Aug. 10, 2014
This little story was found in the Readers Digest: From a minister – Apparently I did not proofread the Sunday bulletin as well as I had thought when I prepared it. Imagine my surprise Sunday morning when I read the announcement about our coffee hour: “Please come down to the basement and say hell to the pastor.” (Ann G. Straight, in Reader’s Digest)
I hope that you say HELLO when we meet during Fellowship and I do hope to meet you all! Please grab your coffee or tea and come back into the room for conversation.

You know, it happens to the best of us-We try so hard to proof everything before we print it or send it out, so imagine our surprise when we discovered that the address was incorrect on the inaugural bulletin last week! It’s Coastal Highway, not Poastal! But we just let it go…after we corrected it for this week!

Anyway…
I’m a Unitic. That’s U.n.i.t.i.c not lunatic!

What does that mean? It means I believe in the 5 Principles that the Fillmores, Charles and Myrtle came up with after they first heard a speaker talk about metaphysics and healing our bodies through our thoughts and prayers. They went on to explore the world religious and spiritual cultures and choose to follow the teachings of Jesus. Notice I said the teachings of Jesus, not Christianity, tho Unity does profess to be a study in PRACTICAL Christianity. We look at Jesus as a Way-shower, a Brother who was able to transcend the Spiritual Principles, or Laws, and become one with Spirit, Goddess, Lord, Divine Universe, Great Spirit, God…what other names are there for the Divine Energy that we are all made of?

SO what is a Principle? It’s something that doesn’t change, like 2+2=4 or the law of gravity. No matter who you are or where you are on this earth that is fact!

Spiritual Principles work the same way. No matter who you are or what you do, certain things just work. It’s the Law of Cause and Effect, for instance, or the Law of Attraction we hear so much about. We’ll talk more about these laws in the future.

The Five Principles Charles and Myrtle Fillmore came up with and put into practice are listed in your bulletin.

1. There is only one Presence and one Power, God, the Good. This means that there is only God and only Good. No evil, no devil. We are spiritual beings having a human experience. That means we have to handle what happens in a dualistic world – spiritual and physical. There’s a lot we can discuss about that dualistic life that we live, but not today.
So if there’s no evil, no devil, what about all the so called “bad” things that happens. Well, that’s all perception, isn’t it? Try to look for the good. If you can’t find it initially, it will come eventually, sometimes it takes time. Sometimes we have to grieve. Sometimes we have to play the victim. But we eventually have to come out of the valley of the shadow of death and start anew. We may even set up camp there in the valley for awhile, but, eventually, camping gets old, as does playing the victim and being sad and unhappy all the time. That’s when it’s time to break up camp and move through the valley and back into the light.

There is good in everything. Think about every ‘crisis’ in the world or in your life, and eventually you will find something good that came from it. I am stronger because of the abuse I experienced in my childhood. I am more aware of what others can do to you if they are not in connection with their higher self. And I am more aware of who I truly am because of the life experiences I have had.

Wayne Dyer said, “See the beauty in everything. As you awaken to your divine nature, you’ll begin to appreciate beauty in everything you see, touch, and experience.”

Unity doesn’t say we ‘sin’, we like to look at things others call sin as “missing the mark,” which the true meaning of the word ‘sin.’(it’s an archery term, did you know?)

In fact, the Aramaic word that was translated as evil actually means immature. So it really means that we are not living from Divine Consciousness when we miss the mark. In my youth and not so youth, I have missed the mark a lot. But as I grew in awareness and consciousness, I don’t ‘miss the mark’ as much. Oh, I still do, I’m sure…just not as much! But as Paul wrote to the Corinthians in chapter 13, verse 11, “When I was a child I spoke as a child, but when I became a man, I gave up my childish ways.”

In case you were wondering, we don’t have a ‘devil’ in Unity either. Joseph Conrad, an English writer, said “The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary. Men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.” We are here to change that!

2. The second Principle is God is present in all people as our Divine Essence, our Christ Nature. Now, as we said, you can call this divine energy, God, Spirit, Buddha, anything you wish, even your own name!
God is everywhere present. God is all knowing. God is unlimited. Not all powerful but all power. Not just all knowing, but all knowledge. Close your eyes and imagine God as the stars, the trees, the grass, the animals, God is love, wisdom, creativity, imagination…God as you and me.
Imagine God as Oneness within you and me and all around us. Jesus said many times He and the Father are one. So are we.
The Native American, Black Elk said, “Peace comes within the souls of men when they realize their oneness with the Universe, when they realize it is really everywhere, it is within each one of us.”
Buddhists envisioned this Oneness as a net stretching in all directions, as did the Hopi, only their vision was a web, connecting all things. The Chinese call it Tao, the Hindus call it Brahman.

Many names for the same Presence and Power. The same energy that is within everything and everyone. Just different vibrations.

And since God is Principle, this Power and Presence is unchangeable, It just IS. God does not pick and choose who to bless or who to love. God IS love. That is all God can be, and the word love is so limiting we hesitate to even use it. The sun doesn’t pick and choose who to shine on…it just shines. And neither does God discriminate against any of us. God loves us all.

And if God is all good, we, too, are good, since we are made in God’s imagine. “Then God said, Let us make humankind in our image…” Genesis 1:26

Jill Alman-Bernstein said, “We are all love. Our hearts, our souls, our thoughts are full of love. Our very essence; so pure and simply love. We need to be reminded of this truth, and of the compassion and kindness that we must give ourselves in the name of that love.”

3. We create our life experiences through our way of thinking. We have free will. So we choose what we think, say and do. Everything in the manifest, physical realm has its beginning in thought. And we are learning in our classes that the feeling, or emotion we place behind those thoughts determine if they will be seen in the manifest world.

And here we must be careful, because unconscious thoughts count when we are manifesting. One more reason to know who you REALLY are and what you are truly thinking. And here’s an example: last year I had my eyes examined. (I know, some of you wish I had my HEAD examined!) I was informed I was starting to develop cataracts, and I had a special kind that interfered with some peripheral sight. So, I started having the thought that I must be careful of not having an accident from some car I don’t see coming from my side. Well, I had that accident this Memorial Day weekend. Did I attract that accident? I don’t know, I may have helped to create it. My point is, watch your thoughts, both conscious and unconscious. And it takes work to learn what those unconscious thoughts are.

4. Through affirmative prayer and meditation, we connect with God and bring out the good in our world. Prayer is creative thinking that heightens the connection with God-Mind and therefore brings forth wisdom, healing, prosperity and everything good. There is power in affirmative prayer, which we believe increases our awareness of God. And what IS Affirmative prayer? It’s prayer with gratitude instead of begging. It is connecting with the spirit of God within and asserting positive beliefs about the desired outcome. Affirmative prayer is the same method of prayer Jesus taught when he said, “So I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours” (Mark 11:24). Affirmative prayer reflects the certainty that we are each being led to our highest good, whatever form that may take, despite any temporary appearances.

Myrtle Fillmore sat every day and prayed to her cells telling them that they were perfect, whole, and healthy. When her husband saw that she was getting better, he did the same. They both healed themselves through prayer…she from TB and Charles lengthened his leg that was injured when he was young and had failed to grow a normal length.

How do you do affirmative prayer? Start by centering yourself. Let your mind clear so you can better connect with Source. Try to get into a meditative state. And give thanks. Gratitude is so important. Rosemary Ellen Guiley, author of Prayer Works, states that

“Prayer is ineffective when it is accompanied or followed by negative thinking, or the endless repeating of affirmations. We have to put power and intensity into our thought, change our thought, and believe in the guidance we are receiving. If we spend energy on negative beliefs and feelings, we will get negative results, even if we and others pray daily for us. For example, if you pray for a job and then complain to others that you have no job or can’t find one, you are undermining your prayer.”

“In Unity, we believe that all things work together for our highest good,” says Lynne Brown, vice president of Unity’s 24/7 prayer ministry called Silent Unity. “We pray to align ourselves with God and to allow ourselves to be inwardly guided to that good. Through affirmative prayer, we help co-create the good that is possible in our lives.”
So Be a conscious participant in your creating.

5. Knowledge of these Spiritual Principles is not enough. We must live them. Knowing and understanding the laws of life, also called Truth, are not enough. A person must live the truth that he or she knows.

This is what we are doing as we live our journey, learning as we go along. Becoming a better person each day, each moment. And if we ‘miss the mark’, we know we are not cursed, not going to ‘hell’, but we get to make another choice.

Are you aware of the difference between the words decide and choice? Decide has as part of its root, ‘cide’, c-i-d-e, which means ‘to cut off’. We see it in many word that are associated with killing as in insecticide, pesticide, genocide…So, there is no ‘second chance, or CHOICE, in ‘decide’.

So, maybe we would do best to “watch our language” as my metaphysics teacher would say, and use CHOICE instead of DECIDE.

And remember:
“The world is changed by your example, not your opinion.” Paulo Coelho