Foundations of Unity
Series I Vol. I
Edited for home study
Originally published under the title “Beginning Again,” by Frank B. Whitney
UMITSd
Unity Village, Missouri
Contents
Lesson I..................................... 5
The One Desire of All Men
Lesson II ...................................13
The Approach to Life: Understanding God
Lesson III...................................21
Prayer without Mystery
Lesson IV....................................29
Governed Solely by the Law of God
Lesson V ....................................37
A New Beginning in Health
Lesson VI....................................45
Making a New Start in Personal Finances
Lesson VII...................................53
Transforming Personal Relationships Spiritual Diary..............................59
Lesson I
The One Desire of All Men
There is one desire that all men have in common, the desire to be able to take a new hold on life. This desire is most keenly felt after the individual has made mistakes, after he has experienced some shock of failure, after he has been thwarted in his efforts to progress. He sees the season of spring come to present the old world to itself in a new guise. He sees bud and flower revealing a new world to his gaze. He too wants to begin again. There may be a little touch of envy in his heart that the world can seemingly be reborn overnight. The early morning dawn discloses to him a new world. In his heart of hearts there is a soul cry: “I too should like to be born again with the morning dawn. I should like to begin again!”
Spring has a silent, mystic message for him whose heart is attuned to it, whose soul can receive it. It is the universal message of new life superseding old, new ideas replacing useless and crystallized ideas. It sings the song of springtime to man’s
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heart and soul. It sings to him also of that eternal springtime which he can find within himself when his thought is directed to the inner Spirit of new life.
The dawning of a new day teaches another phase of the truth and continues to emphasize the thought of new beginnings. Man recalls how yesterday evening the inky blackness of night wiped out a day as if it had never existed. The sun rises with no memory in his heart of what happened the day before! Its sunny countenance peeks over the horizon and awakens the whole world—to a new day? No; to a new existence, a new life.
The sun has always had a strange fascination for us. Instinctively we turn toward it when we are in despair. We feel that it will smile with us, for us, and at us when all else would seem to discourage us. Man worshiped the sun at one time as the god of new life, the god of new beginnings. In the evolution of soul experience he came to find in himself the Spirit of which the sun is a poor counterpart.
There are, of course, those who have not caught the mystical message of spring and sunrise. They have failed to find within themselves the Spirit of eternal spring and sunrise. Their inner vision, the eye of their soul, for the time being is blinded to the presence of indwelling Spirit. They know not their own God, the God of spring and sunrise, the God of new beginnings, the God of beginning again.
There once was a man who waited patiently for the voice of encouragement. He found his cry heard, his soul desire fulfilled. He was tired of his old song of despair. In his patience he had caught
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something of the vision of better things. The song of praise came to his heart, a new song, a song of rising up out of despair, a new note of victory.
I waited patiently for Jehovah;
And he inclined unto me, and heard my cry,
He brought me up also out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay;
And he set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings.
And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God.
In a modern world so needful of a new song this experience of David’s finds its counterpart on every hand. All of us know those in the pit of despair and discouragement who need a new song in their heart. “Harping on the same old tune” is a phrase often applied to those who continue to murmur and complain even when those about them catch the vision of new beginnings and sing a new song of going forward to new success.
The writer of Lamentations in thinking of the loving-kindnesses of the Lord said, “They are new every morning.” The man whose thought is upon the blessings of a new day cannot at the same time give his thought to his failures of the day before.
One of the difficulties encountered by teachers, ministers, and friendly counselors of others in trying to help those who come for advice is, that of getting them to take a new hold. A person who years ago committed some act of indiscretion perhaps believes that in the sight of God he has committed an unpardonable sin. Another is so bound
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in the thought of being frustrated in his efforts and of having failed in his attempts to succeed that he has no heart or spirit left for trying again. Another believes that there is no use in trying again because every door is closed to him. On every hand we find a large number of persons who need the message of new courage, new life, new endeavor.
The one desire of all men is to feel that they can begin anew, that they can greet each new day with the feeling of a new life, that they can feel the urge to press forward when things would seemingly retard them. Within the human soul there always is this urge. In fact even those who have not caught the message of hope and beginning again instinctively feel that such a thing should be possible to them. Even the faintest glimpse of the working of their inner Spirit is sufficient to cause them to push forward and upward.
Do we not see that much of humanity is divided into two classes, those who despair, and those who have courage to advance? Those who believe that things of the world can defeat them and those who know that they have within them something that is undefeatable. Those who allow an early disappointment to dampen their spirits and those who use it as a stepping-stone. Those who become engulfed by seeming defeat and those who gain a valuable and practical lesson from it. Those who let things master them and those who master things. Those who let circumstances shout “Failure” to them and those who let their indwelling spirit cheer them on with “Try again!”
The first thing the individual is called upon to decide is this: Where is the focus of power? Men in
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previous times believed that the power of their destiny, the power regulating success or failure, was something existing outside of themselves. They felt themselves to be at the mercy of this power and its apparent inconsistencies. They were powerless, because they believed themselves to be without power. To them power was external. It belonged to some God external to them.
Many men believe that other persons have power over them, that to others is given the power to say whether success or failure will come. We can see that one of man’s desires is for freedom and independence. Man wants to feel that he can begin life all over again at any time without being bound by what others think or say about the matter.
Now comes to us the question, To what extent can the great desire of our heart be realized, to what extent can we make a new beginning? Has Walter Malone in his poem “Opportunity” expressed a mighty truth unknown to most persons when he declares, “At sunrise every soul is born again”? Is the innate desire to be born again at dawn something that you have discovered must be fulfilled? Does your soul demand the opportunity of taking a new lease on life at the beginning of each new day?
Possibly in order to do so you will need to change your entire viewpoint. You may need to reconstruct your faith, your philosophy of life. You may need to get an entirely new conception of God, of what and where He is, of yourself and your relation to Him. You may need to discipline your thinking in a way that you have not done before. You may need to see your world, your life,
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your environment, and your associates in an entirely new light. But if your life in the past has been bound to limitations of various kinds, if each day has found you in bondage to the mistakes of yesterday, you will welcome any change in your mental world if only you can attain the ideal of being able to rise again from every fall or stumble, to take a new hold on life when some effort has proved futile.
Certainly the individual who has not succeeded in the past should be mentally receptive to any suggestion or help that will plant his feet on higher ground and give him a new start. We cannot think that he will long resist accepting any philosophy of life that can give him something that his own has not yielded.
So if your mind in the past has been closed to new ideas, you will probably find relief from tension just by giving this message to you a courteous welcome. No doubt for many persons the simple matter of being open and broad-minded will prove to be a stepping-stone to beginning again.
The message to be presented to you, the help offered to you, will be given in plain, simple language, devoid of confusing terms in theology or psychology. We aim to have you feel that the message does not come to you as someone else’s theory but rather as a thought that finds confirmation in your own heart when it is presented to you. This is the test of Truth. The court of final appeal is that inner sanctuary where something says to you, “This is true,” and “That is false.” If you have not found that inner realm, in discovering it you will find assurance that you have taken a new hold on a new power within you.
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Have you thought you knew how to pray? You may need to find a new way to pray if your old method has not been productive, if in the past your prayers have not been answered. If you have been held in bondage to old conditions in your body that need to be transformed into health, you may need to accept a new idea about health, the source of it, what you yourself can do in order to bring it about.
Personal finances and success? Is there a person anywhere who has not had to begin again after some disappointment in business? There may be those who approach these lessons with but one thing in mind: taking a new hold on personal finances. Many of them will need to be given an entirely new outlook upon the subject of personal finances before they can begin again.
You can see that for some persons the matter of taking a new hold will seem to be Herculean in proportions. Our object will be to make our instruction so simple and so practical that such persons may rejoice in little victories early in their course of study and lose sight of what has seemed to be difficult or irksome.
So with something of a preview of what lies before us, with mind and heart open and receptive to this message of help and inspiration, let us begin life anew with the first of all considerations, What is God?
“For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; and the former things shall not be remembered.”
Isa. 65:17
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Lesson II
The Approach to Life: Understanding God
Were man always able to approach the situations and conditions of his life with a correct understanding of the nature of the higher power in his life, he would be in the position of being able to handle successfully whatever circumstance should arise. Early in life the individual finds that the things of the world are likely to overpower him unless he finds some means by which to wield power over them. He learns something of a supreme power and begins to wonder to what extent he can use it in the situations and emergencies of his life.
The conception of the nature of God varies according to the illumination and enlightenment of each individual. Men of centuries ago had an entirely different conception of God from what we have today. People in remote parts of the world today have alien conceptions of God that we in the civilized world do not always understand. We can see that time and place have something to do with
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understanding God.
The conception of God as some personal being in some remote part of the universe, whom we cannot reach during life but can know only through ceasing to live, a belief in God as afflicting us with evil, disease, and poverty according to His whim, is one that is often presented to us. Possibly in our own experience we have entertained such a belief. We have located God in the distance and in the future; we have also thought of an angry side to His nature as well as a benevolent one. Possibly when some gleam of a newer version of the nature of God was given us, we still felt an urge to be loyal to the God of the past.
We have come to think of the writings of the Old Testament as presenting God as an arbitrary judge sentencing the evildoer to inescapable punishment. The teachings and influence of Jesus in the New Testament declare that “God is Spirit” and “God is love.” Were we to grasp the truth of these simple statements, we should have the correct idea of God for all time. In fact virtually all of theology is wrapped up in this simple teaching of the nature of God.
Early worshipers of God feared to mention His name. They thought that to do so would bring upon them some danger. In the light of today’s understanding we believe that we cannot think of God or speak of Him often enough. His former remoteness has given place to nearness. Time and distance have been overcome in our thought. We think of Him as here and now present. We find it easier to think of ourselves as part of His omnipresence than to believe that we exist in some place other than within His omnipresence. We find
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it a much simpler theology to know that we share in God’s omnipotence than to conceive of our having some power apart from His. Thus we have a simple, usable, and practical understanding of God arrived at by following a plainer and less devious path than that of a complicated theology.
If you have found the study of God and your own relation to Him a difficult matter, why not make your approach to this study in a different way? Here is presented a new way to find out what God is. If all the writings on religion were destroyed or were unavailable to you, if you had no teacher to give you his personal opinion about religion, what could you do? Do you not believe that you could gradually evolve some religious philosophy of your own? Do you not think that there could be some language of your heart that could be spoken to you to define God for you? Could you not come to know God as love, since in your life and experience you would find love the supreme power?
During your reflecting would you not think of some source of life within you as back of and beyond the physical life of your body? Would you not come to know your own indwelling Spirit as the very Source of life? Could this realization not bring to you the feeling of your oneness with this Spirit, your utter inability to live apart from it? Could you not come to the startling realization that you could know more of this Spirit within you through knowing more of life than you could ever hope to know of it through ceasing to live?
In thinking of God you would gradually see that your higher thoughts brought you into closer relationship with Him. The truth would dawn upon
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you that your mind, your higher mind, has some connection with God. Your thoughts of peace, love, joy, beauty, and life would seem strangely akin to that which your heart would seek to present to you as the truth about God. Would you come to know God as Divine Mind?
In time of physical distress you might have the experience of feeling that deep within you there was some presence or power that had nothing to do with disease. Sometime when disease was apparent you might have the experience of giving your whole thought to this inner presence, only to find that as a result of your act the disease disappeared. Could this inner something, this presence and power of life, be also a presence and power of health?
At a time when you were living apart from the confusing opinions of others, you might discover that the simplest thought about God was revealing, that God was being revealed to you in countless ways in your day-by-day experiences. At a time when you needed food or supply, you might in thinking about God find an idea dawning upon your mind that would disclose to you the place where bountiful supply could be found. You might come to know the indwelling Spirit as something that you could depend on to guide you to supply whenever it was needed.
Your former impression of God as living in the distance and in the future would give way to the teaching of your heart. The conception of God as an arbitrary judge or schoolmaster would be replaced by a new and revealing knowledge that God is something altogether good in which there is no trace of evil, revenge, or malice.
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The individual often needs to unburden himself of much false knowledge about religion before he can make the right approach to life. He must get rid of many misconceptions before he can arrive at the correct understanding of what God is and what his own relation to God is. He must get rid of the belief in separation before he can conscientiously and sincerely accept the belief that God as Spirit lives within him and that he is inseparably joined with it.
A new life opens to the individual who gets the right conception of God. He enters into a new world. He closes a door behind him that forever shuts out ignorance and fear and superstition about God. He feels that he has been reborn into a new world. He is like some being coming into a new world, shorn of every adverse and impeding thought, awakening to possibilities and opportunities unlimited in their scope.
Approaching life by way of an understanding of God is but a method of assuring ourselves that something of God’s Spirit goes before us to smooth the path of life and to make life easier for us. Taking with us the realization that God is with us is in itself an assurance that all is well. We may need to approach unknown and unfamiliar situations, but we carry with us the confidence that these will be mastered in our behalf.
If this message has brought a new idea to you regarding your relation to God and life, if you are beginning to build up a new conception of what God is in your life, you are taking a new hold on life. You are entering into a new world. Regardless of who you are, of what you are doing at this moment, of what your situation in life is, you
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enter into a new consciousness of life, God, yourself, your opportunities, and your accomplishments.
The right understanding of what God is and of your relation to God is the working principle you need in solving your problems, whatever they may be. This working principle may have been unknown to you. In thinking and studying about God you have been given something like that which is given to the one who studies a science. You have been given a working principle: God. Is God principle? God is that reliable, constant, and dependable something which you can work with, just as the student of science who knows its principles has a reliable, constant, and dependable something.
At first you may find difficulty in defining God in this way. Do not quarrel with terms or inadequate language. Let the language of your heart be sufficient at present. Define Him in your own terms. Learn to build up your own conception of God and your own philosophy of life, as long as these are confirmed by the prompting of your heart. Learn to feel after God, to seek His presence and your oneness with Him. Even as God in the past may have seemed to be separated from you by distance and the future, learn now to think of these as impediments removed from your thought. Think of Him as united with you here and now.
The simplicity of the nature of God will quite naturally call for several adjustments in your life. Your old conception of God carries with it certain thought habits about life that may now need correction and adjusting to your new viewpoint.
The new thought about God may prove to be quite revolutionizing to your thought. Now that
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you have this new idea about God, in what way will you make use of it? In how many different ways can you prove God to have the nature that you have conceived Him as having? You see that the God of the newer interpretation, the new religion, is one that we may think of as an innately available God. Taking a new start in life with this interpretation of God, you are promised God as your help in every time of need as long as you can prove Him to your own satisfaction to be such in your life.
Since you have a new conception of God, will you need a new conception of prayer? Quite likely. The next step in knowing more of God and how to take a fresh hold upon life will be to find out how to apply the knowledge you have. What will you do with this working principle? How will you prove that God is Divine Mind, principle, love, life, peace, supply? The method we shall call prayer. Possibly in turning to God we have already found a hint of how to pray. Our next step will be to establish a conscious union with God and His blessings through prayer.
“. . . that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel after him. Yet he is not far from each one of us. ”
Acts 17:27
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Lesson III
Prayer without Mystery
Is it possible that in having a new outlook upon ourselves, God, life, and religion, some of the things that previously seemed mysterious have been made clear to us? In thinking about God and our relation to Him we may have even gone past some obstacles to be encountered in considering prayer. We may hardly have started to pray before being aware of what has taken place.
In no longer thinking of God as far off or as cruel in His dealings with us we find that we no longer need to beseech Him for the blessings we seek. In realizing that the Spirit of God abides within us and in knowing that God is loving in His attitude toward us, we find that we are in relations with Him quite as close as those which exist between us and our closest friend. Even thinking Godward gives us something of a blessing, and possibly we shall come to see that our thought of God and of our oneness with Him is itself prayer that is devoid of all complication and mystery.
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Desire in prayer is the soul’s becoming receptive to the thing it seeks. James Montgomery calls prayer “the soul’s sincere desire.” We can see that prayer in its early stage is but a preparation for and an expectation of the thing needed. Prayer is a yearning or a drawing near to God in the assurance that God and His blessings are at the same time drawing near to us. Emilie Cady speaks of these two movements in prayer in this way: “Desire in the heart is always God tapping at the door of your consciousness with His infinite supply.” Do you see that prayer comprises both asking and receiving, both invitation and acceptance?
We ask in prayer when we invite God to satisfy our longing for something seemingly missing from our life. Prayer is a yearning for a more complete life. God delivers His blessing at the door of our consciousness in His response. The process is the simplest thing in the world. The statement often made “Nature abhors a vacuum” is proved in the process of prayer, in which God is shown as being unable to withhold from man that which man seeks and needs.
Man in extremity is unwavering in his prayer. He knows exactly what is needed, and his cry to God is most definite. His emergency hurls him suddenly into a situation where he experiences “the soul’s sincere desire.” He senses that God is rushing help to his side. His getting away from fear and doubt awakens him to confidence and trust in God. God makes an opportunity out of his extremity.
Devoid of all the complicated explanations of various processes and steps and actions, prayer is simply a conscious communion between man and God, a conscious establishing of a relationship that
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has always existed, a state of being aware that God is actually giving the thing sought. Do you not see that the new revelation and presentation of religion pays less attention to asking in prayer and gives more thought to receiving? Do you see that in the past men often prayed amiss, because they became so involved in praying, became so enamored of prayer, that they did not give proper consideration to the thing sought, to God’s end of the matter? Their thought was so engrossed with thinking of their need that they could not hear “God tapping at the door” to deliver to them peace of mind, health of body, and bountiful supply.
Those who have caught the higher vision of prayer see that there must be one thing kept in mind: the thought of the individual and God drawing nearer and nearer together. This must be clear-cut in the thought. Any belief in separation, any thought of doubt, must be kept out of mind.
Confidence in God must be developed to the point where we go ahead with our plans in the positive expectation that at the proper time God will tap at the door with what we need. There must never be any wavering in faith. Prayer must be thought of as positive and affirmative, even at times when the mind is seemingly in a passive state.
The ideal is for the individual to keep himself in a state of constant prayer. Many persons, finding life in the modern world full of demands upon them, cannot hold to this ideal so well. They find that they must have seasons or periods for prayer. They discover that if they have definite times each day when they can turn to God and commune with Him, He turns to them, too, and is just as prompt in meeting His appointment. There are those who
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find that just before sleep is an excellent time to organize the mind in prayer and to entertain a definite thought of unity with God. An early morning hour, as upon awakening, is an excellent time to pray. Most persons can find at least a few minutes during midday in which to turn in thought to God and to realize their oneness with the blessings He has in store for them.
One of the best habits to acquire is that of being able to turn to God at any time and pray. If some situation arises that disturbs us, we turn from the thought of the disturbance and its effect upon us to the thought of God. We seek to sense His peace.
Sometimes in its willingness the mind needs to be “captured” to get into the mood of prayer. A good way for doing this is the use of the Lord’s Prayer. This prayer has power to throw us into the mood of prayer when nothing else seems to do the work. The prayer need not be taken up in the attitude of intellectually analyzing its meaning. No doubt every person has done that at some time in the past, so there is no question in his mind about its meaning. In place of this try the method of repeating the prayer slowly with great reverence, as if every word were sacred, as if you were praying in the invisible presence of God.
Make convenient and effective pauses as you use this prayer: “Our Father—who art in heaven— Hallowed be thy name . . .” Aim to get into something of the reverential mood characteristic of the prayer the first time it was prayed. You are not to be concerned with the wording of the prayer but about the effect it has upon you.
It is well to have on hand such prayers or declarations of faith as will help you to keep your atten-
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tion directed to God in prayer. Here are a few that will prove helpful to you:
I turn from every distracting thought and keep my attention upon the Spirit of God at the heart of my being.
I rise out of every inharmonious situation and am established in the presence and peace of God.
The light of God within me floods my whole being with the light of understanding.
You will find that you can easily formulate the prayer you need. Learn to pray for whatever you need.
As you become interested in this new way of prayer you will look forward to every occasion for prayer. Prayer will become so interesting to you that you will be drawn to it even as much as formerly you found yourself drawing away from it. Prayer will issue something of challenge to you. You will find yourself reaching more and more toward that which in the past has seemed unattainable. The answers to your slightest prayers will encourage you to undertake more and more in the way of prayer.
Life will take on a new and different meaning for you as you learn to pray in this positive and productive manner. You will begin to see all persons and all things in a new light. Even at this moment, having arrived at the present point in this message, no doubt you have begun to see prayer as having some very necessary place to fill in your life.
You pray for others when you sustain them by your constructive and uplifting thought, your realization that they live in the presence of God. You see them in your mind’s eye, through eyes of
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Spirit, as free from that which disturbs or limits them. The Spirit of God within you reveals them to you free from every limitation. You behold them as they exist in the sight of God.
Does not this way of seeing other persons present life to you from a new viewpoint? Have you grasped the truth of how far-reaching prayer
is,	how unlimited its scope and use? Do you not see that you are called upon in almost all situations to stop for just a moment and turn to God, to see His presence and His action in all that touches and concerns your life?
Keep in mind that prayer has caught your attention because of your interest in God. You have found a new way to pray because God has been presented to you in a new light. Your outlook upon the world is changing because your outlook upon God, the center of your world, has changed. Seeing God in a new light, you are able to pray with renewed confidence and assurance.
Prayer has both its mental and its spiritual aspects. Were we to pray without understanding, were we to pray without getting into the spirit of
it,	our prayer would be rather insignificant. Paul supplies us with this affirmation: “I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also.” Those who do not know the simple technique of prayer may try to rely solely upon their emotions for results. For example, we have the person who in prayer becomes more or less hysterical in pleading with God. We are called upon to be as sane in mind, as composed in our thought, and as poised in our emotions at the time of prayer as at any other time.
There are many ways in which we shall find that
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we can use prayer, times when we might have thought prayer could not be applied. We approach a point in our spiritual development when our life will be a succession of prayers. By this we mean that prayer will become so simple, so natural, to us that we shall apply it to all situations, even as a carpenter applies his rule or his level to every piece of his work.
Many persons never think of applying prayer to the frustrating situations of the day, to personal problems, to their relations with other persons. They may have believed that prayer could not be used in times of disease in order to come into more abundant health. They may need to see that prayer is at work in their business and affairs.
Now in the laboratory of prayer what shall we try prayer upon? How may we prove some of these new ideas of prayer? How may we take God at His word and prove the promises of the power of prayer?
“For every one who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. ”
Matt. 7:8
“And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith. ”
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Matt. 21:22
Lesson IV
Governed Solely by the Law of God
As we turn our thought to God, we find Him altogether good. As we seek to draw near to Him in order to apply some of the principles of Truth that we have been taught, we are impressed with the fact that God works in a direct, scientific, and orderly manner, just as do the laws of mathematics and science. As we have been taught to believe that there is but one God, so we come to know that in Truth there is but one law and that we are governed solely by this law, which is a law of good.
Man is inclined to be a lawmaker. He is disposed to make a lot of rules for himself, rules of health and disease, rules of conduct, rules to bless, and rules to punish. “Woe unto you lawyers also! for ye load men with burdens grievous to be borne, and ye yourselves touch not the burdens with one of your fingers.” If you are inclined to make a lot of “Thou shalt not’s” for yourself and others, you will find much relief when you realize that you are governed in Truth only by God and His law. You
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will take a new hold on life when you realize that the only law operating in your life is the law of good.
How often we turn to our Bible and find some passage either new to us or revealed to us with a new meaning! But can we find one Bible teaching to support that of metaphysics that we are governed by a law of good and are independent of the working of adverse laws? Does the Bible recognize God as law, as working to neutralize the action of laws in opposition to God? “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and of death.”
If we are to take a new hold on life, nothing can give us such a sense of newness as the consciousness that we are free from the influence of evil, sin, and adversity that have seemed to bind us in the past. As we draw nearer to God in prayer even this consciousness gives us a clean slate. The law of good operating in our lives annihilates all belief in any so-called law of sin, disease, fear, and lack.
Do you see that one of your first steps in approaching God in the new revelation of Truth, in the new method of prayer being revealed to you, is definitely knowing that God rules supreme in your life to the exclusion of all else? Deep, deep in your heart you must know that God is omnipotent at all times and under all circumstances, and not just when things are going well. It is taught in Truth that God is the law of good by which alone we are governed. This leads us to admit that no law of sin and death can operate in His domain, in the omnipresence of His good.
If God were not law, religion would be without foundation, Truth would be without background,
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life would be without order and in confusion. Were there no law in God’s world, man could not turn to God in prayer and get an answer. The fact that there is law and that it is altogether good is one of the greatest blessings in man’s experience.
The Old Testament had its “Thou shalt not.” From it derives man’s inclination to make laws and to be bound by them. After the world had heard the message of many teachers, Jesus came with a message based upon God’s law of love, the one and only law governing man in Truth. His is the master law. He is the master lawgiver before whom man’s laws of bondage cease to operate as cause and effect. This is the new dispensation.
The so-called law of sin and of death, of disease and failure, of fear and of lack, can operate in our thought only until such time as we become conscious of the law of the Spirit of life, the law of All-Good. Millions of men may believe themselves in slavery, under some law of bondage, but when the government declares the law of their freedom they are set free from the law of bondage. Their belief in the adverse law must change to belief in the law of good and of freedom.
There are conditions under which an electric current will not operate. If some powerful current comes into its field, the weaker current is neutralized. In the same way man’s belief in law does not operate when he becomes conscious of the operation of the higher law, that established in God and in Truth. We can readily see that the law of disease cannot operate in man’s experience when the truth of the law of health is at work. Man cannot be under the dominion of a law of evil touching some definite thing or situation when he has placed it
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and his affairs under the law of God.
You can see that in deciding to pray about your affairs, in gaining a new outlook upon your life, you must once and for all time be free from all belief that you are dominated by some presence or power other than God, the good. You cannot pray with a clean heart if your thought is clouded with the belief that some law of adversity is ruling you and your life. You must come to God in prayer with the knowledge that mind and heart are free from all belief that any law or any evil can rule your life. You must know God as omnipotent good ruling your life only as good.
All the problems of your past came because you believed that in some way evil was brought into your life. You consciously recognized evil as working as cause and effect. You believed that because some evil something did this or that it was empowered to affect your experience. You submitted to it because of the belief that it had the character of law.
Had man always recognized the one and only God, the one and only law, the law of good, the world would have been governed entirely by the goodness of God. Every law that man made would have been based upon this truth. There would have appeared in the world only peace, joy, health, love, and plenty. Man would not have conceived of some law of negation and adversity under which to place himself.
In the 119th Psalm many references are made to the law of God. Those who “walk in the law of Jehovah” are blessed. The statutes and ordinances of Jehovah are held up to us as rules of living. We see that those who walk by some law other than
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His do not have His blessing. They hold themselves outside the pale of His goodness.
Thinking of God as law is rather a serious proposition. There are those who feel that they might lose something by thinking of God in this way. They have yet to see that they have all to gain. Knowing God as law assures us of something definite. When we pray we know that we are complying with spiritual law, by which good is brought into visible and tangible expression. When we seek to rely upon God’s goodness, we know that it cannot disappoint us.
Many persons seeking to take a new hold on life will receive with surprise this teaching that God is law, that as such He sets at nought that which they have believed to be law. Some will grasp this mighty truth instantly and will see that God as the one and only law has promptly set them free from the bondage of adverse beliefs to which they have been subject.
This belief in adverse law is a very subtle one. Settle any question about it in your mind at once and for all time. Give your whole thought to God, to one law, to the law of good. Henceforth know no other law, have no other god. Establish your life upon the truth that God is the law of good operating in your life to the annihilation of any opposing or adverse law.
Right here someone may say: “But I have been told that this disease cannot be cured in less than a year, if at all. I have been told that I must not do this or that because of the hold disease has upon me.” Do you not see that you are continuing to keep yourself under bondage to the mental law of cause and effect in disease? The only way for you
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to be healed by the law of life is for you to believe in nought but God and to recognize nought but this law. What does man need with other gods or other laws? What could he want with more than one law, the law of good, working for him at all times and in all places?
Take a new hold on life at this very instant by determining to be loyal to God in all things. Your life can be one of joy and freedom. God requires of you that you be obedient in just one thing: Comply with His law of good. Is that so difficult to do? Is it difficult in your mind to exchange your belief in adverse law for the law of good? Is it not simpler and easier to have one law and its blessings than to be in bondage to the belief in a countless number of adverse laws with their consequent misfortunes?
As you study this message of Truth, strengthen your belief in the one law. Learn to apply it to every situation of your life. Be like the carpenter who must see to it that everything measures up to his rule. Apply the law of God to all things and measure things by God’s rule, not His rule by things. You are not called upon in your life to acquiesce in all manner of adverse experience. You are called upon to govern your world through the power of your indwelling Spirit. You can do this solely by using the law of good.
In all healing, in all demonstration of Truth, you must first get this matter of one law established in your thought. In Truth you cannot admit any opposite law. You cannot believe that some power of evil works as law in your life and at the same time be loyal and true to God, the law of good. As you study Truth learn each lesson as you go along. Learn to test all situations in this way: Is this
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founded upon the law of good? Does not God’s law of good apply to this situation as to all else? Am I loyal to God and to His law?
Your progress in spiritual understanding depends entirely on your recognizing it to the exclusion of all else. In your daily encounters with persons and things, you will meet on every hand the thought that man is bound by his belief in some adverse law. The truth still remains that God, the good, governs you only as the law of good.
The law of good is adaptable to every occasion. For instance, when you need freedom from some so-called law of fear and hate, it becomes the law of love. When you need to be free from so-called laws of misfortune and failure, it becomes the law of your success. This adaptability of the law acquaints us somewhat with God’s omnipresence, His being ever ready to serve us in the form in which He can best do so.
Take to your heart this all-powerful declaration of Truth:
“The law of good governs me solely, and I place my life and affairs under the influence of God’s constant love, peace, prosperity, and health. ”
“For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death. ”
Rom. 8:2
“But he who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer that forgets but a doer that acts, he shall be blessed in his doing. ”
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James 1:25
Lesson V
A	New Beginning
in Health
There are many who would like to emerge from a lifetime of disease and weakness, aches and pains, into the enjoyment of health. They feel they could take a new hold on life if they could but have a new beginning in the matter of health. They think they might live in a new world if they could only have a new lease on health.
They may have tried to pray for health, only to find that for some reason or other they were unsuccessful in obtaining it. They came to the conclusion that they needed to pray in a way different from that to which they had been accustomed. They hear of spiritual seekers making demonstrations of health through prayer and they seek to know the method of operation.
The person praying for health first needs to get several facts established in his mind. Even as disease has appeared in his life through his adverse thoughts, so will health appear through a spiritual understanding of life. Just as in other situations in
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life where success comes through a one-pointed purpose, a tenacious holding to certain principles, so health will come to a person through his holding clearly, definitely, and tenaciously to the thought and principle of health.
We have had some general instructions in Lesson 3 on “Prayer without Mystery.” In this chapter we shall apply prayer definitely to the problem of ill health. We shall see just what the process and method are by which health comes through prayer; how the student of Truth prays. Even as we got a new conception of prayer in a previous chapter, so we now come to the place in our lessons where we see what prayer does for us in the matter of physical well-being.
The highest form of prayer is that in which we instinctively and positively know that we are in touch with God and His blessings. In such prayer we rise above doubt and unbelief. We come to the place where we no longer reason pro or con in the matter of disease or health. The truth dawns upon us that in the sight of God we are whole and well. We pray in the sense of applying this universal truth to our physical condition.
The person who holds for himself the thought of disease and talks about it to the exclusion of all else is in a sense inviting disease. He is in the consciousness of disease and unable to escape from the manifestation of disease that naturally results. He may pray in some formal way for health once or twice daily however. He then wonders why his prayer for health is not answered.
In praying for health you must keep your mind on health at all times. You must think in terms of health even when disease is not yet conquered.
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Your success depends entirely on your letting the thought of health predominate over your former belief in disease. You must think of God as a force in your life that “thinks” health in and through you. Your own mind in a way ceases to think and to argue about the matter. The thought of God prevails in your mind to the exclusion of all else.
Do you see that in beginning anew, in taking a new hold on life, you have done something in the way of retracing your steps? You turn back from thinking of disease and holding for yourself the thought of disease. The truth that God thinks of you as whole and well, that He sees you as perfect and entire, becomes so powerful in your mind that you feel you can do nothing else than accept it.
There are those, especially beginners, who feel the need of some prayer or statement upon which to center their attention. They need this means by which to enter spiritual consciousness. A good statement is this:
From all belief in disease I turn to the presence of God, the presence of my abiding health.
You can readily see that if you grasp the truth of this metaphysical thought you have health. You cannot grasp its meaning and at the same time believe in disease.
If you feel the need of a statement that brings your attention more to the body, take this:
My body is the temple of the living God, filled with His presence of life, strength, and health.
As you pray you will find that you enter into a certain state of high intuition in which you instinctively know the truth of this statement. You would have difficulty in dropping back into the old mental rut in which you thought of your body as
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other than God’s temple, whole and perfect.
You will feel that even your body, as an extension of your mind, accepts the truth of this statement, takes up the thought and lives it. You come to think of the statement you use as some great universal truth against which no argument or adverse thought can prevail.
To admit that there might be some reason for disease, that God might will disease for you, is contrary to the working of Truth. Your whole thought must be given to but one thought, that of health.
If you feel the need for a healthier heart, make your statement definite along this line. For instance:
The love of God fills my heart, and it sustains my life regularly, peacefully, and lovingly.
You can see that the love of God working at the center of your being keeps everything in your life under control. Your heart is free from tension and exertion when you realize that peace and harmony prevail. You will think of your heart as the avenue through which the love of God is expressed.
God asks but one thing of you in life: that you be true to Him. You can do whatever you want to do as long as you are loyal to Him. Consequently the one simple thing required of you in prayer is that you be true to yourself. What does this mean, this being true to yourself in prayer? It means that, having prayed, you live the prayer. It means that after you have prayed you continue in the thought of your prayer. It means that you extend this time to every waking moment.
Making a new beginning in health may call for your reconstructing your whole outlook upon life.
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You learn to pray in a new way perhaps, and you also find that you must keep this prayer uppermost in your mind at all times. Whatever you do there remains in your thought the influence of your prayer and this keeps you firm and true to God.
What if your health problem seems to center in your eyes? How may they be treated? You must get the sense of your eyes as being the windows of the soul, through which the Spirit of God within you looks at your life and world. You must realize that as God sees His world clearly and distinctly, without effort or strain, so does the Spirit of God within you reveal your world to you without difficulty. A good prayer including these truths is this:
Through the eyes of God I see all things easily, clearly, and distinctly.
Do you see that Truth is to be applied to every phase of your physical life, to every organ and function of your body? There must be no part of your body or your mind where you do not consciously know that God exists. Prayer is your means of assuring yourself of this. By prayer you keep out of mind such adverse beliefs as would keep you from knowing your highest good. By prayer you counteract such beliefs as would cause disease to appear. Your prayer for health and your keeping true to your prayer cause health to be established.
How definite should you be when you pray for health? There is one principle to be remembered in praying for health: You must pray in the thought that the Mind of God is the actual Source of the life idea which produces health. Since this is a mighty truth of God, you cannot escape praying in this way. You can fashion your prayer to make this
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clear to your consciousness in whatever way prayer can best be understood. Of course God does not bind you to any particular routine, which may not be the one by which you can get results. Most persons find that they must be quite specific and definite. The reason for this is a specific and definite thought in their mind that is working against health.
For instance, in the case of indigestion an effective prayer for health would be something of this type:
The healing presence of God prompts my digestive organs to do their work harmoniously and effectively.
You will often find it well to use some general statement of health first and then your more specific statement.
You can see that in praying for health you need to extend the power of prayer right into your body. Prayer is mental only in the sense that the mind is a necessary agent of it. Prayer is spiritual, since we are dealing with the presence of God. Prayer becomes a vibrant force in physical and material things when we translate these things to the level of the mental and spiritual.
One of the most difficult things for many persons to do in praying for the attainment of health is to rely solely on God. They are so inclined to work from a limited standpoint, to fuss and stew, when all they need to do is to still the clamoring of their own thoughts and let God work through them. They need to rise out of tension, fear, and effort into the consciousness of the omnipresent mind of God—the quiet, peaceful, assuring, healing consciousness.
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The actual healing process, the process that takes place when your soul is face to face with God in the inner realms of prayer, the auspicious meeting place of man and His loving Father, is an experience that the individual alone can fathom. A teacher or writer, or healer may be able to direct your steps Godward, he may give you such directions as will make your own way easier, but he cannot take the final step for you or chart it for you.
Whoever you are, wherever you may be, whatever your need, you stand in a place of vantage. In God’s sight you always have been, are now, and always will be whole, well, perfect, entire.
Can you see that your health and perfection are the most natural and most normal thing in your life? Do you not see that disease is the unnatural and the abnormal, that which is not true of you— from the standpoint of your Father, your Maker?
Turn your eyes at this moment to that inner presence of God within you where you are seen as whole and well. Ever keep yourself true to God by remaining true to His vision of what you are in His spiritual world. Let no thought cross your mind, no word come to your lips, that is contrary to the Truth of God, the truth of your innate and visible health and perfection.
“Then shall your light break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up speedily. ”
Isa. 58:8
“Your faith has made you well. ”
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Mark 5:34
Lesson VI
Making a New Start in Personal Finances
How does the individual who finds himself and his personal finances in a state of misfortune and adversity make a new start? Just how is it done? How can a person transform a life or business challenged with ill luck and disaster into one of success and plenty? Can the failure make a fresh start? Does prayer help to improve an individual’s personal finances?
The answer to these questions is found in trying, in praying, in attempting to make a new start. The feeling of helplessness, of discouragement, must be overcome. Those who are in a position to counsel persons seeking help in the matter of finances say that unsuccessful persons have great difficulty in making a new start.
The individual making a new start sets out on a new road. He must release mistakes of disappointments of the past. He begins anew. He is like the traveler who finds himself in a byway of unfortunate circumstances and returns to the main road to
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set out with fresh inspiration. He finds that in spite of temporary adversity there is always that in life which offers new opportunities, added success.
As in prayer we are dealing with spiritual thought, so in failure we are dealing with that grade of material thought which is fixed upon things and people and situations. The materially minded man believes that things of the outer world have power over his own life and circumstances and finances. The man of spiritual consciousness knows that his circumstances depend entirely on his understanding of Truth.
Each one of us knows some business that seems to glow with the sunshine of success. We feel that the person responsible for it puts into it something of his own attitude of mind. He has a certain conviction of success that no thought of failure is ever able to reach or to affect. On the other hand we know of business persons who always speak of their business as “going to the dogs,” as not having much chance of success. We agree that under such management, under such a cloud of pessimism, it has little or no chance to succeed.
We readily see that the first step to be taken in making a new start in our business or personal finances is to make a new beginning in our mental outlook. To begin to think of our business in a new light. To give up the line of thought that has brought chaos and failure. To take a new hold on our affairs through establishing in them new ideas, faith, optimism, prosperity, and success; to be morally and ethically firm in our dealings with others.
If you have a definite conviction that you are in the right kind of business, then you may be sure
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that you can make that business succeed. You are called upon to do one thing: protect it with your right thought. Keep out of mind every belief in failure. Whenever you think of your business, your position, or profession, think of it as protected from all belief in limitation and adversity. Think of it as expressing the success and abundance of God.
Sometimes God is spoken of as having “hands,” since hands symbolize to us the capacity to protect, to express loving-kindness, to serve. In Genesis 49:24 we find reference to “the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob.” A man who came into possession of a failing business happened to find this passage and received the inspiration to think of his business as God’s, as in God’s hands. Whenever he thought of his business, he would think of God’s hands as protecting and blessing it. The business took on new life. It prospered! He had gotten a new idea about praying for his business, and what he did was to shut out all thought of worry on his own part and let God bless what he had.
What about the person employed, who is in some position that he wants to see prospered? If he wants to put new life in his position, he must have new ideas for it. Possibly his prayer needs to be one dealing especially with new ideas. He needs to see new opportunities for expression and service. He may need more of a sense of thankfulness for what he has. He may need to be more alert, more interested in what he is assigned to do.
What of the person out of work, in search of a position? One of the first realizations he needs is that of having come into the world to fill a definite place. He needs to feel that in the great universal
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scheme there is some place especially created for him. This place is like a vacuum that draws air to itself in order that it may be filled.
There are those who think of a lost position in the sense of some lost article. They search for a new place just as if they would search for something hidden from them. They need to know that their position is their own, that it cannot be lost or hidden, that it is revealed to them.
One of the greatest assets that a person can have who is looking for a position or hoping to improve his business is a cheerful and confident heart. Do you not know persons who always succeed in times of trial because through all adversity they are sunny and certain of success? They unknowingly find the inner Spirit that prompts them to new endeavors even when those about them are despondent and disheartened.
The truest prayer for supply and substance is to know confidently that God will provide.
An attitude of confidence is prayer. Could prayer be anything else than confidence that God will bless us with the thing we need? In fact one purpose of prayer is that of putting us in an attitude of mind whereby we still our clamoring thoughts and let the voice of God be heard. We can see that inner confidence is highly essential in the matter of prayer.
As the child thinks of his father as the source of his supply, as the provider of his food and necessities, so the Christian comes to know God as the source of his prosperity and success. He dedicates his business to God. He thinks of it as overshadowed by the spirit of order, peace, justice, plenty, and his attitude is one of absolute sincerity.
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Those who are employed by others must realize that after all they are serving God and doing His work. The blessing of God is sure to be on the position whose holder realizes this truth. The individual must realize that God moves through him, that God blesses the work of his hands, that God is present with him in all his deliberations and in all his tasks.
How does a person obtain a better position and increased income? The person whose thought is upon service is certain to glorify even the most insignificant position. He is sure to make himself worthy of a better position and increased income.
If you are in what you consider an inferior position, you need to see that the position is like your consciousness. Your only escape from such a place is by way of a better consciousness. You do not necessarily increase in consciousness just by leaving a position. You need to work with the position until you get out of it the lesson it has to offer to you.
God created you and placed in you a world of plenty. He has given you the mind through which you are given rich ideas. These ideas serve to relate you to abundance and success and to make them yours. If you do not have prosperity, you may be sure that you need to increase your consciousness of prosperity.
If you are given to thinking of your position or business in terms of lack or failure, you need to take a new hold, to begin to think prosperity, to bless your affairs. You need to pray often, keeping out of your mind all thought of lack, for in God’s world—your world—there is no lack. You need to pray in the sense of turning in thought to God with
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absolute confidence that He gives you the desire of your heart, that of prospering abundantly.
A good affirmation to use is this one:
Through His love for me God provides me with rich ideas, making my prosperity visible and tangible.
Of course in using any affirmative prayer you need to adapt the wording to meet your requirements. You need to use a statement or prayer that will serve to correct your thought about your personal finances and to help establish in your consciousness the special phase of Truth that you need to have established there.
If you are out of employment, make your prayer something of this kind:
I now find my place in God’s universal plan, where I serve Him and my fellow man and receive His loving compensation.
There are several points in this affirmation that make it a helpful one. You acknowledge that you have a place in God’s plan, that you are engaged in service, that He compensates you for your services. You relate yourself mentally to that which is to become established as your source of income.
Do you see that prayer can be applied to every human necessity? The right thought established in your consciousness sets things right. The prosperity consciousness causes prosperity to be established. If you have been holding the thought of failure over your business and have seen failure appearing, reverse the process now and think prosperity in order that it may be manifested.
Do you see that when you change your mental attitude and look at your affairs from a new viewpoint you are making a new start? You make the
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first step toward beginning again when you take the progressive step in consciousness. You take a new hold on your affairs when you hold a new thought about them, when you enter a state of consciousness in which you see all things from an attitude that is fresh, new, vital.
To many this teaching will come as a surprise—a happy one of course. There may be those who doubt that such a thing as personal finances can be controlled by one’s thought and prayer. They need to look up such passages in the Bible as have to do with man’s supply. They need to feel that having plenty is not contrary to the will of God. Many of them are willing to concede that God heals but unwilling to recognize that He supplies daily bread.
Starting to demonstrate sufficient supply will be to some persons a strange but glorious adventure. They will find that their first evidence of God’s willingness to supply them only inspires them to prove Him further. They will go on and on proving on every hand that God does provide, without question or stint. They will come to know that the abundance of God’s kingdom is at once their own supply. They will think less and less of lack and failure only to see prosperity and success replace these in their consciousness, and ultimately in their affairs. The adventure of proving God to be good always carries with it a thrilling time of rejoicing, and they will continue to take Him at His word.
“And God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that you may always have enough of everything and may provide in abundance for every good work. ”
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11 Cor. 9:8
Lesson VII
Transforming Personal Relationships
In this lesson we consider the subject of “getting along with people.” Having hurdled such obstacles as disease and lack, having had our feet put fairly on the way to health and supply, we see before us what to many are the greatest obstacles to human happiness: broken friendships and wounded personal lives. We come now to the principle of applying prayer to these problems. There are those who would be willing to sacrifice a fortune just to have peace in the family, loving consideration at the breakfast table, a kind look or a thoughtful word once a day.
Getting along with other persons is a matter of keeping uppermost in mind the thought of God and not the thought of personality. If you keep God and love and justice in mind, then God and love and justice will prevail in your world.
Do you see that when you make your unhappy personal relations a matter of prayer, when you want to throw over the whole personal situation
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and begin all over again, you must begin to think from a new angle? You must replace the thought and picture of an apparently unpleasant person with the thought and picture of God, the good, ruling supreme in your world. If you have been in the mental anxiety of thinking day and night of some selfish individual in your home or business, you must now give just as much time to thinking Godward. Your thought must be directed to God friendship, cooperation, and righteous dealings.
Can you change things overnight? Can you make someone a saint before tomorrow’s sunrise? Can you make yourself one in such a time? Can such a miracle as getting along with people be gained by prayer? The many questions that come to mind on this subject are answered through our calm, deliberate, assuring prayer.
In our personal relations we are called upon to give as well as receive. We are often called upon to yield something that seems to be too much for us to yield, only to find later that in yielding we have received from God a compensation far beyond price.
We must remember that while we see another as a child of God, we too are God’s child. While we may be called often to help and serve another, we must never be servile in so doing. We must let the God-self in him salute the God-self in us too. Even in our humility we can maintain a certain majesty of Spirit that can never be belittled, cast down, or made servile.
Getting along with others calls for our finding something of God, something good, in them. The whole secret lies in finding some good in the other fellow. Everyone wants to be appreciated, to have
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others discover this good in him.
There is no tremendous sacrifice to be made in getting along with others. There is no problem so difficult as to be incapable of solution. The whole point is a matter of seeing things in their right perspectives, of giving God a proper place in our world, of knowing something of human nature. If we “get along” with ourselves and God, if we make the right adjustment in our inner world, we are sure to do so in our outer relations, in our relations with other persons and things and circumstances.
You should never give another person the power to make you unhappy, neither should you give him power to make you happy. Many persons, even students of Unity for many years, do not understand this. There are those who would be unhappy to live with John and just as unhappy to have him pass from their sight. The person who says an insulting thing to you only shows his own self to you. He first insults himself who insults others. If you are easily insulted, you may know by this that you have not found that inner something, that presence of God, which cannot be affected by what others say or do.
There are those who want to get along with others, yet find it awfully hard to get along with themselves, who cannot face themselves alone. They quarrel with themselves and still wonder why they stir up the quarreling instinct in their family or in their business associates. You have yourself to live with twenty-four hours a day. You have the inner adjustment to make before you can hope to adjust yourself to the lives of other persons.
What shall we use as an affirmative prayer in such matters? This one seems to contain everything
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necessary:
Christ in me greets the Christ in you.
If through the Christ or God-self in you you can behold the Christ or God-self in another, you have laid the groundwork for a positive personal relationship. If your previous life has been involved in personal differences, if your world has been filled with personal grievances, you will begin to see things from a new angle when you set up Christ in your world as the standard for your thoughts and acts. The spirit of friendship and brotherhood will replace the spirit of antagonism. Love will prevail.
Anything that is offered to you as a suggestion in helping you solve personal problems may need to be changed to meet the particular issue, but one thing cannot change. You must surrender your adverse thought of people. Make your thought and prayer entirely one that recognizes only God and His law of good. You must not think or do anything about your problem except what is guided by God’s love and justice.
If you remember that all persons are striving in their own way to get along in this world, you will have more understanding for those who stumble, those who complain, and more compassion for yourself. You will have more love for the one you need to help if you see that his misdeeds, his selfishness, and his unkindness come because he is working without the light of God.
If you have an “enemy,” let him bless you. Cause what he says or does to make you draw closer to God and see more of the working of God in your own life and in your “enemy.” You make a friend of your enemy when God prevails in your world as the omnipresent and omnipotent Spirit of
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love and friendship.
What about the people of contentious disposition that you have to live with and work with? If you are affected by what such a person does, then you are in the same consciousness that he is in. You make a tremendously important step in beginning life anew when you see this and when you step into a consciousness that establishes you in peace and poise. “Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world.” The peace and love of God within you are of greater importance than the tensions generated by the person who would disturb your life. Greater is love than hate, greater is courage than fear, greater is justice than injustice, greater is prayer than any prevailing thought of inharmony, and greater is our power to take a new hold on life than is the thought that would limit or discourage us.
We may think of the word “unity” as twofold in its meaning. First we may think of that inner oneness which characterizes our relation to God. Secondly, we may think of our relation to persons and things of the world as interpreted by our inner oneness with God. We cannot fail to make the outer adjustment if we have correctly and efficiently made the inner, if we have turned wholeheartedly to God.
We find heaven in the world about us only when we have found heaven in our own heart. The world of God is to us a world of love, friendship, justice, and understanding only when in our heart of hearts we have found these to be part of God. Let us celebrate this knowledge at all times.
To you whose eyes have adopted a new viewpoint, whose hope is beginning to look up again,
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whose courage has been strengthened, we extend our encouragement. Go forth this day knowing that you emerge into a new world—a world of beginning again, a world of life and plenty, a world of friendship and understanding. Best of all, resolve in your heart to help someone else to the message of beginning again. People your world with those alive to the gospel of taking courage, beginning again, and going on and on!
“Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God, and he who loves is born of God and knows God. ”
1 John 4:7
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