What is the mind of Christ meaning

When someone asks the question, “What is the mind of Christ?” I find myself with an immediate difficulty. The difficulty is this: the Mind of Christ cannot truly be explained in words, because it is not first an idea to be defined but a reality to be entered. It can only be known by way of direct experience, and that experience lies beyond the reach of human understanding. Language can gesture toward it, but it cannot contain it. Having said that, I will share the limited understanding I have, recognising that what follows is only a signpost pointing the way and not the territory itself. Think of it as a menu set before you — an invitation to the experience of an infinite banquet rather than a description of the feast.

What Is Meant by the Word Christ?

The next challenge is to consider what is meant by the word Christ. One thing can be said with certainty: Christ is not the last name of Jesus of Nazareth, nor is it merely the name of a person who lived more than two thousand years ago. While the word Christian implies a follower of Christ, it must be clearly understood that Christ is not exclusively Christian. The Christ has always been and always will be. It is known by different names in different traditions, yet it is not confined to any of them, because it is not a product of history. The Christ is not of time and therefore cannot be limited by time.

The Christ is the Divine consciousness expressing through the individual. If this were not so, Paul could not invite us to “put on the Mind of Christ.” Nor could he say, “I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me,” if he were referring only to the historical figure of Jesus of Nazareth residing within him. He is pointing beyond personality to the indwelling reality to which Jesus bore witness — a reality that precedes time, outlives time, and is present now.

The Carnal Mind and the Christ Mind

It is also important to be clear that there is the human mind — what Paul called the carnal mind — and then there is the Christ Mind, which he invites us to put on. The Master Jesus of Nazareth lived from this Christ Mind. He was aware of that dimension to which the word Christ points and embodied its expression in human form. The distinction is not between intelligence and ignorance, but between two entirely different modes of awareness.

The carnal mind, the ordinary everyday human mind, thinks in opposites. It moves in judgments, comparisons, divisions, and self-preservation. It interprets reality through separation. The Christ Mind flows from revelation. It sees from wholeness rather than fragmentation. One moves from opposites; the other from unity. One reinforces the sense of a separate personal self; the other reveals the deeper ground of Being in which no separation ultimately exists.

To put on the Christ Mind, then, is to die to the identity formed around the separate sense of the personal self. This is the experience of the “not I” to which Paul points. It does not mean the annihilation of your humanity, nor does it suggest literal death. It is the death of the belief that you are separate from the Divine. This is the meaning of the Master’s call to take up your cross and follow Him. You follow Him into the experience that is death into LIFE. You lose your life for the sake of the Divine Intention that created you and now seeks to express through you.

At first hearing, this does not sound inviting, because the personal mind hears loss where the Spirit speaks of fulfillment. Yet the reality beyond this surrender is the awakening into KNOWING that you are eternal LIFE. As the personal sense of separation falls away, you are resurrected into the recognition of your true Self — beyond the limitations of the human mind and form. You are graced with the experience to which Paul points when he says, “I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.”

So, in conclusion, the Mind of Christ is living from a different dimension of awareness — one that sees the world not in opposites, but as whole. It cannot be manufactured or achieved by effort, because it is an experience of Grace. Yet you can follow the instructions of the Master that make you available to that Grace which is always present. To become available is to begin learning what it means to give no thought. In this quiet availability, the sense of separation created by the activity of thought itself begins to dissolve, and what has always been true is revealed.

To understand the core teaching that undergirds this reflection, read: Take No Thought Explained.

To browse the complete series and see how each piece fits together, visit: Take No Thought Meaning Series.