In the early 1900's several schools of religious thought came together and formed the New Thought Alliance. From this Alliance, the Unity School of Truth was born, Science of Mind, Religious Science and Christian Science, among others. This alliance penned a declaration of truths, boldly stating that all disease, illness, unhappiness, misery, and self-punishment could be healed if we apply two principles of truth into our daily consciousness. The first is that there is a single, divine God that is All in all; and the second, that the Divinity which we call God lives inside of each and every one of us.
Knowing deeply and believing completely at every level of our being that we are not separate from God, that we are one with the Divine, will heal us. They proclaimed that it is only when we believe we are separate from Spirit that we remain ill, ill-at-ease, frightened, weak, powerless, tied to the past, resentful, stuck, hopeless. It is the belief that we are separate from Spirit that leaves us unable to release the powerful healing life-force in us and through us.
Many of us were born into religions that claimed God is somewhere up there: on a mountain top, in the heavens looking down on us. So, in order to access the God in heaven or on the mountain top, we need to go outside ourselves to look for help. We are forced to go outside ourselves to ask that power be granted us, outside ourselves to look for answers, and outside ourselves to find the wisdom we need to live our lives bravely and fully.
Looking Deeply Within Ourselves
The spiritual path directs us in the opposite direction -- it encourages us to look deeply within ourselves. The path explains that when we look outside of ourselves for anything, we feel weak, and separate, and powerless, and come to believe that we must get it from the outside somewhere or else we shall never have it. We soon become dependent on some outside force to help us, lead us, guide us in a life we are powerless to change.
The ancient hermetic teachings of The Kybalion explain that there is only one mind, the God mind, and we all share that mind. If we think God has one mind and we have a different mind, we begin to think, "I better start begging for help. I better get down on my knees and say "Please God, please, please give me something I need. Give me something I don't have. Please make something happen that can't happen through me, that only You can make happen."
The next thing you know, you're on your knees begging for help, an utterly powerless, helpless creature. That image couldn't be further from the truth. Everything you need is inside you. The only reason we don't know it is because we don't go inside often enough to touch that place.
We never have to beg God for anything. We never have to beg anybody for anything. Whatever it is we need, is already living inside us, but if we don't know it and acknowledge it, we can't use it.
Know Thyself... and Know God Within You
That is why throughout every spiritual path we are advised to Know Thyself; because the deeper you go within yourself, the more you will know yourself... and come to know the God within you. We can't know a God outside of ourselves because outside of ourselves God is reduced to a concept, a theory. If we believe that God is outside, we are denying the truth that the power and wisdom reside innately within us; and we take ourselves further away from accessing the true source of our divine power within.
If we go deeply inside ourselves, Ernest Holmes the creator of Science of Mind says, we will bump into God. Where else are we going to find God except deep down inside ourselves? Until we understand that, we are working with just the power of our own two hands. We can get some things accomplished. We can function. We can pay our bills. We can stay alive.
When we connect to the power within ourselves, we will lead lives that are full, and creative, and juicy, and alive, and powerful. We will accept that we are at-one with God, and we will be able to access that power and wisdom. When we recognize that the power exists, and identify that power inside ourselves, it makes a tremendous difference in our lives. It makes God utterly real. It takes God out of the realm of the abstract concepts, and makes God a living God inside us; moving through us, being us.
Bumping Into Your Own Wisdom
I see the innate power and wisdom of our own Divinity in my work as a spiritual counselor all the time. When I take people a few breaths down to that deeper level of mind, they surprisingly bump into their own wisdom. If I ask someone in their conscious mind, "What keeps you from having the relationships you want?" they will tell me that they don't know. But when I take that same person to the level of deeper mind -- a few moments later and a few breaths deeper -- and ask the same question, they always know the answer.
At the ground of our being, at the deeper level of divine mind, intuitive mind, we have not forgotten anything, we remember everything. We can take ourselves back to the exact moments in the past when we shut the door of our heart to ourselves, to others, to God. Once there, we can reopen those doors in the safety of the knowledge of our unity with the Divine and heal what we have carried in our hearts that has remained unhealed. We can finish our unfinished business from the past. We can free ourselves to stop dragging our past into our future.
It's awesome how much wisdom there is deep inside us about who we are, where we came from, and what we are here to do on earth. But in order to touch that wisdom, to feel the reality of the Divine living within us, to know that the Divine resides within us, we've got to go inside.
Fear Prevents Us From Going Inside
The only thing that keeps us from going inside, naturally, is our fear. Sitting still is a very difficult thing to do. Try sitting still and quieting your little mind for even five minutes. It's very difficult. Fear threatens that if you go inside, you will find nothing is in there, or something scary will be there, or you will change so much you'll lose the life you have, or you won't be able to handle it, or you'll be overcome by the feelings.
The truth is that when we get still and go within, we find out God is within -- and that knowledge and feeling affords us an outrageous confidence, hopefulness, connection, and power. We will never know this power unless we connect to the Divine inside us. When you feel it -- not just know it, not just believe it -- but when you feel it, that's when things really begin shifting in your life. It is an experience, a feeling -- the presence of God within, not something we know in our mind. And it will be different for each of us.
The Concept of God As You Understand Him/Her/It
One of the most powerful ideas from the twelve step program of AA is the concept of God as you understand Him. If you understand God in the form of a she, God's a she. If you understand God in the form of a group, God's a group. If you understand God in the form of a tree, God's a tree. If you understand God in the form of the sun, God's the sun. Your direct experience of God will look different than mine. It has to look different than mine because you and I are different. And the AA program encourages its followers to come up with any concept of God that works for them, because if they can get personal with God, then they are beginning to engage with God. And it's a start. It is said that the only thing that keeps people away from God is the word God.
Until we take God off the mountaintop and begin to seek 'It' within the depths of our being, we will fear it. Anything we are separate from we will inevitably fear. We will blame our hardships, failures, struggles, and losses on God. It's the wrath of God, we will think. The God outside of me will hurt me, we will believe. God who sits in judgment of me will punish me. We will believe that God is keeping score.
That is why going within ourselves is key -- when you descend into the truth of who you are, you will come to feel the safety and love of God deeply inside of your heart. You will feel the warmth of God's healing light and be moved by it. And the Divine eyes that already exist within will enable you to see yourself through those same eyes -- to see yourself with a new compassion and loving softness. The eyes of God that lay buried within us allow us to see the truth of everything and everyone around us, including and most especially us.
When we are convinced of the Divinity within us, that God is 'All in All' and lives in us, we become bold, brave, courageous beings. We have eyes that see past, present, and future, and we learn the truth about who we are. Each of us has this tremendous spiritual power that is the secret of life. It exists, and it exists inside us. We don't have to beg or plead that something be given to us that already exists within us. We have only to open our awareness to the knowledge that God lives, God is real, God is right here. God is right here inside us. The moment we begin to open our conscious mind to accept that belief, things within ourselves and within our lives shift, move, heal.
The secret of life lies within you. To utilize it, recognize that it lives inside you and then identify with it as who you are: My mind is living in the mind of God, my heart is beating in the heart of God, my soul is living in the soul of God. God can't do anything for you if you don't allow the Divine to move through you.
When we access the power and wisdom that is already inside us waiting to be tapped, then, in partnership with the Divine, we can heal. We can move the mountains in our lives. That's what miracles are -- allowing that Divine power within each of us to do its outrageous work through us. The miracle of realizing we are at one with God.
About The Author
August Gold served as a spiritual founder and director of Sacred Center New York for eight years, a teacher, counselor and spiritual mentor in New York City for twenty-five, and a grateful volunteer at the Manhattan Center for Living, Gay Men’s Health Crisis and the Samaritans Suicide Hotline. Translated into 15 languages, her books with co-author Joel Fotinos include the Family Circle Book of the Month The Prayer Chest, as well as Multiply Your Blessings, and the Think & Grow Rich Workbook Series. Since 1990, she has conducted a private practice in New York City in spiritual counseling, directing clients to communicate with the wisdom of their Divine Mind. A licensed and ordained Interfaith Minister, she also writes and officiates exquisite wedding ceremonies. Visit her website at http://augustgold.net.
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