Labeling
The Jews were murmuring about Jesus because He said: "I am the bread that came down from heaven." What would have they have murmured about if He had said something else? Is there anything about which the mind does not murmur, whisper, complain, grumble?
The mind works by association, and it is extemely easy for the mind to produce labels, to label reality in any way.
The associative system is very effective in describing reality. An insinuation is a label with venomous power. Slander is a label with the power to separate. Complaining works to depress. Speaking ill of, discrediting, disparaging throw out black smoke. Labels belong to the world of ignorance. Trees and plants are labeled in a botanical garden because people can permit themselves to be ignorant in that kind of a place.
There are no labels on trees and plants or even parakeets in a forest, because whoever lives in the forest must know exactly where he is. He cannot just describe the reality, he must have a true and complete knowledge of the reality that surrounds him or he can pay for it dearly.
The label or the description neither increases knowledge nor dissolves ignorance. The mind is a sort of labeling factory that works night and day but does not live, does not comprehend life or the beauty of reality. It is a factory of unhappiness, pain, discomfort and disharmony, because here the power and beauty of the present are canceled and, through the labeling process, the present is described, judged, made vain and useless.
In this factory no one is interested in knowing what reality really is, but rather what others think, what their descriptions and opinions, beliefs and expectations are. In this way problems are not addressed depending on what they are, but according to what they should be or what we do not want them to be.
The most abominable label, the one that covers and darkens everything, is the label we put on ourselves, what we have gotten used to thinking about ourselves and even worse, what we have gotten used to what others think about us. Labels are heavy and crystallized, they annihilate love for oneself and for the creative gift that God has manifested in us.
Labels divide and separate, they never lead to unity, to the One. Labels become powerful, invisible cages; they stunt friendships and relations. After a while labeling becomes like weaving a thick, very resistant psychic fabric which imprisons our mind in a world of separation, resistance, opposition, judgment.
It is perfectly normal according to how we reason to get an idea about people and things but we do not realize that as soon as we get an idea of any reality, that reality is already separted from us and in some way it will use its energy against us. Try to lean on a wall with your shoulder and push; if you push with a force equivalent to a ten pound weight, the wall will push against you with exactly the same force of ten pounds. That is physics.
When we label a reality, that reality will oppose us. When in my inner dialogue I say that I am not able to do something, I am labeling myself and I am separating myself from myself, and my own being will rise up against me. This is not beneficial. When in my inner dialogue I say that I do not like a reality, I am labeling myself, I am separating myself from that reality and it will oppose me.
When in my inner dialogue I say that nobody understands me, I am labeling, I am separating myself from myself and from others even further, and even without knowing it, others will use their energy against me. Not only is it detrimental, but we need an extraordinary amount of energy to survive.
Labeling, especially labeling oneself, is unhealthy. If for any length of time in my inner dialogue I think of and label myself as unhappy, I will get used to it, and being unhappy instead of happy will begin to seem more normal and acceptable to me.
If I get used to labeling myself as the best, I will get used to the stress of ambition - of competition - even in a desert where there is no one to compete with. In other words, a person can get into such a mental labeling rut as to prefer pain and unhappiness rather than to take a jump in the dark into the until now unknown power of reality and the present and abandon forever that way of identifying onself to which he/she was bound.
Being unhappy brings a dark pleasure, a gloomy excitement, a tenebrous habit, a perverse attachment. Being unhappy in some way captivates people's attention, and creates an irresistible need to talk about it over and over again. Even other people's unhappiness creates the same morbid need. People hardly ever talk about happiness and joy; it is easier to talk about misery and pain. It excites more and makes for more labels.
Stop murmuring among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him, and I will raise him on the last day. Jesus' invitation is clear. Do not label, do not murmur, do not to grumble, do not to judge, because they are all fruits of the mental process caused by the omnipotence of self-delusion. We are not God and when we label, we are pathetically trying to put ourselves in His place.
It is the Father who carries out, it is the Father who sent Jesus, who draws men to Jesus and attracts those who are willing to change, not to label, not to judge. To label Jesus means separating Him from the Father, from His force of attraction, it means opposing God. The same physical law described in the example of the wall is involved here and being in a state of opposition and resistance against God is undoubtedly unhealthy. Size matters.
Labeling life means being in a state of opposition towards life. Accepting life is moving with its flow and using all of its energy and ability. Labeling Jesus is entering into a state of conflict with the Way of Life, the Truth of Life, the Life of Life.
What benefits can it bring?
Jesus talks about the power of attraction, the force of attraction between Him and His children as a new opportunity beyond the separating force of our labeling mental attitude. He aso explains that if men and women can overcome the mental crystallization caused by labeling, they will discover new, previously unknown but certainly possible unheard of although already present opportunities.
Jesus shows this spiritual novelty by quoting the prophets: They shall all be taught by God. Without mental bias, the spirit can begin to be taught by the present, by the “now” of every moment through which the Father speaks and reveals Himself.
The Father reveals Himself and communicates the way to life to His children exclusively through the present, only in the “now.” If we do not use our minds to label, the spirit and our thoughts can be opened to the true power of intelligence of knowledge. The sooner the mind frees itself from its ability to label, the sooner it will be ready to be trained by God. The sooner the mind abandons ignorance, the sooner it will have be joyful and live to the fullest.