BellaOnline Forums Religion and Spirituality Catholicism HOW DO YOU REACT TO THIS, PLEASE?

No exactly, that's my point.
You have a thought.
"I am going to kill that woman, I hate her so much."

So what do you do?
You kill her.
That is a clear and open manifestation of who you are. You are capable of murder, and have turned your thought into action.

You have a thought.
"I am going to kill that woman, I hate her so much."

So what do you do?
You don't kill her.
You know it would be a terribly nasty thing to do, and that is also an open manifestation of who you are. A law-abiding person who knows what is skillful, and what is un-skillful.
So you don't kill her, but you still don't like her, and avoid speaking or connecting with her as much as possible.

Both what you think and act upon, and think and don't act upon, manifest who you are.

To a degree but not necessarily to that degree. Everyone does things that are wrong from time to time. A good example would be lying. Everyone has lied. The temptation comes to our thoughts and sometimes we succomb to it.We should not but we are all weak in some areas and strong in others. The other thing from your example is that it is wrong to hate. If you do not hate, you do not consider murder. Jesus equates hatred with murder in your heart. He equates lust with adultery in your heart. He says both are sins. It is a very high standard.

exactly. If you have hatred in your heart, where do you think it first manifests?
In your mind.
You can't 'feel' hatred in your heart, without first thinking about it.
The hate you have in your heart will manifest to demonstrate who you are. You can outwardly seem to be a good, law-abiding person, but if you do not clear the hate from your heart - and by consequence, Mind, then sooner or later, the truth will out.

in order to lie, you have to think about the lie first.



so if you lie, you have formed a personification of the kind of person you are. A liar.

if you do not lie, you have formed a personification of the kind of person you are.
Someone who can resist temptation.

It all starts in the Mind, with what we tell ourselves.
THEN it goes to the word, or then the Action.

Jesus only set standards he, as a human, could attain himself.
If he can do it, so can we. That's partly why (Christians believe) God manifested in Human form. To set an example to Fellow Men.
The only thing that sets us apart from him, is that we can't control our thoughts to the extent he could, and we should.

What is in your heart is the personification of who you are. What you choose to carry over from your mind to your heart determines that. Many things go through our minds, some good, some bad. If we get control of our thoughts then our mind becomes the guardian of our heart. If we lose control of our thoughts then evil can slip into our hearts and corrupt us. This is a gradual process.The mind is the battlefield for the heart. If we give credibility to all our thoughts then we do what the Bible calls, " giving ourselves over to a reprobate mind" and our heart becomes a stronghold of evil. We must, therefore, get control of our minds for spiritual safety's sake but ,ultimately, we are judged by the content of our hearts.

...yes, which has been governed, or guarded principally, initially and primarily by the Mind. As you say.

The Mind rules the Heart, not the other way round. And so it also is physically.... We can exist with a mechanical heart, or with artificial circulation, but not ever, without the Mind.
Therefore, although the heart has been seen metaphorically as the seat of this emotion (and any other, for that matter) the true, principal initial governor, is the Mind.
it's not your heart, or what's in it, that governs what or who you are, it's your Mind.

You can only control your thoughts, by thinking about them, with your Mind, not through any action of the heart!

We are judged by our actions, not by what is in our hearts. And all actions commence by thinking about doing them first.
Really, the heart at this moment, is a red herring....

The heart, as the essence of who we are, governs our actions. The mind is our rational thought. Our emotions are the expression of our heart but not the sum of it. Our heart is the culmination of our truly held beliefs, attitude, and our will. The mind plays an influential role on our hearts but ultimately it is our heart that rules us and determnes our destiny.

A heart is a mechanical pump, a muscle that pumps blood through the body, nothing more, nothing less.

I am speaking in the spirit, you are hearing in the carnal. Your spiritual heart. Your physical heart is in the center of your chest symbolizing the spiritual center of your being as your heart.

And just where might that spiritual 'heart' be? Maybe in your brain, where everything else that allows you to think is?

Is there an "expert" on this site that we can ask questions?