"PROSPERITY"

To begin today I’d like to share with you the Lord’s Prayer as spoken in Jesus’ tongue of ancient Aramaic.

Awoon dwashmaya
Nith kadashe schmakh
Teh they mulkootha
Neh way say wee a nakh
Aikana dwashmaya op bar ah
How-lan lahma
Dsoon kanan yow-mana
Wash woklan hau bain
Aikana dap h’nan shwakan l hiya wayne
Wla ta'lan l'neeseeyona ella pasan min beesha
Mitol delahe mulkootha
Oo hailah otesh boktha
La alim almein amen

The topic I wish to talk about today is one that concerns absolutely everyone, and that’s “Prosperity.” Oh, I know, some people say that they don’t need any money, that they’re doing just fine. But my topic today isn’t about “Money,” although we’ll talk about that as we proceed. My topic today is “Prosperity.”

How would you like to have the expression of more prosperity in your life? I would imagine that just about everyone would like to have more prosperity in his or her life. Yet few people are willing to do very much to allow more prosperity to express itself in their lives. It’s usually easier to blame someone else for our current condition than it is to take the personal responsibility that is required of us to allow the substance of the universe to express freely through us.

One of the reasons that prosperity is such a big issue with all of us is because we live in a world that has been designed around money. Money is nothing more than a symbol of substance, a symbol of value, a symbol of prosperity, a symbol of products, goods, services, or information. And yet the symbol has become so important that we’ve lost touch with what it represents. In other words, the things that we have created to represent and remind us of the truth have obscured the truth. It’s kind of like what happens in religion when ritual becomes more important than what the ritual represents.

In Eric Butterworth’s book, “Unity: A Quest For Truth,” he quotes a UCLA Professor who defined a concept that he terms “the 5 M’s of Religion.” Simply put, the professor claims that all religions go through five phases that he defines with 5 “M’s.” He states that every religion begins with a single individual who has a unique spiritual experience that alters their life. Thus the first M is the man or individual who has this initial, unique, personal, spiritual experience. Because the experience changes this person’s life, others are aware of the changes and either ask about its origins, or else the original person seeks to share the experience, and its results, with others. This sharing process develops into the second M, the Message, a telling and a teaching about this original spiritual experience. As word spreads, the Message grows into the third M, which is the Movement. During this time, the Message begins to get altered through embellishment and the vagaries of retelling and translation. Finally the movement becomes so large and scattered and the message so altered from its original intent through the retelling that efforts are made to control it so that it remains true to the original experience. These efforts result in the fourth M, the Machine. And with time the mechanics of the machine become paramount in the so-called protection of the movement of the message of the man who had the experience. Finally, the Machine, in an effort to justify itself, creates the fifth and final M, A Monument. Tragically, however, in every case, the Monument is always to the original Man or individual from whom this whole experience evolved, rather than to the experience, itself, that sparked the change in that original individual.

Unity, I have always believed, floats mainly between Movement and Machine with occasional monument builder running around frantically trying to gather support for their latest creation. Furthermore, I have always believed that it is in the ultimate purpose of Unity, and for all religious organizations, for that matter, to put themselves out of business. In other words, the purpose of all of this is to steer us back to the point where each of us has that original, spiritual, life changing experience. And when that is achieved, churches will no longer be necessary, for the guidance of all will come from within. Now, for those of you who are attached to the idea of church, don’t let what I’ve said worry you. I merely said that churches would no longer be necessary under this ideal scenario, not that they wouldn’t exist. I’m sure that there will always be churches, though their activity and purpose will continue to change and evolve with time.

So what’s this got to do with prosperity? Simply this: prosperity has suffered from the same system that corrupted spiritual experience into religious dogma. In the opening line of Charles Fillmore’s book, “Prosperity” he says, “Divine Mind is the one and only reality.” Now, let me ask you, when you have a bill that’s due, and you don’t have enough money to pay it, what do you do to find the money to cover the debt? Do you ask for a raise? Do you think about getting another job? Do you look at where you can cut down on other expenses? Do you think about what you can do without? Do you consider having your spouse get a job, if you have a spouse, and if they don’t already work? Do you think about having the children get jobs, if you have children, and if they don’t already have jobs? Do you stay up late at night worrying about what’s going to happen? Do you think about having a yard sale? In a nutshell, how much time do you invest in any or all of the foregoing?

Or, do you go to Divine Mind first? Some people go to Divine Mind first, and then they still go through all of the rest of the crap that I just outlined. They are cheating themselves. They are doing themselves a great disservice. “Divine Mind is the one and only reality.” Yard sales are not a reality. A raise is not a reality. Another job is not a reality. A bigger check in the offering basket is not a reality. Tax cuts are not a reality. Those are only the results of reality. Divine Mind is the one and only reality. That’s what we teach here, and we teach it and practice it because it is the truth. We read in Matthew 6:33, “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.” It doesn’t say that any of the “things” are bad. It’s the manner in which they are acquired that is important. Are they the goal or the result of the goal?

How do we tap in to that kingdom of God that we’re instructed to seek first? We do it through our thoughts and our feelings, through our head and our heart. But I have had a small problem with all of this for much of my life. Try as I might, it just didn’t always seem practical. I meant it just didn’t seem to fit in with the way this reality out here is. Ever get that feeling? Of course, we all do. That’s a normal, human reaction. You know how I know that about you? Because, as it’s been said, “By their fruits, you shall know them.”

What fruits? Well, statistics show that by age 65, 95% of all Americans are either dead, broke, or still working out of necessity. By dead, they mean that a third of them are already dead. By broke, they mean that they do not have the means to provide adequately for themselves financially. People, that’s a crime. But it’s a crime that we’re free to commit, if we so choose. We can ignore the rules of the truth, of the source, and play life instead by the rules of the appearances. We’ve got that right. But, by refusing to live up to our highest potential, we provide a flawed example for others, and this contributes to the overall deterioration of the species.

If we won’t do it for ourselves, then perhaps we will do it for someone else. Let me give you another statistic. The Nazi’s, under Adolf Hitler, are reported to have murdered 6 million Jews. In addition to that, they murdered another 6 million Slavs, homosexuals, gypsies, and other groups that they had decided were inferior to their murderous selves. That’s a total of 12 million people, ruthlessly slaughtered. And I’m told that those figures don’t include the 12 million Russians that were killed, murdered, or starved to death in World War II. But let’s just take the usual 12 million figure that is most often quoted. Such an utter tragedy. Such a waste. And you know, a crime perhaps as big as those mass murders was that there were people who were aware of what was going on, but who said, and did, nothing about it. Can you imagine that? Do you know how long it took the Nazis to kill those 12 million human beings? It took twelve years, if you count from the opening of the first concentration camp at Dachau in March of 1933 to the liberation of the camp at Buchenwald in April of 1945. Twelve million people in 12 years. How could anyone knowingly turn their head and look the other way? Well, I’m going to show you how. This year, 2004, on this planet that we inhabit, 14 million children under the age of 12 will die of starvation or as a direct result of malnutrition. One child every 2 ¼ seconds. And the tragedy is that millions of people know that this has been going on, year after year, and yet little is done to stop it. The figures have remained consistent: 14 million children needlessly dying every year for some time now.

Why is this allowed to happen? Because sustaining and supporting the world’s system of economics is more important to us as individuals, and as corporations, and as countries, than the sacredness of human life and the true practice of prosperity principles. And yet, it is so unnecessary. My friends, there is enough to go around. Enough to sufficiently supply every man, woman, and child on this planet with adequate food, shelter, and clothing. If I had more time, and this were a class on economics, in addition to prosperity, I would lay out the scientific backing for those claims. But today we’ll rely upon spiritual teaching that tells us the same thing. God is the source of everything and we are all heirs to al that we can accept. So why isn’t more prosperity expressing in our lives?

On a church sign I once saw it said, “When you blame others, you give up the power to change.” This was a church that was in the midst of internal confrontation that was splitting the congregation apart. The comment on the sign was up for many months, yet no one ever commented from the platform on the subject of the sign. So I finally assumed that the sign was placed there for my own benefit since I saw it regularly and wanted to speak of it openly in the church. One day, while discussing truth principles with someone from that church, our conversation ended with them saying that perhaps they needed to go and brush up on their truth principles. I said that perhaps I needed to do the same. Well, I did, and here is one of the things that I found. It’s directly related to today’s topic and to the sign in front of the church because it point out that criticism and condemnation limit the expression of prosperity in our lives. This is straight from Charles Fillmore in his book “Prosperity:”

”Your thoughts should at all times be worthy of your highest self, your fellow man, and God. The thoughts that most frequently work ill to you and your associates are thoughts of criticism and condemnation. Free your mind of them by holding the thought ‘There is no condemnation in Christ Jesus.’ Fill your mind with thoughts of divine love, justice, peace, and forgiveness. This will pay your debts of love, which are the only debts you really owe. Then see how quickly and easily and naturally all your outer debts will be paid and all inharmonies of mind, body, and affairs smoothed out at the same time. Nothing will so quickly enrich your mind and free it from every thought of lack as the realization of divine love. Divine love will quickly and perfectly free you from the burden of debt and heal you of your physical infirmities, often caused by depression, worry, and financial fear. Love will bring your own to you, adjust all misunderstandings, and make your life and affairs healthy, happy, harmonious, and free, as they should be. Love indeed is the ‘fulfillment of the law.’”

We’re almost all of us too quick to judge and criticize others. We’re goaded into doing that daily by the media and by the society in which we live. You know, I remember once hearing someone quote Jesus out of context in order to justify his or her criticism of another. They pointed out that Jesus, when confronting the scribes and Pharisees over the woman caught in adultery, said, “Get out of here and don’t sin again.” Yet here’s what really happened, in context. And remember, that Pharisees are those who insist upon living by the written letter of the law and that a synonym for Pharisee is hypocrite. This is from John:

”They said to him, Teacher, this woman was caught openly in the act of adultery.
“Now in the law of Moses it is commanded that women such as these should be stoned; but what do you say?
“They said this to temp him, that they might have a cause to accuse him. While Jesus was bent down, he was writing on the ground.
“When they were through questioning him, he straightened himself up and said to them, He who is among you without sin, let him first throw a stone at her.
“And again as he bent down, he wrote on the ground.
“And when they heard it, they left one by one, beginning with the elders; and the woman was left alone in the midst.
“When Jesus straightened himself up, he said to the woman, Where are they? Did no man condemn you?
“She said, No man, Lord. Then Jesus said, Neither do I condemn you; go away, and from henceforth, do not sin again.”

This is the example set by Jesus. Most of us fail to live up to this kind of standard because we find that it is not easy. Then we complain about getting short changed by life. Friends, the rewards of the easy way are barely enough to get by. It is those who accept the challenge of living life to its fullest who prosper the most. This is what is known as transcendence.

We can begin living a more prosperous life by doing a good house cleaning. Physically, free yourself of those things that are no longer useful in your life. Give them away or sell them, whichever you choose, but throw them away only if they are beyond use. Next, free yourself mentally and emotionally from all debts, financial or otherwise. This doesn’t mean to imply that you should just decide that you don’t owe money that you are legally bound to pay, but rather to free yourself of experiencing the debt as an inner worry or fear or feeling of obligation. Finally, free yourself of all feelings for others that do not measure up to the standards of love.

In “Prosperity,” Charles Fillmore states, “To remedy any state of limited finances or ill-health that has been brought about by worry one must begin by eliminating the worry that is the original cause. One must free one’s mind from the burden of debt before the debt can be paid. Many people have found that the statement ‘I owe no many anything but love’ has helped them greatly counteract this thought of debt … The thing denied is the burdensome thought of debt or of lack.”

The universe is designed to flow from being to doing to having. The mistake most people make is that we are always trying to swim upstream. We too often think that if we can just have, then se can do the things that will then allow us to be whom we would like to be. Why not go with the flow? Become first, and all these things shall be added to you. It’s truly an inside job.

In a class that I teach on the “A To Z Steps To Creating Affluence,” based upon chapter 2 of Deepak Chopra’s best-selling book, “Creating Affluence,” we literally work our way from the A to the Z of the alphabet. In a nutshell, the following is the A to Z’s of Prosperity.

We are a field of all possibilities. That truth is absolute, and the ultimate authority. Affluence and abundance are our natural birthright.

Go first class all the way and the universe will reward you with better and best.

Carefreeness and charity are necessary to the experience of affluence.

Discover what demands we can supply and then learn to supply them with love.

Exult in the success of others. Expect the best.

Failure contains the seed of success.

Show gratitude and generosity. The abundance of God is accessed through the gap between our thoughts. We can’t achieve goals if we have no goals.

We are here to bring happiness to humanity.

Accomplishing what we wish in life requires intent or intention.

Judgment is unnecessary and keeps us from our good.

Knowledge contains organizing power.

Love everyone and accept luxury as our natural state.

Making money for others and motivating others opens the doorway to achieving our own dreams.

Say No to negativity.

Life is the coexistence of opposites. Our good comes to us through opportunities created through open and honest communication.

Discover our purpose in life and recognize that we are pure potentiality.

Question outside authority.

Receiving is as necessary as giving.

Money is like blood; it must flow. That flow expresses through spending and service to others.

Transcendence is necessary if we expect to accomplish what’s important to us in life. Timeless awareness frees us from the past and the future and tunes us in to the abundance of the present. Establish a talent bank of individuals to assist us in what we are doing. Tithing is giving freely a portion of what we receive.

Understand that there is unity behind all diversity.

Without values there is chaos.

Wealth consciousness implies absence of money worries.

Express honest appreciation and thanks to all who help us.

Youthful vigor results from a consciousness of affluence.

Have zest for life.

And finally, we are our attention.

How many of you are familiar with Louise Hay? While driving from Albuquerque, New Mexico to El Paso, Texas some years ago for a wedding, my wife, Sherri, and I, were listening to a Louise Hay tape upon which she has a very effective prosperity meditation. I’d like to close with that meditation today. So let’s become comfortable, relaxed, and still.

Louise Hay Meditation:

”Visualize a beautiful beach. The clean, white sand is stretching as far as you can see. There are palm trees, a few seagulls, and some white, fluffy clouds, way off in the distance. The sun is shining, and there is a light breeze that feels so good on your skin. The waves lap gently at the shore, and you walk in your bare feet, almost to the water’s edge. This is the ocean of life. This is the ocean of prosperity.

“As you stand there, you notice that there are also other people, standing along the shore in both directions. Each one of you is standing there with a container in your hands, a container that will enable you to take from the ocean of life and prosperity. Look down at your hands and notice what kind of container you are holding. Is it a teaspoon with a hole in it? Is it a cracked small cup? Is it a mug? Is it a glass? Is it a pitcher? Is it a vase? Is it a quart? Is it a gallon? Is it a soup Tureen? Is it a bucket? Is it a washtub, or a bathtub? This container represents your state of consciousness. It doesn’t matter what size it is now because you can always expand your consciousness to a larger size container. You are never stuck.

“As you look along the beach in both directions, you notice that no matter what kind of containers your neighbors have, and no matter how much they take from the ocean, they do not rob you in any way. There is plenty for everyone. It is impossible to dry up the ocean, no matter how much everyone takes. The ocean is infinitely abundant and completely generous to everyone.

“It is also possible for you to go beyond the concept of containers, and to hook up a pipeline so that you always have a continuous supply of everything you need and desire. As you stand there in the pleasant sunshine, with the gentle breezes caressing your body, notice how good you feel, knowing that all that the ocean has to offer is yours, just for the taking. You deserve to share in this abundance, just because you exist. It is your birthright. You claim your birthright, right now, in this very moment.

“I am one with the power that created me. This power has supplied me with an abundance of all that I shall ever need or want. My breath is abundantly supplied. I deserve to breath just because I exist. All my other needs are abundantly supplied. Everything I need to know is revealed to me. Everything I need comes to me in the perfect time space sequence. I deserve to experience all this because I exist. It is my birthright to prosper in every area of my life. I am one with the ocean of life and I rejoice that it is so. All is well in my world, now and forever. So be it.” Amen.

Prosperity and affluence are yours for the taking. You can be part of the 5%. One of the purposes for Unity is to help you understand how to accept that into your life. Take the chance and become all that you can be. I love you.


- posted by Charles DeTurk @ 12:00 AM

 
"HIDDEN POWER OF THE I AM"

Today I want to talk with you about a subject that is so incredibly important that it is almost like magic. And it would be magic if it weren’t for the fact that it is so incredibly real and true. You might find the ideas that I have to share with you today to be deep. If that is so, bear with me. I will endeavor to be precise in what I say so that it might be understood by all of us. Although this is a topic that you might have heard expounded upon before, I venture to say that some of the perspective that I wish to share with you today may be entirely new. But I guarantee that it is understandable. Otherwise, you would not be here today absorbing these ideas. What we’re going to examine today is the power of the I Am.

A scripture that took me years to understand was the one where Moses was on the mountain communing with God. When Moses was ready to go back down to the people and accept God’s direction to lead them out of Egypt, he wondered what credentials he should use to add clout to his presentation. He asked, “Who shall I say has sent me?” The answer that he received was, “Tell them, ‘I am that I am’ has sent you.” That’s your standard King James translation.

For some reason, when I was young, that just didn’t quite make sense. I am that I am. I mulled it over and over for years. I am that I am. I am that I am. I am that I am. I am that I am. I am that I am. I am that I am. I am that I am. I am that I am. Just what did he mean? And what does it mean to me?

I AM. Somewhere along the way I began to wonder if those words somehow had a special meaning. I mean something beyond special, more like something almost magical. You know, we’re sort of conditioned to believe in magic because of things that the more orthodox churches teach, like taking the words “whatever you ask in my name” to be absolutely literal. In my name. Here they’re talking about Jesus. But was Jesus talking about Jesus, or was he talking about his father? Was he talking about God? And if that’s whom he was talking about, and whose name he was referring to, was that name, then, possibly “I am?” Whatever you ask in my I Am name?

Well, we’ve got a problem that begins to develop with this sort of thinking. If God’s name is “I Am” then what happens when we say things like “I am tired,” or “I am angry,” or “I am sad?” Are we talking about us or are we talking about God? Or, are we talking about both? Perhaps that’s it. I am that I am. “Know ye not that ye are children of God?” But, if that’s true, then for me to say, “I am” and follow it with anything which is less than that which is true of a child of God, is to take God’s name in vain, so to speak. It is to lie, to not tell the truth.

Well, we know from a talk that Alan Stanley gave several years ago that in John, Jesus is reported to have said that Satan is “lies, and the father of lies.” So when we make any claim about ourselves, whether aloud, or in the silence of our own hearts, that is missing the mark of our innate divinity, i.e. negative and limiting “I am” statements, then we are causing Satan, or the devil, to appear to be real. The reality is only in appearance, however, for we know that the true identity of Satan is a lie; therefore it’s only existence lies in the mistaken belief in the lie. The lie is not true. It is a lie. Therefore it does not really exist. It only appears to exist so long as the lie is believed.

For instance, for years many people believed the earth to be flat. That belief didn’t alter the fact that the earth is round. The belie fin a flat earth was a belief in what was not true. However, as long as the belief persisted, those who believed it acted accordingly and were careful not to discover that the earth is really round.

So, perhaps there might be some very special meaning in those two words, “I Am.” Then some 25 years ago, while searching for deeper meaning in I Am, I made an astounding discovery. The phrase, “I Am” is composed of six sounds: I, E, A, O, U, and M. Those are the five vowels in our alphabet, followed by the consonant M. There’s something very interesting about those sounds. First, of the whole alphabet, it is only vowels that can be pronounced with the mouth open and the tongue and throat practically relaxed. A, E, I, O, U. These are vibrational letters, they are action letters, they are open letters. And all five of them are found within the term, “I Am.”

Now, let’s look at M. Of all of the consonants, M is the only one that can be pronounced without opening the mouth. Furthermore, it has a sum to it that is like unto a chant. Mmmmm. The other consonants are: B, C, D, F, G, H, J, K, L, N, P, Q, R, S, T, V, W, X, Y, Z. But M, Mmmmm, is different from all of the rest. And it is the closure to I Am.

But that’s only the beginning. I Am is English, it is western. Where does that leave the easterners? Well, it turns out that the east has a unique word of special spiritual qualities. That word is AUM, or OM. What sounds make up this word? A, E, I, O, U, M. Exactly the same sounds as I Am, only in a different order. At this point in my explorations into I Am, it began to get very eerie. Where did those two most important terms, which have the same sounds and tremendous spiritual importance, come from? Is there something deliberate going on here? And if so, who or what is the instigator?

Peculiar? Oh, my friends, we’ve only scratched the surface, for you see, we’ve been doing all of this in the English language. Ours is a language that had been around for less than 1,000 years. There was no such thing as English in the time of Jesus, or the time of Moses. There was no language in those days that even resembled today’s English. So where did all of this come from? Could a person have concocted this and promulgated it so that it would encompass the world? Or was it rather something beyond a person?

Well, if English didn’t exist when Moses was on the mountain, then what was it that God really said? What is God’s real name? For that, we’ll have to go to the George Lamsa translation of the Bible. Again, we’ll look at our scripture for today from Exodus 3:13-14. “And Moses said to God, Behold, when I go to the children of Israel and say to them, The God of your fathers has sent me to you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? What shall I say to them? And God said to Moses, I am AHIAH ASHAR HIGH (that is, THE LIVING GOD); and he said, Thus you shall say to the children of Israel: AHIAH has sent me to you.”

AHIAH ASHAR HIGH is Aramaic. Let look at what those who are familiar with the language have to say about it. My elementary understanding of Cabalism is that it is partially a belief that the individual letters of the Hebrew alphabet individually represent different aspects of the energy of the universe that is God. Furthermore, the religious writings that we know as the Bible are actually full of mystical meaning understood only by meditating upon the various aspects of universal energy represented by each letter in each word and their relationships with one another. To demonstrate what that might mean, let’s take a cabalistic look at our Aramaic name of God.

The letters of these three words are as follows:

AHIAH – Aleph Hay Yod Hay

ASHAR – Aleph Sheen Raysh

HIGH – Yod Hay Vav Hay

I AM = AHIAH = Aleph Hay Yod Hay

Aleph – “the unthinkable life-death, abstract principles of all that is and all that is not.”

Hay – “the archetype of universal life. When it is confirmed upon Dallet, it allows it to play the game of existence, in partnership with the intermittent life-death process.”

Yod – “projection of Aleph in temporal continuity. So Yod (in Hebrew: the hand), is the opposite of Aleph, it’s partner playing against it the game without which nothing would be.”

Hay – “the Archetype of universal life. When it is confirmed upon Dallet, it allows it to play the game of existence, in partnership wit5h the intermittent life-death process.”

After meditating upon this, I find that I AM, AHIAH, means “All that is expressing through temporal continuity as universal life.” I’m going to repeat that. The I Am that God is, and which you are, and which I am, is all that is expressing through temporal continuity as universal life. My friends, that’s what the energy of the letters of the Aramaic/Hebrew name of God, as reportedly given to Moses, means.

And that meaning has obviously been carried over the ages through means that are beyond our comprehension, into our current language. I Am is the absolute total expression of universal life as all that is expressing in this temporal continuity that we think of as reality. Those words, I Am, are a creative wand through which we can, and do, participate in the ongoing divine act of creating the reality of our existence and the reality in which we live. That is a magic beyond magic. God, the creator, constantly creating through us, as we will.

I am life. I am joy. I am peace. I am prosperity. I am wholeness. I am wonder. I am fulfillment. I am harmony. I am enthusiasm. I am will. I am oneness. I am renunciation. I am wisdom. I am zeal. I am order. I am understanding. I am imagination. I am power. I am God in expression. I am love.

- posted by Charles DeTurk @ 12:00 AM

 
"PRACTICING THE PRINCIPLES"

Today’s topic, “Practicing The Principles,” was chosen for me when I asked my wife, Sherri what she thought I needed to talk about. I’m certain that she recommended this topic because she’s very aware that it is an area in which we could all use some additional work.

Several years ago, I stood up in front of a rather large group of people and spoke passionately about principle, specifically asking people to define the principles underlying their actions. No one ahs ever asked me what principles I was talking about. So, we’ll talk about that this morning. What are these principles that are periodically referred to in our time together? And just what are we supposed to do about them?

First of all, I think that we need to step back, and I mean way back, and try to get an overall view of what reality is all about. I’m sure that you’re aware of the fact that the more we know, the more we know we don’t know. At our present time in history, we are probably doubling our knowledge every year. Nine out of every ten scientists who have ever lived are alive today. And for all we know now, we are aware of even more of what we don’t know. With that in mind, however, let’s take a look at what we do know and the part that principle plays in our reality.

When we think of the universe in which we live, we most often think in terms of a physical existence, those aspects of reality that we can see, hear, touch, taste and small. That’s the physical universe. We know that it is made up of atoms. We know that there are only 92 different stable atoms that occur on their own throughout the universe. The reason for this is that there is a mathematical structure to the atom that determines how many electron charges can surround, or orbit, an atom’s nucleus at different levels. This is a mathematical principle that applies to atoms. We could call it a law, but I don’t like to call it that because people make laws and laws are often flawed.

A principle is, rather, something that we can count on to always be true, and that is evidenced by the fact that its effects are consistently manifest. People speak of the law of gravity and how it causes things to fall down. However, if you have ever taken any of my classes, you might remember that there is no such thing as up or down. Those concepts are all relevant. And therein lies the flaw in the law. Gravity is actually a principle that states that all masses attract one another. The larger and more dense the mass, the greater the attraction. It is the cosmic balance between all of the masses in space that causes celestial entities to orbit one another.

The discovery of the set of principles that underlie the actions and interactions of all matter in the physical universe are the goal of science. And science has come a long way in its discovery of those principles and new ways in which to use them, often to the benefit of millions of human beings. But it is not the principles of science and physical universe that we are discussing today.

Today I want to talk about principles that exist in the metaphysical realm of existence. The metaphysical being that part of our existence that is beyond the physical, that has no length, breadth, depth, weight, or temperature. The easiest way to sometimes get a handle on what we’re talking about here is to think of an idea, particularly one that may appear to be a totally new idea. Have you ever had a new idea, an idea that you knew didn’t come to you as a result of something that you had already thought about or experience, but rather came from some place that might have a rather musty feel to it? A number of geniuses have used the term mustiness to describe their more crystal ideas. They state that they seem to have a feel that they have come from somewhere else.

What are those ideas? Where do they come from? How do they get there? Some might claim that they’re nothing more than chemical reactions in the brain. But that’s merely the result of the idea, the way in which it catches our attention and our awareness. But what about the idea itself and the way in which it seems to be able to travel instantaneously? Well, in the metaphysical realm of our existence, there is not only no length, breadth, depth, weight, or temperature, but there is also no time. Yet, there are very definite principles in that realm of our metaphysical existence.

One of those principles has to do with what’s sometimes called the “law of mind action.” Simply stated, this says that whatever you concentrate upon will become manifest. Do you believe that to be true? as a person thinketh in their own heart, so are they. Job said it in a negative context when he stated, “The thing I feared has come upon me.” Another way that it is put is, “whatever the mind can see, and believe, it can achieve.” Do you believe that? Well, if you do, realize that "principles" implies a converse to itself. The converse is, “whatever world is manifesting around you, it is because of what you have concentrated upon.”

This is an important principle for us to understand because it identifies us as creators. But I don’t mean creators in the simple sense of creatively painting a picture, or writing a book, or singing or playing a song. Those are all expressions of creation, but the creation itself … oh, that’s where the incredible majesty lies. Each human being is a true creator.

Let’s look at it this way. The universe is physically composed of 92 self-regenerative chemical elements. So is each and every human being, composed of all of the same 92 self-regenerative chemical elements. The ratio of the elements to one another within each human being is the same as the ratio of the elements in the rest of the universe to one another. The universe has 92 basic building tools. You have the same 92 basic building tools. Through the application of numerous principles the universe in which we exist has been created by using those 92 tools.

Those universal principles, as we have already said, are non-physical. They are totally metaphysical. They are comprehended and applied through consciousness. Therefore the universe has consciousness. This is what we refer to when we speak of God, through the idea and the concept and the word God does not even begin to measure up to the incredible magnitude of this conscious awareness which they try to represent. It is consciousness that uses the principles of the universe to mold the 92 basic tools of the universe in the grandeur in which we exist.

Each one of us, each human being, has conscious awareness, consciousness. That consciousness is not separate from the consciousness of the universe. Rather, it is a part of it, it is an expression of it, it is an aspect of it, it is an example of it. That consciousness which we each possess has the same power and capabilities to mold the 92 basic tools into the reality in which we choose to live.

In order to best do this, it is to our benefit to know and understand the principles of the universe and how they work. Science endeavors to do this and to spread its findings through the educational systems. So much for the physical. But what about the metaphysical? Well, when it comes to that, we’re essentially on our own. Intelligent contemplation is not highly stressed in our society.

When I managed a computer department, I discovered that each time I ran an ad for some position for which we were hiring, that we were inundated with 100 or more applicants and resumes. Then one day I wrote an ad that changed all of that. In fact, we were often lucky if we got even one applicant for these new job postings. What did I change? I merely added 6 words with the requirement that the applicant “must be able to think logically.”

That, in a manner of speaking is what we need to do if we’re truly going to grow. Oh, I don’t mean that we must logically figure everything out. What I was looking for when I added that line to our job postings was a person who had enough intelligence and self-awareness that they didn’t have to constantly be told what to do and how to do it and then be watched to see if they did it right.

I’ve mentioned in some of my classes that I am an outlaw. The idea is taken from a line in Bob Dylan’s song, “Absolutely Sweet Marie,” where he says, “to live outside the law you must be honest.” And that’s what we need. See, in order to live outside the law, one must accept personal responsibility. They must think for themselves. They must have the confidence to act when they feel that action is called for. They must be honest and aboveboard in their dealings with others. When living outside the law, one does not have the law to rely upon, to fall back upon. Now, interestingly enough, those who honestly live outside the law are often the most law abiding of people, in appearance. But the motivation is different. What’s in here, the head, and here, the heart, is different.

So, our understanding and practice of the metaphysical principles of the universe is largely up to us as to what we know about it and what we do about it. But that doesn’t mean that we’re alone. There are limitless sources out there to help us alone and steer us in the right direction. But we must always remember that the most important source is always that source which is within us. By “within us,” I don’t mean that it is inside of us. What I really mean is that it is an integral part of us. It can’t be separated from us. That’s why we often think of it as being “within.”

But discovering and understanding the principles of the universe is only setting the stage for our true purpose in being. We are here to put those principles into action, to become the creator that our creator intended us to be, to be a channel for principle to express through us to create a more beautiful and majestic reality.

In our efforts to discover, understand, and become a channel for the expression of the principles the universe, we are often tempted by those around us to follow their example, sometimes merely because there seems to be more of them than there is of us. One of the ways in which we are sometimes sidetracked is through the practice of what is known as prayer.

Many people in this country have gotten the idea that when they pray for a particular situation that they must be specific in their prayers, that they must list every single last item that needs to be prayed for. Their prayers are requests, or even sometimes demands, that some super entity listen to their specific direction as to what needs to be done. Honestly, I ask anyone to go out here in the desert on a clear night, away from all of the lights and all of the other reminders of human intervention, and then get still and contemplate how it is that wall that which surrounds you came into being, and then tell me that any single human being is evolved enough to “tell God anything that God is to do.”

Let me share with you James Michener’s view on this topic from his novel, “Space:”

"Stanley Mott, striving to attain some sense of what the universe was, sat perfectly still on the bank of the Tennessee River, south of Huntsville, Alabama. Keeping arms and legs motionless, he endeavored to move not even his eyes, for he wished to experience the sensation of a body at complete rest, and at last he achieved this. He was as still as a human being could be; indeed, he might as well be dead except for the inescapable functioning of autonomic systems like breathing and heart beating.

"'I am motionless,' he said to himself at last, and he kept this posture for ten minutes, thinking of nothing. Then his brain insisted, recalling data he had memorized at Cal Tech:

"'But at this moment I'm sitting on a piece of Earth at 34 degrees 30 minutes North, which means I'm spinning west to east at a rate of about 860 miles an hour. At the equator, because of the larger bulge, 1,040. At the same time, my Earth is moving through its orbit around the Sun at 66,661 miles an hour, and my Sun is carrying itself and its planets toward the star Vega at something like 31,000 miles an hour.

"'Our Sun and Vega move around the Galaxy at the blinding speed of 700,000 miles per hour, and the Galaxy itself rotates at 559,350 miles an hour.

"'And that's not all. Our Galaxy moves in relation to all other galaxies as they rush through the universe at a speed of better than 1,000,000 miles an hour.

"'So when I sit here absolutely still I'm moving in six wildly different directions at an accumulated speed of ..... maybe two and a half million miles an hour. So I can never be motionless. I'm traveling always at speeds which are incomprehensible. And it's all happening in real time.'

"He considered these demonstrable facts for some moments, then concluded:

"'And perhaps the universe itself is hurtling toward some undefined destination at a speed which could hardly be stated, perhaps to clear our space for a better universe which will supplant us, while we rush off to some new adventure.'

"When he rose and felt his limbs moving only inches, he thought: 'What a trivial journey we make. Inches under our own power, two and a half million miles with the universe. But ours is the journey that counts. Our slow inching along to understanding and control.' When he headed back to his car, he calculated that he was walking at a rate of perhaps 2.3 miles an hour, hardly worth noting in comparison to the speeds he had been dealing with: 'And yet, for millions of years of our existence, that's about the best we could do. It got us where we are, and that's not trivial.'"

If you need a beginning point in your search for the truth principles in life, a good place to start is with Jesus’ admonition that the greatest commandment is to love the lord your god with all your heart, with all your strength, with all your mind, and with al your soul, and to love your neighbor as yourself. He doesn’t qualify that by saying to do it only on certain occasions. When someone does you wrong, you love them. That’s hard to do. So is creating the universe. But you can do either one.

It is practicing the principles of love, joy, peace, understanding, sharing, compassion, and all of the other positives that contribute to the growth of all, that we, ourselves, grow and becomes the manifestation of what we were created to be.

- posted by Charles DeTurk @ 12:00 AM

 
"ACTIVITY OF GOD"

Today I want to talk about something that is not an easy issue to deal with because people have differing opinions about its significance and its importance. And that is the activity of God. Today I want to see if we can determine just what the activity of God is in regards to current situations in which we might find ourselves.

A major difference in outlook and viewpoint between what we term as eastern religion and western religion has to do with the activity of God. In a nutshell, eastern thought leans more toward internalizing the activity of God while western thought promotes externalizing the activity. But before we get into the internal/external quandary, let’s talk about the activity of God itself. What is it and what are the channels of its expression?

I’ve told most of you before that in the Last Whole Earth Catalog there was a brief little blurb called “Three Laws of the Universe.” Those three laws were listed as: 2) Everything is connected to everything, 2) Everything is going somewhere, and 3) There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch (TANSTAAFL). The second law, “Everything is going somewhere,” is speaking to the fact of the activity of God.

In this reality in which we live, there is no stasis, no lack of activity. Some might say, “Well, what about rocks?” But, of course, we know that since everything in the physical universe is made up of atoms, and every atom in the universe is a hotbed of activity, and then even rocks vibrate with constant activity. So, even though our senses might not be fine tuned sufficiently to perceive the activity that is going on all around us, nevertheless our intellectual cognizance lets us know that activity is the norm.

While we’re talking about rocks and atoms, I want to share with you a more in-depth view of the physical universe that further demonstrates activity to be the norm. Einstein in his famous relativity equation said E = mc2. That equation means, of course, that energy equals mass expanding omnidirectionally at the speed of light. Now what does that really mean? It means that everything is made up of energy. Energy can neither be created nor destroyed. Matter is merely energy expressing temporarily in interference patterns. And if those interference patterns were to be disrupted, what appears to be solid matter would return to its natural energy state in all directions simultaneously at the speed of light. That obviously would be very explosive and that’s why Einstein gets the credit for being the father of the atom bomb.

An interesting aside on Einstein and his relativity discovery concerns my friend, Buckminster Fuller. In 1938 Bucky’s first book, “Nine Chains To The Moon,” was finally published. In that book is a chapter entitled, “E = mc2 = Mrs. Murphy’s Horsepower.” When the publisher read it, they called Bucky in and told him that they couldn’t print it. The reason was that there were only so many people in the world who were qualified to speak on Einstein’s theory. In fact, at that time, a list existed of all of those people, and Bucky’s name was not on the list. Therefore, they could not print that chapter.

Well, Bucky’s response was to suggest that they ask Dr. Einstein what he thought about the chapter. What a lot a gall, thought the publisher. But the publisher gave it a try, and, sure enough, was able to get the text to Einstein, who read it. Dr. Einstein then asked to speak to Bucky. Now, at this time, Bucky’s probably 40 years old. So he goes to meet the great Einstein; just the two of them alone in a room together. And Einstein says, “I’m intrigued by your book, young man. I never had any idea that there were any practical applications for my formula.” Needless to say, the publishers included the chapter in Bucky’s book.

Anyway, at its core, every thing appears to be energy. And, I’m sure you’ll agree, it would be silly to think about energy as being anything other than active. But let’s delve just a bit deeper, because some of us might think of energy in terms of expending itself. In other words, that there’s only so much of it, and it, by its very nature, is running down, running out, using itself up. But that’s not the nature of energy at all. That’s merely the appearance of the results of energy in action. In reality, we must return to Einstein’s theory: energy can neither be created nor destroyed. In other words, there is a finite amount of it. And yet, it’s potential is infinite. Therefore energy is both finite and infinite, simultaneously.

At the infinite level of energy we have entered into what Chopra calls the field of all possibilities. But that’s not the end of our examination of energy, because current thinking in quantum physics says that in order for the laws of physics as we now understand them to exist, then all possibilities must also exist. In other words, Deepak’s field of all possibilities isn’t just potentially possible; it is possible because it already exists, past, present, and future, simultaneously. All possibilities. All energy configurations, interference patterns, so-called physical matter that could be, exist at different levels of awareness, at different levels of consciousness. Talk about activity. Talk about omnipotence, omnipresence, and omniscience. We have to expand our ability to comprehend to its limits just to get an inkling of what we’re talking about.

This is the activity of God. Total. Complete. Infinite. Beyond our comprehension. And the small portion of that totality in which we consciously exist, our little reality here, is determined by our constant stream of choices. All possible outcomes await us. It is through our choice of thought and action that we discover the future that awaits each of us.

So now we return to our quandary of external/internal action. In 1965, I saw the motion picture, “The Greatest Story Ever Told,” at the Midland Theater in Kansas City, Missouri. I was there with dozens of other Y.O.U.ers, members of the Kansas City and Unity Village Youth of Unity groups. Part way into the movie I knew that I would have to come back to see it again by myself so that I could express the emotions that parts of the movie pulled from me. I remember the resurrection scene. What incredible, overwhelming joy and expanded awareness. Then there was the scene at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry when he was standing in the shadows of a Jerusalem street looking out upon the destitution of the people. Such incredible compassion.

But there was one scene that made me want to shout, “Yes!” And that was when he drove the moneychangers from the temple. Enough of this blasphemy. The time for action is at hand. This isn’t just a Jesus of pretty words, but one who stand up for what he believes, who backs up those words with actions.

“And Jesus entered into the temple of God, and drove out all who were buying and selling in the temple, and he overturned the trays of the moneychangers and the stands of those who sold doves. And he said to them, ‘It is written, “My house shall be called the house of prayer; but you have made it a bandits’ cave.”’” -- Matthew 21:12-13.

I mean, fine, it’s okay to turn the other cheek, but there are also times that it’s okay to overturn the tables of those who prostitute the truth. I mean, isn’t this a difficulty we all face in our lives. Someone does something that affects us in an uncomfortable or a negative way and we have to decide how to respond. Do we respond with non-resistance or with defensive action or with offensive action?

I guess I have always liked the movie scene of Jesus’ cleansing the temple because it was such a human thing to do. And that’s important, to remember that Jesus was human, that it was okay for him to be human. That fortifies his charge that “the things that I do, you shall do also, and greater things than these shall you do.” --John 14:12 Much of the organized church has tried to portray a Jesus who was special, separate and apart, the “only begotten” Son of God. The truth is, that Jesus was another person, like any of us, who went that extra step to recognizing his own ultimate divinity, declaring the divinity in us all, and then becoming an example by rising in consciousness to allow that divinity to express through him. The Christ, the true self, the field of all possibilities.

So, what is the correct form for action? How can we be the kind of channels for God’s activity that we ought to be? Which is the right path, the path of forceful action or the path of nonresistant action or the path of apathetic non-action? The answer to that question is infinite. Everyone must choose his or her own path. All paths are right because all paths exist and all existence is of God. So, if we meditate our way through a situation, or if we kick tail, or if we do both, or if we do none of the above, it is all the activity of God. It is all merely choices that determine our particular path. But no one path is better than another. The only better path is the path that we choose.

That may be hard for some of us to accept, that it is all the activity of God. Even the bad, the evil, the distasteful, the Hitler. To give a broader perspective on that point, I’d like to close by sharing a short story by Arthur C. Clarke, entitled “The Star.” This is from Dr. Clarke’s collection of short stories entitled, “The Nine Billion Names Of God,” and is the 25th and final story in that volume. This story was written fifty years ago in October 1954 in London. “The Star.”

“It is three thousand light-years to the Vatican. Once, I believed that space could have no power over faith, just as I believed that the heavens declared the glory of God’s handiwork. Now I have seen that handiwork, and my faith is sorely troubled. I stare at a crucifix that hangs on the cabin wall above the Mark VI Computer, and for the first time in my life I wonder if it is no more than an empty symbol.

“I have told no one yet, but the truth cannot be concealed. The facts are there for all to read, recorded on the countless miles of magnetic tape and the thousands of photographs we are carrying back to earth. Other scientists can interpret them as easily as I can, and I am not one who would condone that tampering with the truth which often gave my order a bad name in the olden days.

“The crew were already sufficiently depressed: I wonder how they will take this ultimate irony. Few of them have any religious faith, yet they will not relish using this final weapon in their campaign against me---that private, good-natured, but fundamentally serious war which lasted all the way from Earth. It amused them to have a Jesuit as chief astrophysicist: Dr. Chandler, for instance, could never get over it. (Why are medical men such notorious atheists?) Sometimes he would meet me on the observation deck, where the lights are always low so that the stars shine with undiminished glory. He would come up to me in the gloom and stand staring out of the great oval port, while the heavens crawled slowly around us as the ship turned end over end with the residual spin we had never bothered to correct.

“‘Well, Father,’ he would say at last, ‘it goes on forever and forever, and perhaps Something made it. But how you can believe that Something has a special interest in us and our miserable little world---that just beats me.’ Then the argument would start, while the stars and nebulae would swing around us in silent, endless arcs beyond the flawlessly clear plastic of the observation port.

“It was, I think, the apparent incongruity of my position that caused most amusement to the crew. In vain I would point to my three papers in the Astrophysical Journal, my five in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. I would remind them that my order has long been famous for its scientific works. We may be few now, but ever since the eighteenth century we have made contributions to astronomy and geophysics out of all proportion to our numbers. Will my report on the Phoenix Nebula end our thousand years of history? It will end, I fear, much more than that.

“I do not know who gave the nebula its name, which seems to me a very bad one. If it contains a prophecy, it is one that cannot be verified for several billion years. Even the word “nebula” is misleading; this is a far smaller object than those stupendous clouds of mist---the stuff of unborn stars---that are scattered throughout the length of the Milky Way. On the cosmic scale, indeed, the Phoenix Nebula is a tiny thing---a tenuous shell of gas surrounding a single star.

“Or what is left of a star…

“The Rubens engraving of Loyola seems to mock me as it hangs there above the spectrophotometer tracings. What would you, Father, have made of this knowledge that has come into my keeping, so far from the little world that was all the Universe you knew? Would your faith have risen to the challenge, as mine has failed to do?

“You gaze into the distance, Father, but I have traveled a distance beyond any that you could have imagined when you founded our order a thousand years ago. No other survey ship has been so far from Earth: we are at the very frontiers of the explored Universe. We set out to reach the Phoenix Nebula, we succeeded, and we are homeward bound with our burden of knowledge. I wish I could lift that burden from my shoulders, but I call to you in vain across the centuries and the light-years that lie between us.

“On the book you are holding the words are plain to read. AD MAIOREM DEI GLORIAM, the message runs, but it is a message I can no longer believe. Would you still believe it, if you could see what we have found?

“We knew, of course, what the Phoenix Nebula was. Every year, in our Galaxy alone, more than a hundred stars explode, blazing for a few hours or days with thousands of times their normal brilliance before they sink back into death and obscurity. Such are the ordinary novae---the commonplace disasters of the Universe. I have recorded the spectrograms and light curves of dozens since I started working at the Lunar Observatory.

“But three or four times in every thousand years occurs something beside which even a nova pales into total insignificance.

“When a star becomes a supernova, it may for a little while outshine all the massed suns of the Galaxy. The Chinese astronomers watched this happen in A.D. 1054, not knowing what it was they saw. Five centuries later, in 1572, a supernova blazed in Cassiopeia so brilliantly that it was visible in the daylight sky. There have been three more in the thousand years that have passed since then.

“Our mission was to visit the remnants of such a catastrophe, to reconstruct the events that led up to it, and, if possible, to learn its cause. We came slowly in through the concentric shells of gas that had been blasted out six thousand years before, yet were expanding still. They were immensely hot, radiating even now with a fierce violet light, but were far too tenuous to do us any damage. When the star had exploded, its outer layers had been driven upward with such speed that they had escaped completely from its gravitational field. Now they formed a hollow shell large enough to engulf a thousand solar systems, and at its center burned the tiny, fantastic object which the star had now become---a White Dwarf, smaller than the Earth, yet weighing a million times as much.

“The glowing gas shells were all around us, banishing the normal night of interstellar space. We were flying into the center of the cosmic bomb that had detonated millennia ago and whose incandescent fragments were still hurtling apart. The immense scale of the explosion, and the fact that the debris already covered a volume of space many billions of miles across, robbed the scene of any visible movement. It would take decades before the unaided eye could detect any motion in these tortured wisps and eddies of gas, yet the sense of turbulent expansion was overwhelming.

“We had checked our primary drive hours before, and were drifting slowly toward the fierce little star ahead. Once it had been a sun like our own, but it had squandered in a few hours the energy that should have kept it shining for a million years. Now it was a shrunken miser, hoarding its resources as if trying to make amends for its prodigal youth.

“No one seriously expected to find planets. If there had been any before the explosion, they would have been boiled into puffs of vapor, and their substance lost in the greater wreckage of the star itself. But we made the automatic search, as we always do when approaching an unknown sun, and presently we found a single small world circling the star at an immense distance. It must have been the Pluto of this vanished Solar System, orbiting on the frontiers of the night. Too far from the central sun ever to have known life, its remoteness had saved it from the fate of all its lost companions.

“The passing fires had seared its rocks and burned away the mantle of frozen gas that must have covered it in the days before the disaster. We landed, and we found the Vault.

“Its builders had made sure that we should. The monolithic marker that stood above the entrance was now a fused stump, but even the first long-range photographs told us that here was the work of intelligence. A little later we detected the continent-wide pattern of radioactivity that had been buried in the rock. Even if the pylon above the Vault had been destroyed, this would have remained, an immovable and all but eternal beacon calling to the stars. Our ship fell toward this gigantic bull’s-eye like an arrow into its target.

“The pylon must have been a mile high when it was built, but now it looked like a candle that had melted down into a puddle of wax. It took us a week to drill through the fused rock, since we did not have the proper tools for a task like this. We were astronomers, not archaeologists, but we could improvise. Our original purpose was forgotten: this lonely monument, reared with such labor at the greatest possible distance from the doomed sun, could have only one meaning. A civilization that knew it was about to die had made its last bid for immortality.

“It will take us generations to examine all the treasures that were placed in the Vault. They had plenty of time to prepare, for their sun must have given its first warnings many years before its final detonation. Everything that they wished to preserve, all the fruits of their genius, they brought here to this distant world in the days before the end, hoping that some other race would find it and that they would not be utterly forgotten. Would we have done as well, or would we have been too lost in our own misery to give thought to a future we could never see or share?

“If only they had had a little more time! They could travel freely enough between the planets of their own sun, but they had not yet learned to cross the interstellar gulfs, and the nearest Solar System was a hundred light-years away. Yet even had they possessed the secret of the Transfinite Drive, no more than a few millions could have been saved. Perhaps it was better thus.

“Even if they had not been so disturbingly human as their sculpture shows, we could not have helped admiring them and grieving for they fate. They left thousands of visual records and the machines for projecting them, together with elaborate pictorial instructions from which it will not be difficult to learn their written language. We have examined many of these records, and brought to life for the first time in six thousand years the warmth and beauty of a civilization that in many ways must have been superior to our own. Perhaps they only showed us the best, and one can hardly blame them. But their worlds were very lovely, and their cities were built with a grace that matches anything of man’s. We have watched them at work and play, and listened to their musical speech sounding across the centuries. One scene is still before my eyes---a group of children on a beach of strange blue sand, playing in the waves as children play on Earth. Curious whip-like trees line the shore, and some very large animal is wading in the shallows yet attracting no attention at all.

“And sinking into the sea, still warm and friendly and life-giving, is the sun that will soon turn traitor and obliterate all this innocent happiness.

“Perhaps if we had not been so far from home and so vulnerable to loneliness, we should not have been so deeply moved. Many of us had seen the ruins of ancient civilizations on other worlds, but they had never affected us so profoundly. This tragedy was unique. It is one thing for a race to fail and die, as nations and cultures have done on Earth. But to be destroyed so completely in the full flower of its achievement, leaving no survivors---how could that be reconciled with the mercy of God?

“My colleagues have asked me that, and I have given what answers I can. Perhaps you could have done better, Father Loyola, but I have found nothing in the Exercitia Spiritualia that helps me here. They were not an evil people: I do not know what gods they worshiped, if indeed they worshiped any. But I have looked back at them across the centuries, and have watched while the loveliness they used their last strength to preserve was brought forth again into the light of their shrunken sun. They could have taught us much: why were they destroyed?

“I know the answers that my colleagues will give when they get back to Earth. They will say that the Universe has no purpose and no plan, that since a hundred suns explode every year in our Galaxy, at this very moment some race is dying in the depths of space. Whether that race has done good or evil during its lifetime will make no difference in the end: there is no divine justice, for there is no God.

“Yet, of course, what we have seen proves nothing of the sort. Anyone who argues thus is being swayed by emotion, not logic. God has no need to justify His actions to man. He who built the Universe can destroy it when He chooses. It is arrogance---it is perilously near blasphemy---for us to say what He may or may not do.

“We could not tell, before we reached the nebula, how long ago the explosion took place. Now, from the astronomical evidence and the record in the rocks of that one surviving planet, I have been able to date it very exactly. I know in what year the light of this colossal conflagration reached our Earth. I know how brilliantly the supernova whose corpse now dwindles behind our speeding ship once shone in terrestrial skies. I know how it must have blazed low in the east before sunrise, like a beacon in that oriental dawn.

“There can be no reasonable doubt: the ancient mystery is solved at last. Yet, oh God, there were so many stars you could have used. What was the need to give these people to the fire, that the symbol of their passing might shine above Bethlehem?”

The activity of God, though often beyond our comprehension in its meaning, is a given that should inspire us always to greater expression. It is what we do in expressing the activity of God during our brief appearance upon this level of experience that adds our names to the posterity of God in expression. May you renew your commitment to a greater expression of your being through the activity of God and rejoice in the beauty that it bring to your life.

- posted by Charles DeTurk @ 12:00 AM

 
"CHURCH OF SIN, BLAME, AND SHAME"

To begin today I’d like to share with you the Lord’s Prayer as spoken in Jesus’ tongue of ancient Aramaic.

Awoon dwashmaya
Nith kadashe schmakh
Teh they mulkootha
Neh way say wee a nakh
Aikana dwashmaya op bar ah
How-lan lahma
Dsoon kanan yow-mana
Wash woklan hau bain
Aikana dap h’nan shwakan l hiya wayne
Wla ta'lan l'neeseeyona ella pasan min beesha
Mitol delahe mulkootha
Oo hailah otesh boktha
La alim almein amen

In the early years of Jesus’ ministry, following his death, his teachings were passed on by word of mouth from those who were his followers to those who wanted to hear more about him or who had never even known of his existence. Eventually, the work of the followers of Jesus evolved into the structural institution that we generally refer to as the Christian religion. It is largely through the work of the “churches” of this religious institution that the basic teachings of Jesus have been passed on, generation to generation.

However, there is another church, a new church, a new religious movement that is alive and well and thriving in this new century and it is having an enormous impact upon each of us. It has millions of followers today. It's presence is felt all over the world. And yet you won't find any statistics about this new religion anywhere that they talk about the subject. Which brings to mind an interesting website that gives very thorough backgrounds about almost every religion that you can imagine, and then some. It is located at the Religious Movement Page. http://religiousmovements.lib.virginia.edu/welcome/welcome.htm

This is a University of Virginia site and you'll find over 1,000 pages of information on the world's religions. I'm particularly pleased with this site because it has a policy against labeling any belief system as a cult. If you visit this site and spend some time looking around, I think you'll realize how powerful the Internet is at making information available to anybody anywhere. But, you won't find the new religion that I am talking about today listed at the UVA site.

The roots of this new religion are generally Judeo-Christian and they lean towards an orthodox bent. I say this because a good deal of their teaching revolves around sin, blame, shame, and punishment. The religion has garnered a lot of influence with political leaders at all levels of government, all the way up to the top posts, not only in the United States, but also in many other parts of the world. They also wield a good bit of influence with corporate leaders. A major part of their goal appears to be to infiltrate information systems significantly enough that they will be able to recruit enough new followers to give them a power and influence that rivals that of any other institution in the world.

The sin-blame-shame-punishment game has long been a part of many of the world's religions. Perhaps that is due to the fact that it is a very effective tool for controlling others, and it probably originally was developed by the ego to protect itself by focusing attention for responsibility outside of itself.

I'm not certain that the ego itself would equate this process with a supreme being. Magic, perhaps, would be better suited to its perspective. But an organized association with a supreme being probably develops as a society evolves out of the interaction of people with one another and the ego game then is incorporated as a part of the social fabric. It is at that point that the magic becomes more identifiable in anthropomorphic terms. We endeavor to create concepts and images for our mutual shared knowledge of that which we know so little about.

If you haven't already guessed by now, this new religion of which I speak is commonly referred to by the general term, "media." It has long been my observation that the media, and particularly the news aspect of that institution, has developed its own particular set of moral beliefs, principles, and perspectives that increasingly influence the way in which information is presented to the rest of the public. Because we are so inundated with an overwhelming amount of information, much of it couched in a particular mindset, we ultimately, many of us, become unwitting followers of the agenda of those packaging the information.

What I find fascinating is that many of those who are so quick to condemn the "media" for its "slanted presentations," fail to see that often that very same media is promoting the same moralistic view, often even in the same terminology, as those who are condemning it. It's just that it's not always pointed or slanted in their direction of choice. Anyway, I wanted to talk about this today because I believe that the "media church" is having effects which are not always to our benefit, and unless you were already aware of the religious and moralistic overtones that have created the overall presentation of this electronic houseguest, you may wish to take note of what is happening.

Throughout my life I have often had people come up to me and say, “Oh, you're so lucky to have grown up in Unity. I only wish that I could have been as fortunate.” Although I know and appreciate what they are saying to me, the fact of the matter is that growing up with any particular belief system is not a panacea. It is no guarantee about what your life is going to be like. This used to be very clear to me when I looked at my fellow “PK's.” A “PK,” if you didn't already know it, is a “Preacher's Kid.” And they can be notoriously weird. I'm certain that there are people who think of myself in exactly that terminology. Very weird. I know, because I have actually been told that to my face. It's taken my whole life to become openly proud of my “weirdness,” recognizing it as my own special uniqueness.

Anyway, just because one grows up within a family with a particular set of beliefs doesn't necessarily mean that those beliefs are going to become one's own. That's because family is not all there is to life. There's also school and friends and church and the neighbors and society in general. And electronically, the options just continue to expand the informational inputs of influence. First there was radio and telephones, then television and expanded travel horizons, then records and tapes, and CD's, and videotapes, and DVD's, and cable, and satellites, and the Internet, and wireless communications. And every one of these means of communication adds its own particular spin to the type of information that makes up our world of reality.

So even though I might have grown up in Unity, I also grew up in a society where most folks didn't have a clue what religious beliefs my family held to be sacred. Yet the beliefs of others had a subtle impact upon my life, both directly and indirectly. I became overly aware of this fact in my early 20's when, in a moment of great distress, I fell to my knees, placed my hands together in a prayerful pose, looked up to the sky and begged God to help me. Then I looked at what I was doing and I was shocked. I actually said, aloud, “What am I doing?” Even more important, however, was, “why am I doing this?” I'm sure that orthodox believers would claim that God made me do it because it was the “correct thing to do.” But I quickly realized that I was doing it because this is the response to despair to which I had been exposed in the greater physical world in which I lived. It was a pure case of monkey see, monkey do. And it has taken years for me to disconnect from the automatic responses that had been conditioned into me by the orthodox world in which we live.

We know today, even if it can't be statistically proven, that children exposed to violent environments and experiences will be more prone to violence throughout their lives. Yet we also know that sublimating natural tendencies of reaction within ourselves that might express in violent ways will only create a future potential for explosive release of those tendencies. One of the reasons that life is sometimes so difficult is that it is so unpredictable. Of course, one of the reasons that life is so exciting and so fulfilling is because it is so unpredictable. But we're living in a time now when the volume of influential input has increased exponentially. And I perceive a very subtle, potentially negative, influence in what I have termed here as the “church of the media.”

What concerns me first is the fact that “winner take all” competition is becoming sanctified. The problem with the necessity of having “a” winner is that “many” losers are the natural antithetical outcome. The “prime time” game shows and the “reality” shows are on the cutting edge of this conditioning scenario. The other day, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s film, “The Running Man” was on television, and it didn’t look nearly so much like science fiction as it did when it was first released 14 years ago in 1987. In the effort to garner greater “market share,” the limits are being pushed out further and further. This is also obvious in sports. And, of course, the depiction of violence becomes an integral part of this scenario.

Recently on NPR I heard a “man on the street” commenting on the economy by saying “Greed is alive and well, and so long as America has a free market it will continue to grow.” The fiction from the movie, “Wall Street,” that “greed is good,” has become an acceptable given. I won’t venture into the impact this thinking has had upon our economy. I’ll leave that subject and its details to my alter ego, MajorDomo. But an economy based upon “winner take all” is destined to experience a radical upset.

These are all subjects with which many people are very emotionally involved. But they’re not my greatest concern. It is the more subtle aspects of the electronic reality that have an even deeper and longer range impact. And these have developed from roots that go deeply into orthodox religious thought.

Whenever a newsworthy event occurs, the focus of attention is very swiftly redirected to determining who is responsible, who is to blame. The full attention of the media machine then proceeds to dissect the thoughts, feelings, and actions of all those involved. Never mind “how” they feel, we want to know “what” they feel. “Share it with us. Pretend that the camera is your therapist, your preacher, your rabbi, your iman, your priest. Confess now before the electronic congregation. Admit your shame for that which was done and for that which was not done. We understand your pain. Share it with us.”

“Who is responsible for this atrocity? Aren’t you ashamed? Your punishment is to seek forgiveness from the congregation by exposing yourself for our voyeuristic pleasure. Confess. Admit that you’re not worthy and we may then forgive you. But first we must hear you admit your inferiority.”

Now, some of you may think that I’m a bit over the top here. "This dude is obviously whacked out." But watch and listen for yourself with a discerning eye and ear.

It all became very clear to me when John Kennedy, Jr. died. I’m going to name names here because what I saw was broadcast worldwide. Charles Gibson, on ABC's "Good Morning, America," was interviewing Rev. Billy Graham regarding the tragic wreck of the Kennedy plane. And Charlie asked Rev. Graham if the fact that something like this could happen didn’t, in fact, cause him to question his own beliefs. And Billy responded that it is in times like these that we must cling to our faith.

But that wasn’t good enough for Charlie. He repeatedly hammered away at Billy, apparently trying to get him to do what? Trying to get him to admit that this event had caused him to turn his back upon his beliefs? But Dr. Graham, just as repeatedly reiterated over and over the overwhelming importance of faith in times of extreme distress. It became very obvious that Dr. Graham was steadfast in his faith, despite the unrelenting Gibson onslaughts.

And I asked myself, what are they trying to get this man to do? This is Billy Graham, a man who has personally touched the lives of millions of people all over the world in ways that have brought the strength of faith into their lives when they had nothing else upon which to rely. Whether one agrees with all of the specifics of Dr. Graham’s message, the fact of the matter is that he has been one of the greatest positive influences in the world in the past century. Yet, here, the media was attempting to get him to renounce his beliefs.

Again, why? And then I saw it. The new church. The new electronic Jerusalem. Forget your faith in God. Have faith, instead, in us. It's very subtle, but it feels as though the object of the faith is being redirected. But that's not what I'm really concerned about.

What I've observed that causes my greatest concern is the techniques, the approach, used by this new Church of the Media. They've taken, not necessarily the best, but possibly the most effective processes of subtle psychological control used by the more recognized world religions. It all begins with planting seeds of feelings of inferiority. This is done through emphasizing constant competition. With the sense of personal inferiority in place, it is then easy to create a hierarchy of sins that those who are inferior can commit. The process then dictates that the sin, upon being revealed, should lead to personal feelings of shame. In the view of others, this shame is directed as blame. However, it looks like there's light on the horizon. For the next step in the process is to "put it all behind us." In reality, however, what happens here is that the "result" is placed in the perspective of the past while the "cause" continues onward into the future, affording the opportunity for the process to begin all over again with new sins.

Finally, we discover, if we step back far enough, that those who perpetuate the mechanics of this circular process gather power from the process. It's a false power, however, for it is a power over others, and that has a limited shelf life. But that shelf life can be long enough to severely afflict countless individuals. Watch for yourself: “who's done wrong; let's blame them, get them to feel shame; ask our forgiveness; put it behind us and move on; we love what we're doing; this feels great; who's next; who's done wrong.”

This type of thinking is long overdue for an overhaul. We might think of it as a very primitive process that we could call Adam/Eve thinking. In this type of thinking, the world/reality is perceived of as good and evil, thereby separating us from our true relationship with God, our creator. But 2,000 years ago a teacher came on the scene to help lift us from this Adam consciousness into a new consciousness of our oneness with “the Father.”

Rev. Larry Swartz of Unity of Tucson, Arizona, in his Easter message a few years ago explained what happened this way: "this is the Adam/Eve belief system that Jesus split, for during his ministry he taught of a truth that would set us free from this very limited and shortsighted vision of life. Yet, what today do we generally find emphasized? Isn't it a belief that man and woman are basically, and intrinsically, sinful, set to live in a world where everyone has a different set of circumstances and events that are apparently handed to them arbitrarily?" Larry emphasizes, "Jesus split this Adamic thinking, and forever left an indelible message of a different story, and certainly a different process."

The Church of Media is an extension of this Adamic thinking that Jesus exposed and replaced with a different paradigm. Unfortunately, the new paradigm has yet to take hold on a large scale. Rev. Swartz explains that the reason for this is understandable for "it is difficult to relate to something that transcends one's own experience and knowledge."

Here at Practical Truth Ministry we are dedicated to planting seeds of perception that will ultimately grow into the change in awareness that allows more people to ascend in consciousness to the place where they realize the unreality of the old good and evil paradigm and instead comprehend and embrace the new paradigm presented in the “indelible message” of Jesus.

You are a child of God. You are not a sinner. For those who would wish to argue this point, please, it is better for everyone if you just return to the endless circle of sin/blame/shame that you desire to justify and leave the discovery of new experiences, new relationships, new awareness, and a new sense of oneness with God to those who are ready to move into that perspective. Don't worry, sinners, your time will come when you're ready for it. In the meantime, we only ask that you keep the moaning down as you wallow in your self-imposed misery and please refrain from inflicting yourself upon others. Trying to force others to accept your beliefs is not only a part of the old dead end paradigm, but it is also a sign of spiritual immaturity.

Each day is a new beginning, a new challenge, a new opportunity. That requires daily, renewed effort. It is good to start anew from a place of silence. Each day opening up our awareness and our consciousness to the energy and the ideas and the information and the love that are everywhere waiting to coalesce into our experience is reliving the resurrection of our consciousness through our consciousness.

Beware the false prophets of the Church of the Media and return to the realization of the truth of the source of everything that we are as being within us as a field of all possibilities and being accessible right here and right now. It just takes faith and practice. It is a matter of choices.

Let's take just a second. A nice deep breath. As we release it just be aware of the peace that is always there for you. This moment is a new beginning for you and for me. Right now. Because we make the choice. And by taking even just this moment to adjust our focus, we have altered the course of the rest of our lives for the better. You have my blessings.


- posted by Charles DeTurk @ 12:01 AM

 
"LESSONS IN TRUTH" - UNITY OF THE SPIRIT

To begin today I’d like to share with you the Lord’s Prayer as spoken in Jesus’ tongue of ancient Aramaic.

Awoon dwashmaya
Nith kadashe schmakh
Teh they mulkootha
Neh way say wee a nakh
Aikana dwashmaya op bar ah
How-lan lahma
Dsoon kanan yow-mana
Wash woklan hau bain
Aikana dap h’nan shwakan l hiya wayne
Wla ta'lan l'neeseeyona ella pasan min beesha
Mitol delahe mulkootha
Oo hailah otesh boktha
La alim almein amen

We are continuing today in a series on Dr. H. Emilie Cady’s classic book, ’ Lessons In Truth,’ written over 100 years ago and long referred to as a basic textbook of Unity. Because so few people have completely read, much less studied, this marvelous piece of wisdom, we are beginning each week by reading an entire chapter, followed by my commentary. The complete text for this book can be found at “Lessons In Truth” (with study guide and index).

Today’s chapter is “Unity Of The Spirit”

“1. Did we not know it as a living reality that behind all the multitude and variety of human endeavors to bring about the millennium there stands forever the master Mind, which sees the end from the beginning, the master Artist who Himself is (through human vessels as His hands) putting on the picture here a touch of one color and there a touch of another, according to the vessel used, we might sometimes be discouraged.

“2. Were it not at times so utterly ridiculous, it would always be pitiful to see the human mind of man trying to limit God to personal comprehension. However much any one of us may know of God, there will always be unexplored fields in the realms of expression, and it is an evidence of our narrow vision to say: ‘This is all there is of God.’

“3. Suppose that a dozen persons are standing on the dark side of a wall in which are various sized openings. Viewing the scene outside through the opening assigned to him, one sees all there is within a certain radius. He says, ‘I see the whole world; in it are trees and fields.’ Another, through a larger opening, has a more extended view; he says: ‘I see trees and fields and houses; I see the whole world.’ The next one, looking through a still larger opening, exclaims: ‘Oh! You are all wrong! I alone see the whole world; I see trees and fields and houses and rivers and animals.’

“4. The fact is, each one looking at the same world sees according to the size of the aperture through which he is looking, and he limits the world to just his own circumscribed view of it. You would say at once that such limitation was only a mark of each man's ignorance and narrowness. Everyone would pity the man who thus displayed--aye, fairly vaunted--his ignorance.

“5. From time immemorial there have been schisms and divisions among religious sects and denominations. And now with the newer light that we have, even the light of the knowledge of one God immanent in all men, many still cling to external differences, so postponing, instead of hastening, the day of the millennium; at least they postpone it for themselves.

“6. I want, if possible, to help break down the seeming ‘middle wall of partition‘ (Ephesians 2:14), even as Christ, the living Christ, does in reality break down or destroy all misunderstanding. I want to help you to see that there is no real wall of difference between all the various sects of the new theology, except such as appear to you because of your circumscribed view. I want you to see, if you do not already, that everytime you try to limit God's manifestation of Himself in any person or through any person, in order to make that manifestation conform to what you see as Truth, you are only crying loudly: ‘Ho! everyone, come and view my narrowness and my ignorance!’

“7. I want to stimulate you to lose sight of all differences, all side issues and lesser things, and seek but for one thing--that is the consciousness of the presence of an indwelling God in you and your life. And believe me, just as there is less separation between the spokes of a wheel the nearer they get to the hub, so you will find that the nearer you both come to the perfect Center, which is the Father, the less difference will there be between you and your brother.

“8. The faith healer, he who professes to believe only in what he terms ‘divine healing’ (as though there could be any other healing than divine), differs from the so-called spiritual scientist only in believing that he must ask, seek, knock, importune, before he can receive; while he of the Truth teaching knows that he has already received God's free gift of life and health and all things, and that by speaking the word of Truth the gifts are made manifest. Both get like results (God made visible) through faith in the invisible. The mind of the one is lifted to a place of faith by asking or praying; the mind of the other is lifted to a place of faith by speaking words of Truth.

“9. Is there any real difference?

“10. The mental scientist usually scorns to be classed with either of the other two sects. He loudly declares that ‘all is mind’ and that all the God he knows or cares anything about is the invincible, unconquerable I within him, which nothing can daunt or overcome.

“11. He talks about conscious mind and subconscious mind, and he fancies that he has something entirely different from the infinitely higher than either of the other sects. He boldly proclaims, ‘I have Truth; the others are in error, too orthodox,’ and thus he calls the world's attention to the small size of the aperture through which he is looking at the stupendous whole.

“12. Beloved, as surely as you and I live, it is all one and the same Truth. There may be a distinction, but it is without difference.

“13. The happy person who will from his heart exclaim, ‘Praise the Lord!’ no matter what occurs to him, and who thereby finds that ‘to them that love God all things work together for good‘ (Romans 8:28), is in reality saying the ‘all is good’ of the metaphysician. Each one does simply ‘in all thy ways acknowledge him [or God, good]‘ (Proverbs 3:6), which is indeed a magical wand, bringing sure deliverance out of any trouble to all who faithfully use it.

“14. The teachings of spirit are intrinsically the same, because Spirit is one. I heard an uneducated woman speak in a most orthodox prayer meeting some time ago. She knew no more of religious science than a babe knows of Latin. Her face, however, was radiant with the light of the Christ manifest through her. She told how, five or six years before, she had been earnestly seeking to know more of God (seeking in prayer, as she knew nothing about seeking spiritual light from people), and one day, in all earnestness, she asked that some special word of His will might be given directly to her as a sort of private message. These words flashed into her mind: ‘If therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. . . .No man can serve two masters‘ (Matthew 6:22-24).

“15. She had read these words many times, but that day they were illumined by Spirit; and she saw that to have an eye ‘single’ meant seeing but one power in her life; while she saw two powers (God and Devil, good and evil) she was serving two masters. From that day to this, though she had passed through all sorts of troublous circumstances--trials of poverty, illness in family, intemperate husband--she found always the most marvelous, full, and complete deliverance out of them all by resolutely adhering to the ‘single’ eye--seeing God only. She would not look even for a moment at the seeming evil to combat it or rid herself of it, because, as she said, ‘Lookin' at God with one eye and this evil with the other is bein' double-eyed, and God told me to keep my eye single.’

“16. This woman, who had never heard of any science, or metaphysical teaching, or laws of mind, was combating and actually overcoming the tribulations of this world by positively refusing to have anything but a single eye. She had been taught in a single day by infinite Spirit the whole secret of how to banish evil and have only good and joy in her. Isn't it all very simple?

“17. At the center, all is one and the same God forevermore. I believe that the veriest heathen that ever lived, he who worships the golden calf as his highest conception of God, worships God. His mind has not yet expanded to a state where he can grasp any idea of God apart from a visible form, something that he can see with human eyes and handle with fleshly hands. But at heart he is seeking something higher than his present conscious self to be his deliverance out of evil.

“18. Are you and I, with all our boasted knowledge, doing anything more or different?

“19. The Spirit at the center of even the heathen, who is God's child, is thus seeking, though blindly, its Father-God. Shall anyone dare to say that it will not find that which it seeks--its Father? Shall we not rather say it will find, because of that immutable law that ‘he that seeketh findeth‘ (Matthew 7:8)?

“20. You have now come to know that, at the center of your being, God (omnipotent power) ever lives. From the nature of your relationship to Him, and by His own immutable laws, you may become conscious of His presence and eternally abide in Him and He in you.

“21. The moment that any man really comes to recognize that which is absolute Truth--namely, that one Spirit, even the Father, being made manifest in the Son, ever lives at the center of all human beings--he will know that he can cease forever from any undue anxiety about bringing others into the same external fold that he is in. If your friend, or your son, or your husband, or your brother does not see Truth as you see it, do not try by repeated external arguments to convert him.

“22. ‘And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto myself‘ (John 12:32). That which is needed is not that you (the human, which is so fond of talk and argument) try to lift up your brother. The Holy Spirit, or Christ within him, declares: ‘And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men‘ (John 13:32). You can silently lift up this I within the man's own being, and it will draw the man up unto--what? Your teaching? No, unto Christ, the divine in him.

“23. Keep your own light lifted up by living the victorious life of Spirit. And then, remembering that your dear one, as well as yourself, is an incarnation of the Father, keep him silently committed to the care of his own divine Spirit. You do not know what God wants to do in him; you never can know.

“24. If you fully recognize that the God that dwells in you dwells in all men, you know that each one's own Lord, the Christ within each one, will make no mistake. The greatest help that you can give to any man is to tell him silently, whenever you think of him: ‘The Holy Spirit lives within you; He cares for you, is working in you that which He would have you do, and is manifesting Himself through you.’ Then let him alone. Be at perfect rest about him, and the result will be infinitely better than you could have asked.

“25. Keep ever in mind that each living person in all God's universe is a radiating center of the same perfect One, some radiating more and some less, according to the awakened consciousness of the individual. If you have become conscious of this radiation in yourself, keep your thought centered right there, and the Spirit of the living God will radiate from you in all directions with mighty power, doing without noise or words a great work in lifting others up. If you want to help others who are not yet awakened to this knowledge, center your thoughts on this same idea of them--that they are radiating centers of the All-Perfect. Keep your eye ‘single’ for them, as did the uneducated woman for herself, and Spirit will teach them more in a day than you could in years.

“26. Throughout the ages man has leaned to the idea of separateness instead of oneness. He has believed himself separate from God and separate from other men. And even in these latter days when we talk so much about oneness, most teachers of metaphysics manage again to separate God's children from Him by saying that while the child may suffer the Father knows no suffering nor does He take cognizance of the child's suffering; that we, His children, forever a part of Him, are torn and lacerated, while He, knowing nothing of this, goes on as serenely and indifferently as the full moon sails through the heavens on a winter night.

“27. It is little wonder that many, to whom the first practical lessons in the gospel of the Christ came as liberation and power, should in time of failure and heartache have turned back to the old limited belief of the Fatherhood of God.

“28. There is no real reason why we, having come to recognize God as infinite substance, should be by this recognition deprived of the familiar fatherly companionship that in all ages has been so dear to the human heart. There is no necessity for us to separate God as substance and God as tender Father; no reason why we should not, and every reason why we should, have both in one; they are one--God principle outside of us as unchangeable law, God within us as tender, loving Father-Mother, who has compassion for our every sorrow.

“29. There is no reason why, because in our earlier years some of us were forced into the narrow puritanical limits that stood for a religious belief, we should now so exaggerate our freedom as to fancy that we are entirely self-sufficient and shall never again need the sweet, uplifting communion between Father and child. The created, who ever lives, moves, and has his being in his Creator, needs the conscious presence of that Creator, and cannot be entirely happy in knowing God only as cold, unsympathetic Principle. Why cannot both conceptions find lodgment in the minds and hearts? Both are true, and both are necessary parts of a whole. The two were made to go together, and in the highest cannot be separated.

“30. God as the underlying substance of all things, God as principle, is unchanging, and does remain forever uncognizant of and unmoved by the changing things of time and sense. It is true that God as principle does not feel pain, is not moved by the cries of children of men for help. It is a grand, stupendous thought that this power is unchanging law, just as unchanging in its control of our affairs as it is in the government of the starry heavens. One is fairly conscious of his entire being's expanding into grandeur as he dwells on the thought.

“31. But this is not all, any more than the emotional side is all. True, there is law; but there is gospel also. Nor does gospel make law of no effect; it fulfills law. God is principle, but God is individual also. Principle becomes individualized the moment it comes to dwell in external manifestation in a human body.

“32. Principle does not change because of pity or sympathy, even ‘as a father pitieth his children‘ (Psalms 103:13). The Father in us always moves into helpfulness when called on and trusted. It is as though infinite wisdom and power, which outside are Creator, Upholder, and Principle, become transformed into infinite love, which is Father-Mother, with all the warmth and tender helpfulness that this word implies, when they become focalized, so to speak, within a human body.

“33. I do not at all understand it, but in some way this indwelling One does move to lift the consciousness of His children up and to place it parallel with God, Principle, Law, so that no longer two are crossed, but the two--aye, the three--the human consciousness, the individual father, and the Holy Spirit--are made one. In every life, with our present limited understanding, there come times when the bravest heart goes down, for the moment, under the apparent burdens of life; times when the strongest intellect bends like a ‘reed shaken with the wind‘ (Matthew 11:7), when the most self-sufficient mind feels a helplessness that wrings from it a cry for help from ‘the rock that is higher that I‘ (Psalms 61:2).

“34. Every metaphysician either has reached, or must in the future reach, this place; the place where God as cold principle alone will not suffice any more than in the past God as personality alone could wholly satisfy. There will come moments when the human heart is so suddenly struck as to paralyze it, and for the moment it is impossible, even with strained effort, to think right thoughts.

“35. At such times there will come but little comfort from the thought: ‘This suffering comes as a result of my wrong thinking; but God, my Father, takes no cognizance of it: I must work it out unaided and alone.’ Just here we must have, and we do have, the motherhood of God, which is not cold Principle any more than your love for your child is cold. I would not make God as Principle less, but God as individual more.

“36. The whole business of your Lord (the Father in you) is to care for you, to love you with an everlasting love, to note your
slightest cry, and to rescue you.

“37. Then you ask, ‘Why doesn't He do it?’ Because you do not recognize His indwelling and His power, and by resolutely
affirming that He does now manifest Himself as your all-sufficiency, call Him forth into visibility.

“38. God (Father-Mother) is a present help in time of need; but there must be a recognition of His presence, a turning away
from human efforts, and an acknowledgement of God only (a single eye) before He becomes manifest.”


- posted by Charles DeTurk @ 12:01 AM