Practical guidelines for the spiritual world – The Control issue

(3580 words)

How to step into the spiritual world and act in a useful way there?

Well, getting into the spiritual world is a simple matter, the front door is there already built into us and we use it all the time. But to operate there in a constructive way rather than random and chaotic, one must do so in a conscious and informed manner.

The door to the spiritual world is our thoughts. Thoughts are the spiritual ‘matter’, and human thoughts are the ones that connect the world of spirit to the world of matter. Thoughts occur in the material body but they come in and out of it, from the spiritual world and back. Therefore, a thought is similar to a breath.

Because most of the things we do on Earth have some kind of thought behind it (even if the thought is hidden and unconscious) and because all of our thoughts have a root in the spiritual world on one hand and on the other hand they make an impact there, then we can establish that: all things in this world have roots in the spiritual world and everything flows to it.

However, because man is given the opportunity to be aware of his thoughts, to choose between them, to initiate or prevent them, he can consciously act in partnership with the Spiritual world and thus contribute something to the processes being built in heaven for men, for the world and for the fulfillment of God’s goals. Those who settle for the title of believer’s  or ‘religious’ without being able to act in the spiritual world for God and His ­purposes, miss the main reason why the Sovereign instructed them to believe, gave them His teachings, and miss the opportunity to act consciously with God and thus form a relationship with Him.

But to make a conscious impact in the spiritual world, one must know its rules. This is similar to any other field you want to pursue in a practical way and not just in a theoretical or emotional way. Even in the physical when you want to, for example, close an electric circuit to run an engine, it’s clear that you have to know how to apply the laws related to electricity and mechanics. As for the spiritual world, one of the basic practical laws that stands in the way of any attempt to access it is the Rule of Control.

Alongside the Law of Control, the second basic practical law that allows for action in the spiritual world is the Law of Faith, but the issue of faith has been discussed in quite a few forums, so I will not discuss it in this article. But the subject of control, which is the subject of the article, has been largely neglected.

­A person’s desire to be in control of every interest in their life is a fundamental desire that rests:

  1. About the fears that something will prevent, go wrong, hurt, torment him, etc.
  2. It is about the desire to expand and accept the things that each person interprets as necessary for their survival, for the satisfaction of their needs and happiness.

The problem we have as human beings, which makes us more passionate about control, is that we have basically came to this world where we have no control. We have no control over the things we fear and no control over the things we crave.

From the moment a baby is born he is in a reality in which he is entirely dependent, in every aspect, on external factors. Then, as he grows and matures, he strives more and more to gain control over his body, tools and devices, the properties he acquires, his intellect, his talents, his ability to manipulate others, to use authority, use influence, use seduction, etc. When we look closely at the condition of a newborn baby, we see that apart from the lack of control and helplessness, he rarely separates himself from the outside world, but is in a kind of unity with everything. Yet soon after, when he discovers his own self and becomes aware of the possibility of  gaining control of things inside or outside, the unity he had with everything falls apart, until, at the height of alienation, the adult man sometimes feels alien even to himself.

The transition from a state of total dependence to one in which the desire to acquire control arises, is the transition that brought man to the fall from heavenly status, or the ‘ancient sin’ to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge good and evil. This fall led him to lose unity, harmony, peace with those around him, with himself and above all with God.

In order to rise from that ‘fall’ and return to the unity of peace and harmony it is necessary first and foremost to return to unity and harmony with God (the Lord of the Spirit). It is possible to do so if one seeks and receive atonement from Him in the specific way He set for atonement – then one can return to His presence spiritually – through his own thoughts!

Yet accepting atonement from God and the possibility of coming before Him is not all it takes. Once atonement is accepted, there is also a need to change the way of thinking that led to the fall in the first place, and first and foremost the way of thinking about control. From the spiritual perspective of the God of Israel, the Creator of heaven and Earth, the idea that it is possible for some creature to gain control over something rather than subject it to God, is an illusion.

Still, It should be emphasized that the goal of the God of Israel is not to return man to childhood nor to return him to the state he was in Eden, his goal is to bring man to a state of unity and peace with Him in a conscious acceptance that He is higher in hierarchy than any other person or creature, and everything, at every moment, passes through Him. The goal is to get the person to give up the obsessive pursuit of control and the fear of losing control, but not as a baby who knows nothing else, but out of awareness, love and out of a choice to give the control in principle to God.

It should also be emphasized that the fall from heaven and the illusion of control is about, are in the spiritual realm, namely in our relationship with God. Conversely, when a person develops an ability to control his body, the objects around him, control his ability to navigate communication and cooperation with other humans, that’s natural, desirable, and that’s not what this is about.

The thing is that everything in our lives, even the material and physical things over which we rightly seek control, has to do with the Spiritual, that is, our relationship with God. Any control we want to acquire, in any field, is a subject raised in the internal, spiritual dialogue that every person does, all the time, with the spiritual world. After all, even the greatest Epicurean conducts such dialogue constantly, even if he does not realize that when he thinks about these matters and discusses them supposedly with himself, he is in fact conducting a dialogue with the Spiritual world (thoughts are spiritual media through which we are constantly in contact with the Spiritual world).

When, for example, we ask for ourselves, property, relationships, social life, health, etc. (which are as stated matters that it is good and natural to please when asking for them within the frameworks that the Lord of Heaven has set), then, automatically, in our thoughts, along with the very things we ask for, we also seek some control over them (otherwise we cannot use them to our advantage). Yet because fundamentally/in principle/spiritually we don’t really have control over anything, then, when we ask for these, we ask it from those who do have the control, i.e., from some entity in the spiritual world.

Of course, we don’t always ask. We often demand, sometimes beg, threaten, try to negotiate the terms, claim we deserve, etc.

But, whenever we face the spiritual world through our thoughts and engage in a dialogue with it, we have to understand that there are different spirits there and the question is, what spirit do we refer to one thought or another?

For those who believe in the God of Israel, the thought dialogue about matters of control should of course take place in front of the Spirit of the God of Israel, but we should know how to address it and how not to. For example, when the thought arises: ‘If I am lucky, I will get so and so’, we should know to reject the thought and instead make an appropriate reference because the God of Israel does not deal with ‘luck’ and when using terminology that does not belong to him it is automatically directed to another spirit that does, and then the dialogue is conducted with it rather than the God of Israel.

We therefore said that the believer in the God of Israel should conduct the thought dialogue consciously and with understanding and recognition of the types of thoughts, their origin and what they trigger. In order to do so he has to do preparatory work and study and then apply it when he notices and examines the thoughts that arise, and then initiate and raise certain thoughts instead of others. Initiate thoughts of faith and thoughts that give God control and cleanse any attempt to buy control in His place or cleanse thoughts of disbelief (I will not elaborate here on the matter of faith but should refer to posts that expand on the subject of faith here and here). In many cases God will grant a person control in one area or another but the believer should always remember that any control given to him by grace, in any matter, is given to him on behalf of God and He has the final say. Also, God may take the control he has given away at any time he wishes.

The issue of control is a fundamental issue that touches the foundation of things. This is what divides the spiritual world into two separate camps. The one camp led by the God of Israel argues, as we have said, that it is the desire for control that ultimately led to the fall from heaven and the invitation of death into our lives, and to return to the status of Eden (not to return to the position where we were unconscious as babies, but to return to the status we had in Heaven which is the status of beloved sons and close to their heavenly Father). This camp is saying that we must fully restore the principled control to the God of Israel even when by grace we are given technical control. This work also requires trust (faith), love for God, self-control, humility, patience, awe (“The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the LORD”), walking in His ways and fulfilling His commandments.

The second camp is led by the devil – the Serpent from Heaven – that contains rebellious spirits (demons) – claim that the private man must take control for himself, and that the private man is God and no authority above him has the right to take that control from him. We heard this philosophy from the mouth of the snake back in heaven (in his words to Eve) and we continue to hear it incessantly, through our thoughts, to this day.

This happens supposedly automatically (humans will say it’s ‘the way of the world’), but it must be understood that through the ‘natural’ tendency that each person has to seek control for himself he hears the snake philosophy that says: ‘Take it because you deserve it. You are the God that rules your world. Take everything you need regardless of anyone and anything.’ It’s as if every day each of us returns to the temptation situation of the garden of Eden, when the serpent offered Eve to take the control from God and grant it to herself, saying: ” be Gods knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3). We also hear this philosophy constantly from the environment through the influence of foreign teachings that have penetrated every field and every place in the world without exception, especially through the New-Age and Eastern teachings, but also through modern humanism, science and technology, feminism and more.

Of course, this satanic philosophy is attractive, but the Bible and personal experience show that the control we supposedly gain in this way is actually an illusion, a self-deception and a sophisticated lie, because it is not really possible to buy such control. In Eastern teachings this lie is particularly sophisticated, because it is argued that, you hand over control to some cosmic spiritual factor (and the handover to this factor is accompanied by a conscious exercise that mimics the conscious practice I mentioned and puts the so-called practitioner in the light and supposedly in a conscious state) but this so-called ‘cosmic factor’ is again you yourself.

But what kind of control is that one can gain when it can be turned upside down at any moment and in any area, by a factor over which we have no control? And for all that property, authority, power, status, talent, etc, can be taken from us at any given moment? Even our own lives, our health or sanity can be taken just as easily. The truth is that this is the complete opposite. The more we are to give trust, control, sovereignty, authority, wisdom, power, dignity, ability, etc. to God – truly to God, without the self persuasion that God is within me, speaking through me, that I was elected, I am a disciple of… part of the chosen people or community, it was promised to me and so on – so we get more control, understanding, wisdom, ability, dignity, joy, security, peace of mind and so on. And the more we try to buy all of these for ourselves on our own, without doing the constant work of consciously restoring control to God – the more these are taken away from us.

Here we drafted the Law of Control, which together with the Law of Faith, the Law of Obedience and the Law of Love, they can allow any person to enter the spiritual world and be an active partner in it. Yet even as we are drafting this law, one should note that the very desire to draft a law is a desire to buy control, because understanding the law allows control of the given matter. Thus, even while drafting the law, we continue to pray humbly and plead before the Lord of All that it shall be according to His will and that even if he chooses to give us a true understanding of the law – that means He will grant us some kind of control – yet we also hand this control, in principle, to him, and ask that he uses us only as a tool of his will and continue to guide us according to His will in any matter concerning the use of the law that he reveals to us.

 In this prayer I want to emphasize the words ‘If He chooses to grant’, since to many believers it seems that if they pray, and do certain actions and observe certain commandments, recognize and exercise certain laws, then God is obligated to comply with them (because they pledged, because He is good, because He loves, because they must accept it and God knows, because they did what He asked them and now He has to do what they ask, etc.). But that’s not the case!

Here lies the fundamental difference between activating an electrical circuit after we have learned and applied the rules on the subject and activating the spirit. In the spiritual world all we can do is ask for something, and we have to consider, in any matter, even the most marginal and minor, that even if we think we have fulfilled all the conditions, even if we think it is right or deserved, the Spirit still grants or does not grant everything according to its own free will, according to the grace of justice and reason unique only to it, and which Him (and no one else) completely knows.

Notice that all the key spiritual figures in the Bible have undergone thorough and sustained training on the subject of control. Abraham, for example, had every reason to assume he would receive a fruit of the womb. First because it’s a natural thing, which usually most people get without any effort and automatically, so why should the brave, spiritual, wise Abraham, destined from birth to be a father (so his name suggests) and eager and capable of it, perhaps more than any other man, not? Second, this was promised to Abraham, by God explicitly and on many occasions. Third, He did all the actions He was asked to perform by God, revealed devotion, loyalty, faith, made a covenant… And yet, God tries to teach Abraham the same central lesson that is the subject of this article: ‘Even if we do everything right (though no one does everything right, and Abraham made mistakes too), even if we were meant for it, even if it was promised, even if everyone gets it, even if we asked endlessly – we are not supposed to set the spirit in demand or expectation one way or another.

We shouldn’t think the decision is in our hands. And even when we think, for example, that we deserve something rightly so, we may also then violate the rule of control, because we are deluding ourselves that we think we know and have the right to decide what is good and what is right, what comes, how and when. What is desirable, however, when we want something, is to believe, hope, ask humbly, listen and implement its guidelines while handing over leadership and sovereignty entirely to God.

Well, if we try to encapsulate and formulate this practical law for entering the spiritual world, we will say that: If I wish to establish a relationship or advance on the spiritual rank with the camp led by Satan, I must consciously seek control of all matters and seek to break/neutralize/disable any authority over myself. In this case the means do not matter, I must be prepared to use any means without exception to achieve this goal. The more I gain a higher level of control, the higher my rank or position in the Devil’s camp will be.

However, if I wish to establish a relationship and move up the spiritual rank in and with the camp of the God of Israel Creator of Heaven and Earth, I must consciously transfer control (which I think I have) of any matter without exception to God, let him manage everything for me, without resenting, without rebelling, without arguing (at the same time it is permissible and even advisable to ask questions – even incisive questions. In my experience, when you are in alliance with God and sincerely try to implement His guidelines, the answers to questions come immediately).

It should be noted and emphasized that there is no interim situation. You can’t be neutral and say: ‘I don’t know, I am not familiar with or I ignore the rules, I decided not to cooperate with any of the camps’. For the spiritual world is divided into only two camps and there is no neutral camp there.

The state of apparent neutrality (imagined) is the worst situation, because if one does not act in an active way to give control to the God of Heaven then he is officially defined as belonging to the other camp – the camp of opponents and rebels – and this definition brings him there (into the hands of the rebels) whether he wants it or not. Yet then he is there at the bottom of the hierarchy, because he neither promotes their interest nor consciously and actively seeks control without regard to means. Then, as far as the opposition camp is concerned, he is in a position where anyone out there is allowed to abuse and stomp on him, whereas from the side of God he is not afforded the protection since he has officially extricated himself from Him.

On the third hand, it is often those in the most precarious position (a fox’s tail) who have the hope to come to their senses and start actively asking for help from the God of Heaven. Those who have reached senior positions inside the rebel camp usually stay there because they think they have something to lose.

This, then, is the basic spiritual work: to convey day by day, every time a little more, consistently, relentlessly, the authority and control of every matter to the God of Heaven. To do it first out of fear, then out of understanding that there is no other way (that any other way is delusion and self-deception) and finally out of love – meaning, to know out of experience, that these relationships of absolute dependence and trust are the underpinnings of the lost paradise, they bring unity and are the happiest and most blessed healthy place, the glorious place of complete love.

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