WISDOM AND UNDERSTANDING... Final

Misunderstanding has brought untrue conclusions. God is not a person, ruling with a rod of iron, but the one unchanging Law of the Good which works ever and always for the Good of all. God does not punish man; -- his is one with Divine will, to work in harmony. Jesus, the greatest demonstrator of the law of the universal good the world has ever had, said: “I come to do the will of my Father.” He healed those who came to him. He was loving and kind to the sinner. He gave freedom to those in bondage to disease, fed the hungry, raised the dead, and taught the doctrine of comfort, peace, joy and understanding. He gave out the saving words of Truth, “I and my Father are one,” and “Ye are one with the Father even as I am one” (in substance)

If these things were true when Jesus was manifest on this plane then they are true today. When one’s understanding has realised the divine Truth that God’s will is unchangeable and immutably good then old conceptions will pass away, freedom will be manifested, and the past with it false teachings will dissolve into nothingness.

Jesus taught “Ask and ye shall receive.” In the stillness (silence) where nothing but the voice of wisdom is hear, where Spirit meets Spirit, seek understanding. “Pray in secret and your Heavenly Father will reward thee openly.” It is written “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, the things that God hath prepared for them that love Him”

The Divine Will is the will of the higher self. It cannot make an error or lead into inharmony. How can you realize the Divine Will? By entertaining thoughts only of the good. Through living the higher self you will awaken to the Truth that Gods’ will is your will. The farther the thought is removed from the material plane, the more you realise your nearness to Infinite Wisdom. The more the thought is spiritualised, the more powerful it becomes. Let go of all beliefs that acknowledge any other power than God. This in itself will be a treatment of disease or illness you are harbouring. “To depart from evil (in thought) is to get understanding.” This, man does in the degree that he consecrates the personal will to the will of God and determines that no will shall be done in and through his life except it be born of Infinite Wisdom.

God would have us healthy, happy satisfied, free, here and now; but we must in every detail of our life be guided by Divine Wisdom, being careful not to allow the personal to take precedence. This has reference to the habit of wishing and longing for things we do not in the least need. We may get what we longed for, only to find it is not what we needed at all, and in the possession of it we will be limited instead of helped in our progress. Remember, we draw ourselves that which we desire.

Whatever inharmony comes into our lives is the result of a misunderstanding of the Creator’s plan. Jesus said to his disciples, “The Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send, he shall teach you all things, “ but this “Spirit of Truth” the world will not receive because of its ignorance, yet it dwelleth in you. It is the Spirit of Wisdom; a real presence. We know it as the “still, small voice and it can be depended upon to guide and direct us aright in everything from the smallest to the greatest affairs of life. This statement is being proved true by hundreds of people every day.

The burdens we bear are or our own making and are heavy or light in accordance as we obey or disobey the law. Jesus said, “My burdens are light.” Instead of wondering how our neighbours can do this thing or that, or letting our mind be bound by the incidents of our every-day life, or allowing our circumstances to determine our thinking; we should learn to follow the guidance of Omniscience. You question, “How shall I distinguish the voice of Wisdom from the voice of worldly wisdom”? While Elijah’s thoughts were in a tumult, whirling here and there so that his very being was shaken by their presence, he did not hear the voice; but in the stillness, after Divine Love had burned out (overcome) this inharmonious conditions, he heard Divine Wisdom speak, directing him, and giving assurance of protection. When you come to a place in your journey and know not which way to turn, go into the stillness, ask the Spirit of Wisdom to give you understanding on the problem that vexes you, and peace will come to your troubled soul. Ask earnestly and in faith, then expect your desire to be fulfilled. It may not come immediately; it will come with such an inner conviction of its truth that you will know what to do and what to say. This is Wisdom and Understanding.

All things are worthy of Divine guidance, not alone the great propositions of life, but everything, and in Truth the time is always present tense, the now. There is always a best way and that is keeping the law of All Good. Then whatever you undertake to do you should do it right and well. “Whatsoever they hand findeth to do, do it with thy might,” remembering, of myself I do nothing, the Father in me He doeth the works.” When you accept the highest, best word that comes to you in the silence, you are obeying the right impression. Man must hear, accept and obey the voice, if he would be divinely led and realise God’s Omnipresence. Man is too apt to want to have his own way, but if he obeys Spirit, he will find that all things work together for good. After you have learned obedience, learned to be satisfied, even when the way is not so clear as may be desire, be contented. Once you have submerged your will in the Divine Will you will have no regrets. “God’s will is my will,” I am satisfied,” are truths which if held persistently will bring peace and harmony.

The lesson of obedience to God’s love much be learned, and the sooner you overcome the habit of disobeying the voice the sooner you will find yourself on the high-road to health, happiness, and prosperity. Perfection consists in doing. “He is neither the greatest saint nor the wisest man, that knows the Truth most, but he that practices it.” In the silence, quietly, gently, positively affirm, “I hear only words of Wisdom; “I will obey.” “Divine Wisdom makes known to me only the highest Good.”

Having once put yourself into the care of the Almighty, do not turn back lest you will fail to reach that place of perfect security where Love and Wisdom reign supreme. “Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principle.” In a man’s self is his might. The great need of humanity is to understand God as He is; to realise the Omnipresence and Omnipotence of the All Good. It is written “If any one lacks Wisdom; let him ask of God.” “Before they call I will answer and while they are yet speaking I will hear. “Every high desire of your heart will be filled full by Divine Wisdom; even as you think, the building is going on. All one need do is simply ask and he shall receive.

Worldly wisdom says there is both good and evil – and wise in its own conclusions endeavours to get rid of the evil by condemning it instead of overcoming it. You can never win the evil-doer to a higher life any other means than love; the seed-thought you would send another has its root within yourself. “Happy is the man that findeth wisdom and getteth understanding,” then will he remove his mental hands from his brother, thus helping him to break the chains of ignorance that are holding him down. Get Wisdom, get understanding, look for the good in every thing and every-body. The spirit of Divine Wisdom rests in the heart of each one of the Father’s sons; It fills men with sweetness, governs them with courage, and enlightens with excellence those who are subject to its direction.

Truths

“I am understanding.” “I hear only words of Wisdom.” “Divine Wisdom guides me and makes known to me only the highest good.” “I am one with the will of the Father.” “God’s will works only the good.” “Judge not that ye be not judged.” “Live the life of Truth and be a light to the world.”

WISDOM AND UNDERSTANDING

In all states of consciousness there is no spiritual growth without understanding and wisdom. “Wisdom is Divine Principle.” Through Wisdom comes true understanding. It is the higher plane of understanding. Every faculty of mind has its own work. One faculty cannot develop for another any more than the hand can perform the work given the foot to do. Without Understanding, man cannot build to the highest. Understanding is an attribute of the mind, not merely that intellectual state arrived at through the study of books or from giving lodgment to the sayings of others. In Truth it is a conscious recognition that the Spirit of Wisdom within man is the same in essence, though not in degree, as Infinite Wisdom. The Father and Son are one. “It is the spiritual awakening on the saving power of Truth. “Because of ignorance concerning the reality of God, man taught that sin, sickness, poverty and all seeming evils are realities. Paul preached that through ignorance, having the understanding darkened, we are alienated from the life of God.

Men have built great centers of learning, have sought education on the material plane, and have defined a little learning as wisdom. With the acquisition of learning based on materiality comes pride of life, “Which is not of the Father. “And which works destruction to the individual. So long as man remains ignorant of his true self the circle will repeat itself. “There is a Spirit in man, and the Almighty given him understanding. “By giving recognition to this Spirit of Wisdom in man, your true self, you will become conscious of your oneness with Infinite Wisdom.

Education on the material basis is from without; it is the acquaintance with facts on the evidence of a third party. You enter school-room, take a book and read a page to you it has not much meaning, yet when another person explains his idea of the subject matter, you accept his version because you believe he as analyzed it.

True education is from within; it is to lead forth the facts of which you are possessor. “Jesus spoke always from within, and in a degree that transcends all others. “He was made perfect in that higher Wisdom which knows the Omnipotence of God. He declared the “Kingdom of God is within you, “then there must be the dwelling place of the attributes of God, the Spirit of Wisdom. If we would know God we should make it the purpose of our lives to identify ourselves with the good only and should seek for and obtain Spiritual Understanding. “Seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you.” It is only by experience that we come to understand the difference between intellectual and spiritual knowledge. There is no purifier in this world to be compared with spiritual knowledge, and he who is purified in devotion findeth spiritual knowledge springing up spontaneously in himself in the progress of time.” We gain spiritual knowledge in just the degree that we are able to accept and assimilate Truth. Intellect accepts Truth; Wisdom applies Truth.

You hear a Truth statement but it does not interest you from an intellectual standpoint; you believe it true, but you drop it for something else in which you are interested. At another time a difficult problem may present itself and you worry over it, finally, you go to God in the silence, wisdom brings froth from within the very Truth you are interested in. Immediately you see the application your problem. That truth is yours from the moment you make use of it and as long as you use it. Spiritual knowledge comes in the stillness, in the silence; where peace has been brought about by love; there wisdom builds to the highest.

Infinite Love overcomes all thoughts of malice, unforgiveness, and selfishness, Jesus prayed. “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. “The spirit dominant in Jesus is the same today in you as it was in him. The Christ Spirit, perfect in understanding. When Love has wrought a consciousness of peace, it is succeeded by a higher consciousness, that of Divine Wisdom, which gives out knowledge and understanding. Love, by overcoming, has made it possible for Wisdom to build upon a solid foundation. The greatest up building is accomplished in the stillness or silence, for “without sound of ax or hammer or other tools, “the wise man builds the “Temple of the Living God.” The reason we do not trust Divine Wisdom in the fullest sense of the word is because we have devoted too much time to the sordid things of life. Our degree of realization has been so small that we have had more fear than faith in the Word. It is only in the degree that we trust the God within, the Love, Power, Wisdom, as the All Good, that we get the realization of Love, Power, Wisdom, of the All Good. To us, God will no longer be mere principle or theory but a living reality to whom we may turn in every affair of life, even as a child turns to its loving earthly parent. Our concern should be to “prepare the heart clean like paper whereon Divine Wisdom may imprint characters to His own liking.”

Man, in his ignorance of God, pictures God as both loving and wrathful, treating His children as an earthly king might do his earthly subjects, rewarding and punishing, healing and afflicting, according to man-made laws. The light pierced the darkness when Jesus said, “God is Love.” “Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter?” God is Omnipresent, Unchangeable Substance, out of which all the needs of man are fulfilled, whether they are of spirit, body or environment.

One who portrays God as Creator who withholds the least part of good from one of His creations, the one who declares hate and Love, evil and Good, death and Life, health and disease, sin, poverty, sickness, sorrow, as all emanating from the same source, a God Infinite Love, this one has “ Wisdom that descendeth not from above, but is earthly,” It is the world’s wisdom on the world plane and you will never be able to trust God to heal your body, or give to your own Good so long as you believe it. “But the Wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy.”

The wonder is that having heard the word pictures painted by those who has the wrong concept of God (yet whom we have considered intelligent) as a monster of cruelty who will awful suffering upon defenseless man, that, all man-kind has not rejected him.

To be continued

From: Prove Me Now, by Isadora Minard

THE POWER OF AFFIRMATIVE THINKING...final

There is a power greater than we are and we must find our partnership with It. There must be an acceptance in our own mind, a belief within our own consciousness, a belief that does not deny itself. It is a belief that says, "It is so." You and I have to do this.

Perhaps we ask for something, or accept something, or affirm something and then it seems as though we are not going to get it. We must continue to know that we are dealing with a Power that causes the invisible to become visible! Now, we are not holding thoughts, but we are creating a thought pattern upon which the creative Power is always acting. This is one of the greatest ideas concerning thought, but we seem to overlook its full and complete meaning

The second proposition is: We are thinking, choosing centers of awareness in this Mind; and according to the sum total of all our thoughts, we are either silently attracting good to us of repelling it from us. Let us consider certain attitudes of thought that ought to be salutary. For instance, the necessity of having an attitude of gratitude. Gratitude is not only a virtue; but it also is part of a practical philosophy of daily life. There is no wise way of living than to remember every morning what Life has given us, and to lift up our thought in thankfulness for every bounty we possess.

We occasionally need to put ourselves on a strict mental regimen, say, for a whole week, in which we would speak not negative word, refraining from faultfinding or condemnation of any one or anything. For quite a number of years there has been a somewhat similar theory in the field of clinical psychology. This is valuable because we cannot get something from nothing. It is what we have that is the starting point from which the greater good must come. If we pose over all the things we do not have, we will start with less than nothing.

For to what we have not, we have added a spirit of complaint. And no intelligent person can assert that a focus of attention on what he does not have is the way to get what he really needs.

It is the sum total of all our thinking that we have to consider; and in doing this, one of the first things to learn is that, about ninety percent of our thinking is entirely unconscious it goes on when we are not aware of it. Psychologists now believe that perhaps eighty-five percent of accidents are unconsciously invited, and that at least seventy percent of diseases are created unconsciously, and that our success and failure in life is largely an unconscious process, and of course our happiness or our misery is almost entirely so.

Scientific investigation verifies that we are talking about reality. Most of our thinking is unconscious. Here is where the habit patterns are caught and laid down even from infancy. It should be our purpose to find out what these thought patterns are; and when they are unhappy, or morbid, or filled with fear, change them in order that the natural, normal flow of Life Itself shall be resumed.

Now we have the basic premises developed to where we can use them, because we know what we are doing, and so we come to the third idea; We can change our thinking, and by so doing cause the Law, the invisible creative Force, to act for us in an affirmative way rather than in a negative manner. It may seem astonishing, but Jesus actually gave us a technique for this - perhaps the greatest technique that was ever given in the whole history of the world. He told us that when we pray we should enter the closet of the self, close the door of the senses, and make known our request. We must affirm the good and forget the negative.

Good and negative are not equal in power, because, of course, good always overcomes negativity. But when we do this, we should be certain that we accept the answer and that we know we are going to receive it. When we pray, we must believe that we have, and we shall have. We actually can change our thinking and cause the Law to give us freedom.

What more could we ask? What more could anyone receive from Life? To learn how to think constructively is to learn how to prove or demonstrate what is good. Many sciences are coming into closer agreement with the things we believe. We can be renewed and transformed by the renewing of our minds. there is One Mind, God-Mind, and this is the mind of man at the level of his understanding. Divine Intelligence stands ready to pour into our consciousness every idea of good, and an infinite Law within this Intelligence acts upon our acceptance or belief, making it visible in our experienced.

We should take time daily go guard our thoughts, persisting in our awareness of God's Presence and Power. We could do it in this way: Today I give my attention to that which is in accord with the good, that which I want to have manifest in my experience, as well as my neighbours or friends experience. I realise there is no necessity for any appearance which is contrary to this good. I know that I am created to express the nature of God in all that I am and do. I do now free myself from every false of morbid sense of life, I keep in tune with the Divinity within me that I may experience that which is perfect and joyous

There is an intelligence that actually can and will do whatever ought to be done for us is we really believe this and accept Its action. Science, revelation, intuition, and experience teach that we ought to believe. But it follows that if we say It cannot then It cannot. If we limit It to a little good, we need to practice believing, because thoughts are things.

When we say, I believe and there is no doubt in me, we do two things, We affirm our belief, and by so doing we build a positive acceptance in the mind. at the same time we reject our doubts. This is the way creative thought works, and realising that so much of our thought is unconscious , we merely affirm that the is nothing in us that denies the good we have affirmed.

After we have done this with persistence there will come a gradual acceptance of or affirmation; and we shall learn that as we build up an affirmative attitude things will begin to change in our experiences. It may take a little time; but now we have courage,knowing that a creative Power is acting upon our thought.

THE POWER OF AFFIRMATIVE THINKING

The power of any thought rests in our belief and acceptance of it

There is a Power in the universe greater than we are and we all use It. We are surrounded by a creative Power, call It what you will, which responds to us; and since It responds, It will have to respond to us in the way that we use It. The question is, Why don't we use this Power more effectively? If all things are possible to faith, Why don't we have a greater faith?

Whatever we think faith is or may be, it must be something that we do within our consciousness, even though we feel it has a relationship with something greater than we are. Faith starts with ourselves, like doubt or fear. Faith, being nonphysical, has to be a mental thing. Someone will say it is a spiritual thing, a prayer, or a hymn of praise. It doesn't not matter what we choose to call It; if we did not have a mind, we could not pray and we could not sing a hymn of praise.

Faith, then is within our own conscious awareness, something that is taking place within us right now; not something imaginary, but something that is actual. What kind of thought should we have if we are going to oppose a thought of fear? One that will be affirmative and that will really do something. The faith we have to exercise is a conviction. Faith is not merely a generalisation, or a statement, or like any other thought. Faith has to be in something, about something, or for something; it has to be located. It is an acceptance of that which may still be invisible in our experience.

Let us figure out just how we should use faith to better advantage in our lives. First, we should begin with the idea that we are One with universal Mind, and therefore we are all united with Its creative action which does things to us and for us by doing them through our consciousness. This invisible Force we think of as Law, or the Power that acts.

Next, we should consider that we are also centers of self conscious awareness, individuals in this Mind with the ability to think, to choose, and to know; and that according to the sum total of all our thoughts we are either attracting good to us of repelling it from us.

Finally, we can change our thinking to be affirmative, and in so doing, cause the Law, the invisible creative Force, to respond to us in an affirmative way rather than in a negative manner. Faith itself is an affirmation that good is greater than the negative, and is an acceptance of that good.

Let us start to develop and use our first idea: We are already One with the universal Mind and Its creative Power can do anything. This is the basis of all faith and of all effective prayer; and since prayers have been answered, we may accept that this is certain. It is why Jesus told us that when we pray we are to believe we have what we desire. When he said, "as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee, 'he implied there is a Power that can, will, and must react to us. It does so in an affirmative manner if that is the way we think.

This is why it is that when we pray or meditate we must do so affirmatively, and we must do so in the present time. We must say or think of our desire as taking place now. Up to the time of Jesus, people believed that God might help them; that there were concessions He might make if people pleased Him, or performed certain rites or ceremonials. Jesus brought a new kind of teaching, -today we call it "affirmative thinking". He talked about a Power that operates on our belief the way we believe it; and that we may see definite results of our belief in our experience.

So we find that faith is an affirmative belief. There is a Power that operates upon our thought the way we think it, and we can use our faith consciously and definitely and intelligently and for specific purposes. When we do, we should expect something to happen. And we are not to deny it in the meantime! Perhaps this is the greatest responsibility of all, and it is not easy.

But the Law can bring us only as much good as we can mentally accept. This accepting is an act of our own consciousness; it is an act of faith. No one before Jesus had ever talked so simply about faith. People have come to realise that he was talking about a spiritual Law in which we are all rooted. There is a Power greater than we are and we must find our partnership with It. There must be an acceptance in our own mind, a belief within our own consciousness, a belief that does not deny itself. It is a belief that says, "It is so." You and I have to do this.

To be continued...