A mental space is a self contained space holding thoughts that have an affinity with each other. When through a trigger or the thought-radiation of a tendency, a meaning-idea is activated, it goes through the language filter and becomes a thought in a specific language. When that thought is "heard" by ourselves, the whole of the particular mental space is activated, with each thought in that mental space being activated to a lesser or a greater degree depending upon it's affinity with that initial thought.
There are hundreds if not thousands of mental spaces, with some spaces intersecting with other spaces or wholly contained within other spaces.
An example of an important space is the God space. This God space for a spiritual novice includes saints, Jesus, Ram, or the Sikh Gurus or other spiritually great personages. But as the person himself becomes a saint, the God space changes to include only God and the Higher Self (atman).
Another space is the slang language space which is a subset of the language space. Have you noticed that when people start cursing others, they start with one curse word, and then another and then another. This is because all these curse words or slang words have an affinity with each other in the Bad-Word-space. So when one word comes to mind, that thought-word "activates" other words sharing the same bad word space.
A very good person, if he "enters" one of the bad spaces that may be a carry over of his wild youth or some past birth may for a period of time become quite bad, and then there is shame following that as to how could I do or think of such a thing.
Also, it is interesting to consider one's orientation with regard to life. What exactly is an orientation ? It is merely the activation of one of the idea-spaces. The more overwhelming important that idea space (or set of related ideas), the more we spend time with those ideas.
Now let us consider the Christian Second Birth in Christ. What exactly does happen when a not so nice person has a complete turn around and starts developing good qualities, so much that even his friend circle changes ?
What happens is that at the time of that atonement ceremony, he receives energy from the Holy Spirit (or the atman) and that experience leaves a mark on his mind. Along with the energy, he receives guidance from the community about how to live well. This advice becomes linked to the mark on the mind related to the energy experience that he considers precious. So, a new mental space is created, and because of the tremendous mark on the mind of the energy experience in concert with the series of guidance that he continues to receive, his mental space of how to live well becomes most significant, and he starts living his entire life in that mental space. This is how one life is changed forever.
So, with this knowledge, if you are helping some of your people to change, you have the material to affect the change in a big way. But dont tell them all this.
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