If you set the goal to "train your brain," . . . what brain will you be using to accomplish this goal? Which brain will you use to
"train your brain"?

Answer: You will be using the only brain you've got!

So in reality, and ironically, your Brain is going to "train" itself. Now if your Brain were smart enough to train itself, why would such a competent, smart Brain need to be trained in the first place?

Thus to admit that your Brain needs training at all, is to admit to some deficiency or weakness in . . . the only Brain you've got.

Again, the burning question arises: What Mind will you be using to "train" your Mind?

Answer: You will be using the only Mind you've got.

This means, You will be using your old mind, the one that has led you into your current condition, and you will be using that old mind to train the same old mind to have positive thoughts? So your old mind, the one that was somewhat blind to seeing the positive in every situation, this mangled mind will be training the same messed-up mind to . . . see the positive in every situation? How is this done? (Hint: "It's not!")

Think about the following experiment:
Leave someone alone in a room, and instruct him as follows:

"You will be your own teacher and your own student at the same time. Your goal is to teach yourself to become smarter! And you will accomplish your goal solely by talking to yourself."

Let's assume that the person who will be training his own brain, while using that same lame brain to do the training, is presently lacking in maturity and experience — he's gullible. So how successful will Mr. Gullible be with trying to teach himself to be smarter? And remember, the method that Mr. Gullible will employ upon himself, to teach himself, will be to repeat Positive Self-Affirmations over and over, affirmations like:

PMA Believers will retort, "of course you do the practical things like signing up for a class; Positive Thinking is used to initiate and reinforce those practical actions!" But here's the burning question, which of the following two approaches do you deem to be more powerful?

* Repeating positive affirmations in your Head over and over to support doing practical things, OR
* Praying to the Father in the name of Christ to encourage and inspire you in doing practical things?

Compared to Positive Self-Talk and chanting Affirmations, sincere prayer can change your path in life much more profoundly. Why? Because prayer to the Father in the name of Christ is the very Source from which you and I are inspired to positive thoughts that have lasting impact. The Savior said:

"I am the True Vine ... abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit
of itself, except it abide in the vine ... I am the Vine, and ye are the branches:
He that abides in me, and I in him, the same brings forth much fruit:
for without me, ye can do nothing." (John 15:1-5)

While many Americans say they "believe in Christ" ... ironically, they don't really Believe Him — they don't fully realize and they don't literally believe the grand, all-inclusive magnitude of the Savior's statement:
"He that abides in me, and I in him, the same brings forth much fruit: for without me, ye can do nothing." If they did realize the omniscient power of the Son of God as the creator of heaven and earth, then they would not be putting their faith in talking to themselves and repeating self-affirmation phrases — instead, they would be putting their Faith in the Lord, Jesus Christ and in mighty prayer to God the Father.

In the New Age Movement, positive self-talk and the practice of chanting self-affirmations to train your brain is Satan's secular substitute for the divine dialogue called "prayer." Simply consider some of the preachers of chanting self-affirmations, and where they stand in regard to the Son of God.

The Truth about the Mind

The words "Mind" and "Brain" represent two different realities. How so? There are many documented instances where people have died and literally left the mortal body — leaving behind the physical place where their brain was located — yet, they continued to think and perceive in a spirit realm before returning back to mortal life, and back to the body where the brain was located.

Consider how mortal beings can die, and without a physical brain, the immortal spirit continues to think and perceive and live. Thus it is the immortal spirit that enables conscious awareness and thought, and the brain connects this consciousness to the physical senses and to body movements.

Because "Mind" is a noun-word In the English language, we tend to conceive of mind as a thing; the thing where thinking takes place, or even the thing that does the thinking. But "thinking" is really an activity of conscious awareness and perception; thus, a noun-word is not the best symbol to represent that reality.

Mind is better represented with an action word like "Minding" — again, the word "Mind" literally refers to the mental activities of conscious awareness. So Minding and Thinking are the same. Minding is Conscious Awareness of your world; it is an awareness that continue uninterrupted after the mortal body dies.

But how does a person acquire a Mind-Set, a Way of Thinking, that is oriented towards seeing the good in everything? How does a person acquire a Mind that is perpetually positive?

State of the wicked when they die.

Repentance after death?

Mind-Set Emerges from an Earthly Context of Opposition

What it means to be human is to see life from particular perspectives that are not just positive or negative. Instead, the more fundamental question is whether you will see Life with eyes of Light, or with eyes of Darkness. So the crucial question, and choice, is about Light or Darkness, Good or Evil, and the degree to which you choose to embrace one, or the other.

"And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is
become as one of us, to know good and evil" (Genesis 3:22)

Within an earthly context of good and evil, mortal life is a time of testing, learning, and proving:

"Then said the Lord unto Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from heaven ...
that I may prove them, whether they will walk in my law, or no." (Exodus 16:4)

"And thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years
in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart,
whether thou would keep his commandments, or no. ... that he might humble thee,
and that he might prove thee, to do thee good at thy latter end." (Deut. 8:2,16)

"That through them I may prove Israel,
whether they will keep the way of the Lord to walk therein,
as their fathers did keep it, or not." (Judges 2:22)

"For thou, O God, hast proved us: thou hast tried us, as silver is tried." (Exodus 16:4)

Heavenly Father has a purpose for "proving" His children: those who choose to be faithful, God will make them as precious jewels (Malachi 3:17), as "silver" and "gold."

"My foot hath held his steps, his way have I kept,
Neither have I gone back from the commandment of his lips;
I have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food.
But he knoweth the way that I take: when he hath tried me,
I shall come forth as gold." (Job 23:10-14)

Coming forth as "gold," is the same divine purpose that Paul described in this verse:

"The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:
And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ;
if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also
glorified together." (Romans 8:16-17)

"Mind" and "Mind-Set," or the way one thinks and perceives and chooses, is understood and developed within a moral context of opposition: where evil opposes good, and man stands between bitter and better, with a God-given will to choose one, or the other. Thus, "Mind" is subject to the limitations that God has put in place. And one of those limitations is spiritual blindness.

"O foolish people, and without understanding; which have eyes, and see not;
which have ears, and hear not: ... Neither say they in their heart,
Let us now fear the Lord our God ... But this people hath
a revolting and a rebellious heart." (Jeremiah 5:21-23)

Instead of Chanting Positive Self Affirmations Over and Over,
How Do I Come to Continuously See the Good in Life?

It is YOU who is trying to program your own Brain (or Mind) with positive affirmations; yet, YOU cannot escape YOU. This means, YOU will think and perceive and choose according to Who You Are in the present moment:

“You don't see the world as it is, but as You are.
Thus You can't change the fruit without changing the root."
(~ Stephen R. Covey

In Covey's analogy, the "fruit" is the way You see the world, and the "root" is You! And you can't change You, using the Same Mind that led You to being who You are, today. This means, people who embrace the Light will tend to choose more Light; in contrast, people who dwell in darkness, will tend to choose more darkness.

For this reason, a person who dwells in darkness cannot become a different person, a Being of Light and Love, simply by chanting certain words over and over. Truth is, the Talking-To-Youself approach to Self-Improvement is also called Fake-It-Till-You-Make-It, and faking-it, pretending to be someone you are not, is fundamentally dishonest. Stephen R. Covey taught:

"You can't talk your way out of a
problem, that you behaved
your way into."

In order to change a problem that you "behaved your way into," you must make a humble and contrite decision to behave yourself back out of that problem. The Bible calls this process: Repentance.

Admitting one's mistakes and humbly repairing them is an essential part of living in the Light. And this life of integrity is the most fruitful source of your personal happiness, your joyful optimism, and your inner motivation.

In contrast, the literature of popular psychology says that optimism and motivation is primarily a matter of attitude, a matter of self-programmed positive mind-set — that you can simply psych yourself into a motivated state of optimism, is an assumption that is simply wrong.

One huge reason why you and I can't "psych" ourselves into positive thoughts, and more importantly "psych" ourselves into peace of mind, is explained by another truth taught by Stephen R. Covey:

"while you are free to choose your actions,
you are not free to choose the consequences of those actions."

A person who is perpetually choosing to do dark deeds, a person with "a revolting and a rebellious heart" will feel the consequences that come with doing those dark deeds.

"It is commonly assumed that with willpower and positive choice, a person can
change anything. But this is not true. If, with your willpower, you choose to abuse
others — lie to them, steal from them, or harm them physically or emotionally — you cannot
use that same willpower to erase the consequences of your abuse. Willpower alone
cannot renew the impact of abusive choices. To overcome the consequences
of all abuse, a divine Redeemer is required."
(~ Changing Your Stripes 

The person who dwells in darkness by doing dark deeds, or by failing to do good deeds, cannot SEE the Light and cannot SEE the Love and the Goodness of Life. This Darkened Perspective tends to perpetuate itself; which explains why people get trapped in addictive thinking and behavior.

When you cannot control your thoughts or your behaviors, and habitually fall into obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviors — this means you're addicted in some form or fashion. And how does a person become free from this Prison of Addiction, free from this Jail of Obsessive Compulsive Thinking? Jesus taught:

"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (John 8:32)

Our minds are limited by our ignorance of the Truth. Freedom comes only by knowing the Truth. We are not free to choose options of which we are unaware; thus, we cannot choose a Truth that we do not yet know. For example: There were many who observed the miracles of Jesus, yet some sought to crucify Him anyway; these souls were not free to SEE and KNOW the Truth — they were blinded by the darkness in their own eyes.

And why were they blinded? The Apostle Paul explains:

"Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Ghost teaches; . . . But the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned."
((1 Cor. 2:13-14)

Here is a Truth that Jesus taught that will make you Free:

"how can you, being evil, speak good things?
for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks."
((Matt. 12:34)

Since the mouth speaks according to the thoughts of the Mind; thus, applying the same line of logic, Jesus could have also said:

how can you, being evil, THINK good things?
for out of the abundance of the heart the MIND THINKS.

Because of James Allen's book, "As A Man ," some assume the Bible contains a Proverb that states: "As a man thinketh, so is he." But the Bible Proverb actually contains a vital element that is often omitted:

“For as he thinks IN HIS HEART, so is he" (Proverb 23: 7)