which of you by taking thought

I continue the second reflection in the series “Take no thought.” This explores the often misinterpreted teachings of the Master Jesus when he speaks about the nature of thought. This is not an invitation to change your way of thinking, nor is it simply an appeal to stop worrying. It is a radical invitation to disidentify from the thinking mind itself. This is the real straight gate and the narrow way the Master invited us into, but which the institutional Church has largely suppressed. To give no thought is to move beyond belief into a willingness to experience what lies beyond belief. It is to live from Presence.

How often have you attended church or chapel and heard the pastor or priest invite you to “take no thought for tomorrow,” or assure you that thinking is not the way to experience the Divine within you? And yet the deeper reality is this: if you were truly able to KNOW the Divine within, you would have no need for the pastor or the priest. You would have built the church without hands — “a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens” (2 Corinthians 5:1, KJV). In my own experience, growing up in Northern Ireland and attending church week after week, I was taught that I was an original sinner. This was not the teaching of the Master. Yet not once was I encouraged to follow his words when he clearly stated, “Take no thought for the morrow,” or “Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?”

The Carnal Mind and the Limits of Thought

If I were to found a church of my own, this invitation from the Master Jesus would be one of its central pillars, for no one has ever found true communion with God through the avenue of the thinking human mind. This is the mind St. Paul referred to as the “carnal mind,” the ordinary, everyday thinking mind of human experience. There is nothing inherently wrong with this mind, although for many the word “carnal” carries associations with sexuality or with what the Bible calls “the flesh,” much of which is a misinterpretation born of projection. The “carnal mind” thinks in opposites. It is dualistic in its nature, moving between “good” and “bad,” between “pleasure” and “pain.” Yet this realm of opposites cannot meet the experience of unity pointed to by the word “God,” which is beyond all opposites. Words and thoughts are like the menu, but they are not the banquet.

One thing I want to be clear about is this: the Master is not telling you that you should not think. He is inviting you not to become identified with your thinking mind. For most people, this is something they have never been encouraged to explore. The immediate question arises, “Who will I be if I do not think?” The answer is that you will be more than thought; you will be the animating Presence of the One Life. If you want to glimpse what taking no thought looks like, spend time with young children. They have not yet fully learned the words by which they define and limit their experience. In the words of the poet William Wordsworth, “Shades of the prison-house begin to close / Upon the growing Boy” (Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood). This taking no thought is deeply linked to the invitation of the Master when he says, “Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3, KJV), for the distinguishing characteristic of the little child is that they live from Presence, not from thinking about how to live the present moment.

From Believer to KNOWER

The Master asks his disciples a searching question: “And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46, KJV). In my own upbringing as a Christian, much of what the Master directly instructed was not followed, and what tended to be followed instead were the teachings of St. Paul. That is one of the reasons I write this website: to invite you back to exploring what the Master actually invited and to consider where those invitations are intended to lead you. Most Christians I have met, including those in high levels of authority within the Anglican Church, remain deeply tied to their own way of thinking. They can, and often do, recite chapter and verse of the Bible, yet this can become like reading the menu without ever partaking of the banquet. The banquet lies beyond words and beyond thought, and if that is so, what need have you for pastors or priests?

In my view, the only words you ultimately need are those of the Master Jesus Christ, provided you truly understand them and follow them. The difficulty is this: if you have never been graced with the revelation that lies beyond thought, you do not yet have the foundation from which to invite that experience. The reason I write this series, which I have titled “Take no Thought,” is to invite you to explore the experience that lies beyond words and thought and, by its very nature, beyond belief. For many Christians this is a serious challenge, because the focus of the Church has largely been to create believers rather than to invite KNOWERS.

When you KNOW, you have no need to believe. Yet a KNOWER is of little use to an established church. The believer lives from the assumption of separation from God and feels the need to earn divine favor, while the KNOWER rests in the direct knowing that God and they are never separate and never can be. The KNOWER is not primarily a thinker, but one who is thought through, and the one who KNOWS takes thought only when needed.

Does this mean you must give up your beliefs and never attend church? The answer is no. The scripture you believe in is to be understood as pointing the way; it is a signpost. Yet too many spend their lives clinging to the signpost rather than entering the territory to which it points. The leaving of the signposts begins when you follow the Lord and do what he says, which is, “Take no thought.” The difficulty is that you have never been taught how to live this. If the Church were to teach this unfolding, you could no longer be persuaded that you need an institution in order to earn favor from the Divine. The pastor, the priest, or whatever intermediary stands between you and your communion with the Divine would become surplus to requirements.

If this reflection stirred something deeper, you may want to begin with the central teaching that anchors the series: Take No Thought Explained. From there, you can explore the full unfolding of this invitation across the series here: Take No Thought Meaning Series.