you minimize spreading the offensive odor through the air to the rest of the house. But before you flush, you should stand up and inspect briefly what is in the bowl. Notice the sickly smell, the awful color of the water, the twisted gaseous ugly excrements, and the quantity. This only need take a few seconds, then you quickly flush it away. But the inspection leaves a profound effect of disbelief and disgust. And in my case I find it helpful to remind myself as I sit back down for more of it: O how gross! This came out of me! This is in me every day! This is what’s in people and they refuse to take enemas! This is what makes me sick! This stays in my body and oozes out poisons that are then absorbed back into the blood stream—O how gross! This represents the hells! The evil spirits love this stuff! (see AC 2755).And so on. The purpose of this thinking is to reinforce the religious issues involved.
Enemas reduce offensive flatulence, besides relieving bloating, and eliminating poisons. Passing gas is something many couples get |
