~ “What lies behind you and what lies in front of you, pales in comparison to what lies inside of you.” ~ 
~  Ralph Waldo Emerson ~

One said, “I fight my battles on my knees.” Another said, “God has not brought us this far to leave us now.”  “Yes”, another agrees, “but, faith without works is dead. We must “treat” and move our feet.” 

Spiritual conviction is the foundation principle that many citizens of the world apply when dealing with the ever-changing appearances of good and evil. 

When the response to negative events is grounded in the awareness that there is a Power for Good in the universe that we can use; there is a tendency to remember the motive of our actions. The motive is always to restore harmony.

Of course, the word “God” is not to imply a Being outside of ourselves ruling the world with an opposing force that “He” must contend; but rather, God, we know, is an indwelling Presence, a Divine Potential of Love, Intelligence, Abundance, and Harmony, to name just a few of Its attributes. 

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The word, “treat,” in the phrase, “treat and move your feet,” refers to affirmative prayer or spiritual mind treatment. It is a process wherein we tell ourselves the truth of our nature. It breaks down the self-erected barriers that suggest sickness and disease, economic disaster, fear of one another and all kinds of limiting beliefs. It empowers us to take appropriate action with confidence.  

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I remember awakening to myself and asking, “Who am I?” You may, likewise, recall hearing that still small voice within you ask that question. It is at this juncture of the spiritual path that the truth seeker is ready to make conscious choices about everything they think, say, and do in their quest for self-discovery. The practice begins.

THINK: Contemplative Meditation

When we began to slow down the thoughts we are thinking to the point that we become aware of what we are telling ourselves, we have reached a pivotal point in consciousness for which there is no turning back. It is here in the secret place of ourselves that we separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak.

SAY: Declare the Truth

Once there is a personal revelation or realization of Truth, it becomes the premise for our reasoning. We begin to tell ourselves the spiritual truth about all people, places, and things. All this is done within our minds, whether silently or audibly spoken.

DO: Walk in the Direction of your Beliefs

Each one of us is a necessary component in creating a world that works for everyone. Our actions are based on our spiritual convictions. 

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The spiritual warrior wears the full armor of God by acknowledging there is only One Presence and One Power that comprise The One Infinite Life. 

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This Week’s Affirmation

“As I contemplate the question of what is mine to do, I know Spiritual Mind Treatment empowers me to move forward with confidence to release all my limiting beliefs.”

Mary Jane LaBonte, RScP

“Giving thanks before the actual manifestation occurs is the royal road to manifestation, because we are not only confirming our faith, but we’re acknowledging the receipt of good from the Giver of all perfect gifts.” 
~  Emmet Fox ~

 ^“Therefore, I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”
~ Mark 11:24 ~

“We are saved by Grace to the extent that we believe in, accept, and seek to embody, the Law of Good; for the Law of Good is ever a Law of Liberty and never one of limitation.”
~ The Science of Mind, Ernest Holmes ~

The voice kept repeating, “please hold, all of our agents are busy helping others ~ someone will be with you shortly.” After hearing this same message over and over, I began to wonder if it was worth the wait. I wondered if the agent would be hurried once on the line with me. Nonetheless, I waited.

Once the connection was made, I felt completely supported by the care given me. The one on the other end of the line acted as if nothing mattered more than being of service to me. They listened deeply, addressed my concerns, assured the outcome, and stayed engaged until I was completely satisfied. My heart was filled with gratitude for this pleasant encounter. I thanked the agent profusely.

This scenario may be likened to our individual relationship to the Divine.

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There may be times the voice in our head tells us, while others are being blessed, our desired good is not worthy of immediate attention. However, the smallest amount of faith is sufficient to muster up the courage to hold on and wait for the moment of an unwavering conviction that there truly is a Power for Good, operating in the universe, that avails Itself to everyone, and that includes me. It is in that moment of realization that the connection is made.

Giving thanks is the natural response to the gratitude that is deeply felt. Once thanksgiving is expressed, the deal is sealed. Acceptance empowers one to move forward with a sense of confidence, ready to experience the evidence of the desired fulfilled.

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This coming Thursday is Thanksgiving Day. For the most part, people all over the USA will gather with family, friends, and/or strangers and break bread together.  The ritual of this day is a celebration of heartfelt gratitude. Our biggest challenge may be remembering this is so. Those of us who do remember, it may be in gratitude for uniting with family and friends after a year of uncertainty. It may be in gratitude for being either the benefactor or recipient of some unexpected good. It may be in gratitude for simply relaxing and watching a football game. Regardless of the motivation, allow yourself to feel the emotion of gratitude.

Thanksgiving Day is a holiday that acknowledges that there is a Power for Good in the universe, from which we benefit greatly.  So, in that regard, giving thanks in response to the inner emotion of heartfelt gratitude, sets a law in motion that opens up an avenue in consciousness through which unlimited good flows unimpeded.

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When the power of giving thanks is remembered and practiced by the masses, consciously and deliberately, I believe an immediate shift in planetary consciousness for good takes place, creating a world that works for everyone. After all, the promise is: “Before they call, I will answer; while they are still speaking, I will hear.”  

Have a wonderful day!

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This Week’s Affirmation

I am so grateful now for all my good, always open and receptive for more.

By Keith D. Childers

“Man’s world of affairs is the result of his self-contemplation. He is at first ignorant of this and so binds himself through wrong thought and action. As he reverses this thought, he reverses the condition attendant upon it.”
~ERNEST HOLMES~

“The unexamined life is not worth living.”
~SOCRATES~ 

Early on in my studies of the Science of Mind, I learned that the Principle of Oneness was the foundation of all life. I was also taught how hidden beliefs that suggest separation and division influence our thoughts and actions without our conscious consent.   

Hidden beliefs are ideas and concepts that are subjectively introduced to our consciousness.  Many judgments, biases, and prejudices that cause a sense of separation and disunity are the result of hidden beliefs operating in the creative medium of our minds. 

Once I grasped the concept, the Universe, as usual, provided an opportunity for me to see it play out in real-time, starting with the moment I accepted an invitation to visit a co-worker’s church. 

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 Upon entering the sanctuary, I immediately felt out of place – almost like being an intruder. It appeared there were several rituals going on simultaneously, even before the designated starting time. I wasn’t sure what to do. It all felt very strange. I began to feel like I was the “other;” or, for sure, they were.

I began to remember, from my childhood, having heard about this church and its practice. Stories, opinions, myths, and negative judgments about how they worshiped began to flood my memory. Before I knew it, I began to form an opinion about the co-worker who invited me to this event; a lovely person who, up until then, I held in high esteem.

I found a seat and joined those who were focused on the woman who was preaching.

I was stunned by what I heard. She was saying what I was learning, only couched in her own language and style that were different from mine. During her entire talk, the congregation celebrated her words with music and dancing even as she spoke them. I had to remain completely focused, lest I become distracted. 

After the service, I was eager to tell the speaker, not only how much I enjoyed the message, but how it was the same principles I was being taught at my church. With a twinkle in her eye and an elbow to my rib, she said, “Honey, when we get to heaven, no one will ask what church we belong.” 

So maybe she was talking about heaven as a geographic location while I imagined arriving at a place of perfect peace within myself. I don’t know. In that moment those possible differences seemed like semantics.

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The next time I sat in the comfort and familiarity of my own beloved church home, enjoying the quiet stillness of the pre-service meditation, I thought,’ how strange this might seem to someone experiencing this form of spiritual practice for the very first time.’

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What stories did you hear in your childhood about race, gender, lookism, nationality, social status, sexual orientation, religion and other concepts that are subject to “otherness?” Whether positive or negative, those stories have the propensity to become hidden beliefs, automatically operating in creative mind and out-picturing in the world. Through the application of The Principle of Oneness and the exercise of critical thinking, you may begin to reverse the thoughts that lend to separation and divisiveness. In so doing you participate in creating a world that works for everyone.

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This Week’s Affirmation

I am awake and aware of my Oneness with Spirit and all of humanity.  I witness this Truth daily.

By Angela “Chris” Beam

“In the last analysis, man is just what he thinks himself to be; he is big in capacity if he thinks big thoughts; he is small if he thinks small thoughts. He will attract to himself what he thinks most about. He can learn to govern his own destiny when he learns to control his thought… The seed that falls into the ground shall bear fruit of its own kind; and nothing shall hinder it. He that hath ears to hear let him hear.”
~ Ernest Holmes, Creative Mind and Success ~  

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Recently, while facilitating a class via Zoom; suddenly, out of the blue, the images of the students were frozen on my computer screen. I watched these motionless figures until they were once again animated.  The first thing they said to me, upon returning, was, “You’re finally back.” You see, to them, I appeared frozen on their computer screens.

We all laughed at this phenomenon: the observer and the observed mirroring each other.

The fact is, no one was frozen. Each one of us was intact, comfortable in our own home, looking at “what seemed to be.” The false appearance caused by some cyberspace interference resolved itself as we waited, trusted the process, and did what was ours to do to restore the harmony.  

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All this caused me to think about how a similar scenario plays out every day of our lives. For example, we are quick to identify with negative experiences, accusing others or ourselves for the things we see. We say I am, or you are, sick, poor, scared, stuck, etc.  Actually, the distorted view that suggests these things is a result of some mental interference, some error-thought.  The good news is, these error-thoughts can be corrected.

When we become still enough, long enough, we begin to realize that the Truth of who we are is intact.  Our Higher Self, The Presence, The Great I AM imbedded in the recesses of our being has never changed, The Real Self remains whole, complete, and perfect regardless of any appearance of limitation.  Ralph Waldo Emerson expresses this concept perfectly when he says, “For it is only the finite that has wrought and suffered; the infinite lies stretched in smiling repose.”

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Once the veil of illusion is pierced by our belief in the life-affirming words we consciously tell ourselves; the whole picture of our experience begins to change.

Max Planck, Nobel Prize winner in Physics explains: “When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.” Ernest Holmes taught, “Change your thinking – change your life.” Through these scientific and metaphysical practices, not only are we individually relieved of the burden of error, we see others in the same Light we see ourselves. Yes, the observed and the observer are always one, never two. All this must be what the mystic, Jesus, meant when he said, “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”

Seeing and knowing the Truth beyond apparent appearances is a form of affirmative prayer.

The next time you feel as though you are stuck… frozen in a web of some human circumstance, remember that your nature, which is the image and likeness of God, is intact. Relax and let this God-consciousness permeate your entire being. Embrace the thoughts of Love, Light, Peace, Order and Joy that begin to emerge. Notice how the thing you are looking at begins to conform with what you believe to be true. 

With this blessed assurance, you may now move forward, in full confidence, doing what needs to be done by and through you to restore harmony.

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This Week’s Affirmation

“Today I know only good and only Good knows me!”

by Judy Hilley

“In the Science of Mind, we do not say everything is all right when it is all wrong. We do not say peace when there is no peace, but rather we try to discover what is wrong and why we do not have peace. We do not say that people are not poor, sick, or unhappy. We ask why these things should be if the Original Cause of all things is Harmonious, Perfect, Radiant, and Happy.”
~ Ernest Holmes, Living the Science of Mind~ 

“Crying out to Life, beseeching It to be good, has no effect whatsoever upon It; It already is good. Asking It to give you life produces no good results; It has already incarnated Itself in you, as you. But inward awareness unifies the intellect with Life and binds the personal man back to the Universal Presence. This is what is meant by spiritual understanding and realization.”
~ Ernest Holmes, “The Art of Life” ~

Breaking down the barriers of limited thought that untrained murmurings of the mind erect each time it bemoans: ‘ain’t it awful’ and ‘what terrible times we’re living in,’ is a practice, not for the faint of heart.  Rising above the human fact to the spiritual reality is not always easy.  It is, nonetheless, a necessary undertaking in the process of aligning with the Truth that sets us free from the hypnotic spell of error-thought. 

Some would say the discords of the world have always been, and there’s nothing that can be done about it. And, to some degree, this certainly seems to be the case. The Master Teacher, Jesus, told his followers: “In this world you will have trouble.”  “But,” he goes on to say, “Take heart! I have overcome the world.”  And, he made it clear that he was not an exception, saying: ‘The things that I do you may do also, even greater things.’ (Wow, no human ego here!) 

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Once we (individuals) consciously tap into and activate the inner power of mind, enabling ourselves to choose the direction of our lives that works best for us, there soon follows an awakened awareness of our union with the collective consciousness that out-pictures as world events. With this revelation, we are called, once again, to activate the power of mind, enabling ourselves to consciously choose thoughts, words, and actions that contribute to a world that works for everyone.

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People like Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa, Joan-of-Arc, and Siddhartha Gautama, to name a few, have made significant contributions to the ever-evolving-consciousness of the world. Yet, most of the light bearers of humanity are people just like you and just like me whose names may never be recorded as such.  Yes, this creative power is within every one of us. Let’s become the change we desire to see in the world.

The first order of action is the realization of God’s Omnipresence; i.e., the Peace of God is the potential where war seems to be; the Oneness of Spirit is the potential where separation and exclusion seem to be; the Wholeness of The Divine as health is the potential right where disease seems to be; and, Perfect Love casts out all fear. Remember, enlightened thoughts supersede old unenlightened ones and cause new things to appear. 

Next, with this God-consciousness deeply anchored in our being, ours is to activate the God-potential through thoughts, words and actions. Let us go forth, now, making a difference in the world. Let’s deepen our faith, knowing we are divinely guided to do what is ours to do, thereby, actualizing the vision of a world that works for everyone. 

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This Week’s Affirmation

“I am centered, peaceful, and grounded in all I think, say, and do.”

~ Anonymous ~