I.
The Nature of God
God is in everything and everything is
in God.
There is only the oneness of God. God is
not three persons, but one unmanifest and ineffable Essence out of which
everything comes.
The Essence of this One is found in
every living thing.
God is omnipresent, God is Omniscient,
God is Omnipotent. This means that God is everywhere present. "There is
not a spot where God is not. " And at every spot, the allness of God is
present. God is all knowing. All of the necessary intelligence is
everywhere present. God is all powerful. All of the necessary will and
volition to overcome any obstacle is already present.
God is not a person, but an eternal
Principle that appears as Law, Being, Mind, Spirit, the Cause and Source
of All. This Principle becomes personal to us as Love and Wisdom when we
commune with It.
It is in the human mind where the
meeting ground between Spirit and the individual is found. This Universal
Energy is then available to any person who wishes to be open to It.
There is one Truth found in all
religions. The Truth is that the divinity of God is found in every person.
It may be called "Atman" to the Hindu, "Buddha nature" to the Buddhist,
the "Tao" to the Taoist, the "Oversoul" to Emerson, "Wisdom" to Quimby,
"Essence" to the Sufi, or "Christ" to the Christian.
II. The Creative Process
Spirit, the First Cause of All,
manifests Itself into creation through the action of Nous, (Divine Mind)
placing its Divine Ideas into Soul. (The Law)
Spirit, the Consciousness of All.
Consciousness, then chooses to manifest through the process of thought.
Consciousness becomes the Thinker, the Thinker chooses the thought, and
the thought becomes the thing.
The way in which a person perceives and
interprets an event becomes reality for that person. This is the beginning
of the idea that "thoughts are things" and "things are thick thought," and
also the idea that things don't happen to a person, they happen through a
person.
By perceiving the relative world, we
only receive a glimpse, or a mere reflection of spiritual reality. There
is much more to life than meets the eye.
The physical world is real but does not
have independent significance. Body is created out of Mind and therefore
conditions that occur in our bodies are a result of our thinking.
Nature as the last hierarchy of Spirit
is not fixed but fluid.
God is all there is and manifests Itself
into creation, including human beings. The creative power in the universal
is the same creative power in the individual. God immanent is God in
creation. God transcendent is that unmanifested Power and Presence that is
greater than creation. Spirit is conscious, and to be conscious, Spirit
must be conscious of something. When It contemplates what It is conscious
of, It is creative.
The process of involution, is the
passing of Spirit into form. The process of evolution is the passing of
form back into Spirit. The original creative process of Spirit becoming
form is the process of God involving Itself in creation, involution. The
process of creation coming to the realization that it is Spirit in an
ever-progressive way is the process of evolution, evolving back into the
consciousness of Spirit.
Evolution proceeds generically and
mechanically up to the point of the introduction of the Personal Factor.
"Without the element of individual personality, Spirit can only work
cosmically by a generic law. But this law admits a far higher
specialization, and this specialization can only be attained through the
introduction of the Personal Factor." The Personal Factor is the decision
of the self-conscious individual to consciously participate in the
evolutionary process. This begins when individuals discover and realize
that they are intimately connected with the universal power of God.
Through the Personal Factor, the self-conscious individual participates
and further specializes the evolutionary process, which culminates when
individuals consciously realize their oneness with Spirit at all times.
There is a reciprocal relationship
between Spirit and the Individual. As individuals open to the universal,
the universal seems to pour Itself into the individual, resulting in
expanded individualization of consciousness. Individuals wish to express
fully and completely as an individuals. This desire pushes them into
higher states of consciousness. The Universal Spirit, through its
reciprocal action, wishes to express through the individual, and therefore
meets the individual in universal mind. It is like a plant that is pushing
itself up from below towards the sun and, at the same time, the sun is
pulling the plant toward its universal rays. This reciprocal action must
begin with the individual opening to the possibility of a greater power.
Individuals invite the universal into their mind, and the universal
accepts and pours forth according to the degree of acceptance of the
individual.
Will is the consciously and
orderly announcement of purpose to the subconscious mind. The will focuses
spiritual energy for a particular purpose. There is a universal will of
God for growth and for good. But there is no individual will of God for
us. We must use the Personal Factor to put our individualized will into
action. The combination of the grace of God and the will of the individual
that produces regeneration. The grace of God is the gift of Spirit that
has already been given. It is the universe waiting to particularize itself
as us, but it will not do so unless we will it to be, by the use of the
Personal Factor. God alone is only potential. The individual alone is
limited. But together, unlimited potential becomes manifest reality. God
needs humanity to express God. Humanity needs God to fully express
humanity. "The universal can only work on the plane of the particular
through the individual." Thus, we come to our true place in the cosmic
order; that is, to distribute divine power by the use of individual mind.
We are not the creators of divine power, we are distributors.
III. The Nature of The Individual
We are spiritual beings who have chosen
to incarnate on the physical plane.
We have the absolute right to find and
live our own unique relationship with God.
We were born from original blessing. God
loves each and every one of us with an everlasting love. We are made out
of the goodness of God.
We have a deep faith in our goodness as
individuals. We will find the way to the Truth in our perfect right time.
No one can force us to believe something against our will.
All people have the absolute right to
find and live their own spiritual path. We must have faith and trust that
each in their own way will be able "to sort the wheat from the chaff" and
come into their own spiritual realization of Truth.
The Truth cannot be found in any book or
institution, but in the silence of our own soul.
Goodness and Truth depend on no
condition or outer event. Despite outer conditions and historical forces,
our goodness and virtue as individuals prevail.
Therefore, if we truly know our
own soul then we know God.
IV. The Nature of the Soul
Deep within each of us is an inner
Wisdom. It is a faculty of our immortal soul and by contemplating the
universe from this soul level, we can achieve harmony and fulfillment in
our lives.
Wisdom is the highest faculty of the
soul and is potentially perfect in every person.
The individualized soul is immortal. It
has never been created and can never be destroyed.
The Presence of God is found in our
soul. It is the knower within us that knows.
As we commune with our God-nature, our
divinity within, we open ourselves to the Universal Power and Presence of
God. Our individual soul is the portal of entry for the Universal Spirit.
The soul is multifaceted and knows
itself on many levels, the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. When
it truly knows itself on the spiritual level, all the lower levels are
lifted up and spiritualized.
The soul actually participates in
creating its own experience.
We are to be public and universal souls.
As we rest at the level of our
universal self, we speak our uniqueness with honesty, integrity and
courage.
V. The Relationship Between The Individual and
The Universal
We have access to the entire Mind of the
Creator and are ourselves a creator in the finite.
There is only One Mind, and that Mind is
God, and that Mind is our Mind now. We allow the genius of our mind to
come forth and express as us.
We do this through love. We are to love
God intimately, intensely and immediately.
Infinite Personalness is really the love
of God that cannot be explained but can only be experienced. It is also
called "The Presence." It has both intelligence and volition. "We touch
the face of God when we reach that indescribable reciprocity of feeling by
which we instinctively recognize something in another, making it kin to
ourselves. This is the true meaning of worship. When the individual
conscious mind comes into direct contact with universal mind, cosmic
intelligence becomes individualized and individual intelligence becomes
universalized. The two become one. I am the person that thou art, and thou
art the person that I am."
Truth is Universal. "No man, or
woman, nor angel, nor archangel has a copyright on Truth." All claims of
exclusive inspiration of whatever nature are fraudulent. And Truth gets
distorted in organizations. The body of each man and women is the temple
of the living God, not some religious institution.
VI. The Purpose of Life
Everything has a purpose and everything,
including humanity, is in the process of fulfilling its purpose.
The process of humanity unfolding into
divinity is called life. It is the true purpose of each person.
It is the goal for every human being to
become like God.
The Ultimate Purpose of Science of Mind
is to facilitate conscious union with God. This is done through right
contemplation.
We are to contemplate our spiritual
nature, not to escape the world of effect, but to actively participate in
it. We are to be in the world but not of it.
We are the product of spiritual
evolution and we are still evolving.
Both the individual soul and the planet
Earth are progressing towards the time of God realization. Each of us have
a responsibility, once we have become aware of our divinity, to help
others wake up. In the long run, all will realize their innate divinity,
but with our knowledge, we can bring that day closer and help prevent
great suffering.
The Divine Kingdom is coming. The
evolutionary process proceeds through the mineral kingdom, the plant
kingdom, the animal kingdom, the human kingdom, and culminates in the
Divine Kingdom. The coming of the Divine Kingdom is the kingdom of
unconditional love on this planet. It occurs when the individual
consciously has totally integrated individual mind with Universal Mind,
i.e. there is no difference in essence. When enough individuals have
achieved this state of consciousness, the Divine Kingdom manifests in a
planetary way.
VII. The Nature of Evil
Evil is the result of human
ignorance of its true nature. The Gnostics tried to explain evil as a
result of a Cosmic Fall. The Christian Church speaks of a rebellion in
heaven and original sin. Neither solve the fundamental problem. If God is
all, omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent, and God is good, the only
way evil could have started is through God. But this solution offends
logic and our intuition about the goodness of God. We teach that every
person has goodness within them, but each person must make that discovery
alone. . During this process, mistakes and errors will be made. Some learn
slower than others. Evil is obstinate ignorance.
VIII. The Power of Prayer
Prayer is the contemplation of the facts
from the highest point of view.
Prayer has different purposes, but the
primary purpose is for conscious communion with God. Prayer is like a
spiritual ladder on which one climbs towards God.
There are different stages of prayer and
we should pray in a way that feels natural to us. If we earnestly seek the
Love of God, God will show us the perfect way. It is perfectly proper to
pray for things, conditions, events and outcomes, as long as our prayer
hurts no one and does not invade in any way their freedom of choice. It is
also proper to pray for greater consciousness, the consciousness of
prosperity, abundance, love, health, harmony and great faith. But the
highest form of prayer is for conscious communion with God. When we are in
conscious communion, God is not an impersonal power or our heavenly Father
or our senior partner in our affairs. God is our intimate lover. Our love
for God and God's love for us merge together into the One Love-Beloved
Healing and wholeness take place, not as
a result of effort or willpower but by gently aligning with the flow of
the universe.
True healing occurs through the
process of Realization. The practitioner realizes the spiritual perfection
in the client by realizing perfection in his own mind. This is done by
communing with Wisdom, the perfect pattern of perfection contained in all
life. By communing with this Wisdom within , the practitioner
automatically communes with Wisdom within the client and by focusing his
consciousness on Wisdom, the perfection of Wisdom automatically unfolds
into manifestation. From the divine pattern of wholeness comes the divine
manifestation of health.
IX. The Power of Community
We grow together in Spirit through a
spiritual community of like-minded individuals. Where two or more
individuals are gathered together in the consciousness of "The I Am," the
spiritual power generated by the group is much greater than the power of
the sum of the individuals.
Service and Love for others opens us to
this power and brings fulfillment to our lives.
The best way to heal ourselves is
to love and serve others. "For the goodness and wholeness you intend for
others will return to you in divine measure."
X. Approach to Spirit
New Thought is more than a philosophy
that explains our true relationship to the Divine. It is a new level of
awareness, where everything we think is new, and where we continually
create from Principle (our divine potential) and not from precedent(our
past experience). "Principle is not bound by precedent."
We must be willing to approach Spirit
with complete faith, but not with blind faith or faith without reason.
Faith, in derogation of reason, is not faith but foolishness.
As we open ourselves to Spirit, Spirit
opens Itself to us.
The true spiritual relationship is not
the individual and God. It is the individual in God. We find our true
likeness by radical reliance on God until it becomes radical reliance in
God. By letting go of our small self, our ego needs, and our defense
mechanisms and totally relying in absolute faith on God, we do not
disappear into a universal cosmic ocean, we become in full manifestation,
unique and divine individualizations in God. This is true faith.
There is spiritual cause and material
effect. We can experience the truth of spiritual cause through the
intuition.
Intellect and reason are useful as maps
and concepts but are in themselves mere opinion.
Direct spiritual experience is uniquely
individual and should not be compared with the experiences of others.
Detachment is the ability to
participate in life from the inside-out. It means being centered in
Spirit, regardless of what outer conditions are occurring. It does not
mean separation from life, or standing apart from others. It means fully
participating in life, but from the point of view of cause and not
conditions.
XI. The Path of The Christ
The spiritual essence in Jesus is the
same spiritual essence in your and me and in all humanity. The "Only
begotten of the Father" is all of the sons and daughters of the living
God." You and I are the "apple of God's eye."
Jesus, through the crucifixion and
resurrection proved once and for all that we have an immortal soul and
that our individualized consciousness survives death. Jesus did not die
for our sins. He demonstrated eternal life, so that we might believe that
we are not merely material beings in a physical body but spiritual beings.
Jesus was a way shower and teacher of
the Christ. Jesus and the Christ are not identical. "Jesus was not born
the Christ any more than Lincoln was born the President of the United
States." He gradually became the Christ.
Jesus is the great example and not the
great exception. He came to Earth as a way shower to lead humanity back to
spiritual consciousness.
Atonement means At-One-Ment. Spiritual
Atonement is the process whereby we harmonize our individual wills with
the will of God. The ancient Jewish people believed that atonement could
best be achieved by sacrifice, but as they begin to grow in the
consciousness of God, they heard their God say "I abhor your sacrifices
and your rituals. I desire your compassion and your love." Jesus himself
made this very plain when he said "I desire compassion and not sacrifice."
The way to union and harmony with God is compassion and love. It cannot be
done indirectly by some kind of vicarious atonement. At-One-Ment is
achieved individually one person at a time.
The messiah, the anointed one of God is
already in your heart. No third person can save you, no supernatural
intervention will save you. You can only save yourself, by realizing and
living from the divinity within you. You are the beloved, anointed one of
God.
