What is your route in?

The internal dimension of Christianity remains largely unexplored.  Here are the facts: what's theologically true matters very little if our relationship with the compulsive mind keeps us from hearing, seeing, tasting, accepting life as it is. [bxA]  A healed mind knows that we live, move, and have our being in God--but we are full of distractions that literally lodge themselves between us and "freely using our senses."  So, for the sake of the healing of the mind: Christ became everything--bread, wine, shepherds, sheep gates, vines, light, truth (indeed, all that is seen and unseen)--and he did all this by becoming nothing.  The scriptures say "Being in the form of God he emptied himself"--and "befriending our nervous systems" will involve, ever after, going to do likewise.  The thought "I am" is not the same as the experience of hearing and seeing with focused intent.  For people whose ego says they're permanent, the Gospel is "give up self and do not judge." Psychologically, though, that's a death, and "I died daily" is a hard pill to swallow. Long story short: Christ becomes everything impermanent, so that we might be unafraid of impermanence--but we must install the guru in our own bodies to learn the lesson.  St. Therese said "Christ has no body but yours" and unfortunately Christ's suffering is still perpetuated in that body.

After the eight evil thoughts of the lower self (gluttony, greed sloth sorrow lust wrath vanity pride,) there are the eight evil thoughts of the higher self (self pity, shame, blame, remorse, rationalization resentment self-aggrandizement, entitlement.)  These afflict those who, having seen in themselves the divine image, are still uselessly seeking to profit from it.  After the Dark Night of the Senses and the Dark Night of the Spirit, there is the dark night of the self:  Elijah could not hear until he let go of his pious self concept "I have been very zealous for the Lord of Hosts and they are seeking my life."  The Apostles could not hear until they accepted that persecutions were the lion's share of what the gospel would gain them.  They couldn't see until they'd listened and prayed, waited and watched, seen the divine look back at them from the "abyss of everything."  

Christ's rhythm of disappearance and reappearance binds itself to the internal, psychological and emotional work we need to to.  Remember: Christ became what's impermanent so we could accept impermanence.  Here are a number of examples:

    As Self fails, Christ replaces self. Listen: The gospel of John says "Because I live, you also will live."  Paul says "I live, but not I, Christ lives in me."

    As "clinging to attractions and pushing away aversions" gets old, Christ becomes aversions and attractions. Listen "Whatever you did to the least of my brothers, you did to me." Also "Always carrying in the body the death of Christ, so that the life of Christ will be made known in our mortal bodies also."

    As cosmic principles fail, he becomes a cosmic principle.  Listen "He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,  and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross." Collosians 1: 17

    As Knowledge fails, Christ replaces knowledge. Listen: "When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I did not come proclaiming the mystery of God to you in lofty words or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. And I came to you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. My speech and my proclamation were not with plausible words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God." 1 Cor 2:1-5

All of this is accomplished through a very concerted effort at living in the body and not the mind.  It's a spiritual method called "recollection:" and it entails five things.  1. Focus attention (prayer with the mind) and intention (prayer with the guts) on physical sensation. 2. Breath until thoughts of self subside and the ear and eye of the heart open. 3. Listen until thoughts of self subside, and "Kol damma daqqa" the "sound of everything" renders itself audible. 4. Feel until the senses turn inward and, by the movement of the spirit, release stress stored in the body.  5. Lastly, pray mantra until you experience "feeling and sound are one."  When you can feel where sound is being produced in the body, it becomes an anchor while your body lets go of tension.  Temporarily, "you" cease to exist, while the body continues.

And what is the result?  We accept that no thought, action or sensation is ours, with which to build an ego story.  They all belong to Christ.  We accept that the pronouns "I, me and my" don't lead back to anything real.  We develop the equanimity to learn lessons from both pain and pleasure, beauty and ugliness, aversions and attractions.  And so, when we suffer, we're not too shaken by it.  Right before Paul says "always carrying in the body" he says "We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed."  This increased patience, increased acceptance of life as it is--this is the wage of the gospel.