WHERE IS THE MIND?

Today I am left with some questions in regards to what is the mind and where is it located? How is it connected too the organ of the brain? How is the mind connected to our spirit? Where does one aspect of this intertwined mental/conscience/spiritual being begin and end?

Our nutritional concerns play a part of our spiritual make up. Throughout the years I have incorporated fasting into my way of life. I notice that when I cleanse and purge my body from red meats, fatty foods, and junk food and then replace those things with a better variety of vegetables, fruits, nuts, grains and cereals I become and feel like a better person. My mind and my spirit are more focused and tuned. My creativity soars and thoughts are much clearer and intense. My prayer life seems to open up and my spiritual journeys expand.

What is this experience of the mind? How do I learn to tap into the power connected to the spirit realm and my mind? I have done it on occasion and by chance it may seem. How do I learn to tap into it as I walk daily in this life? A few years ago I had an injury to my knee while playing basketball. I tore a ligament in my knee and practically passed out from the pain. My friends literally picked me up put me in the car and drove me to the emergency room at Brookdale Hospital. There I sat with my brother for hours in the emergency room under great stress,pain, and agony. My mind and spirit started to recognize all of the suffering and confusion that was around me. My pain seemed to become a distant echo and then a muted hush.

The doctors and nurses did not have enough time to me because of the trauma and events that others were going through. I was in the middle of a war zone. People were entering with gun shot wounds and stab wounds. Some people had drug overdoses. There were young people gasping for air as they suffered from asthma attacks. There were a few elderly people there suffering from heart attacks. An elderly woman sat by her husband who had just died from a heart attack. She just sat in her chair rocking back and forth crying and asking God what was she going to do now because she was all alone now that her husband was dead. My soul started to cry out. Something deep inside of me started to stir. I felt that I had to do something.

A nurse finally came and brought me to the x-ray room. As they examined my leg they said that I would need surgery on my knee. They brought me to another room to wait. I looked at my brother and told him that no one was going to this day or any other. I rubbed my hands together until I felt heat in the palms of my hand and then laid hands on my knee and leg. I called out to God and asked for a complete healing in the name of Jesus. Everything around me just faded away for a moment. It was as if sounds and sights of this world were replaced by another place.

The doctor came and I told him that I did not need surgery. I told him that I felt a little stiff in my knee but that was it. He ordered another x-ray and they could find nothing. He said he believed that my ligament was only stretched a little and that maybe the tear that they saw was in the other x-ray could have resulted from the way the technician had placed me on the table. Later on that day my brother told me that as he watched me pray he thought that I was going unconscious. He said that I started to speak but he could not recognize what I was saying. (What does my brother know 'bout' any old ways?)

This African doctor came out and asked me how I felt and started to talk to me about the power of Christ and his relationship with the Lord. He laughed with me and knew that I was praying for everyone in that emergency room. I prayed in silence focusing on every face that I saw and every cry that I heard. I wanted to share that power, experience, and healing. The doctor gave me a shot and a leg brace. He told me to wear it for three days. I took that brace off that evening and never wore it again. How do I tap into the Divine in my daily walk?

When I was in high school I ran track. During cross-country season I would run five and one half miles through the woods with many other young men. Whenever my body got to the threshold of pain my mind would take over the pain in my body. As I would run up and down those hills I saw myself in a loin-cloth with a spear or lance in my hand. I was running with others like me through a thick forest. We were always chasing deer or antelope. We would be talking to each other as we ran. I could feel my heart beat. Was it mine? I could feel the power surge through my body, as I became stronger with each step. Was it my body? I could hear the voices of the other men as we ran through that forest, however the language that we were speaking was not a language that I had ever spoke before. Nevertheless I recognized it. I always back to myself as we left the forest and hills and came to the straightway right before the finish line. I always finished in the top of the group of runners. I always worshiped God as I ran through those hills. I could feel His presence all around me. What is it and how do I get there?