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Sunday, January 27, 2002
Consciousness:
The sense of awareness, of knowing. The knowledge or realization of any
idea, object, or condition. The sum total of all ideas accumulated in
and affecting man's present being. The composite of ideas, thoughts,
emotions, sensation, and knowledge that makes up the conscious,
subconscious, and super-conscious phases of mind. It includes all that
man is aware of--spirit, soul, and body. -
from "The Revealing Word" by Charles Fillmore, Founder of the
Unity Movement
The Master Mind Jesus stated that we must "be like little
children." Little
children look out at the world with trust, love and curiosity. As
our minds become influenced by people and experiences, we take on many
of the firmly held beliefs and concepts of those around us. We
learn to accept the beliefs of our parents, our siblings, our teachers
and others. Our greatest influence is our parents. Most of
us move through the first 18 years of our lives living in the
circumstances and conditions that are the effects of our parents'
consciousness. In other words, we take on the beliefs, ideas and
concepts that have developed into the Law of Mind that is operating
automatically in our parents experience of life. Our parents went
through the same "conditioning" of consciousness with their
parents. This is why the Radical Rabbi taught that we must be "born
again." We must "renew"
our minds and experience a "transformation"
of thought, ideas and concepts.
The "sins of the fathers" are the mistaken beliefs and ideas
that have fostered an experience of discord, inferiority and superiority
in our world of experience. An
extreme example of this are the beliefs and concepts of children reared
by parents who are members of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). Children are
not born with a consciousness of racism or hatred towards those of
another race or color. These ideas and beliefs are the "iniquities"
that are of this world, not of the world of Spirit from which we came.
Once these beliefs are firmly held in consciousness, our experiences
will validate them as truth. But they are not the Truth.
They are but the confusion in the minds of people who lack spiritual
understanding. Anti-Semitism, nationalism, homophobia and all the
other phobias are "caused"
in the same manner. It is the acceptance in our "minds"
of a "mistake" over the Truth.
In Religious Science we understand that sins are but
mistakes, an action from error rather than from right thinking.
Rather than get into blame and shame for the mistakes we have made, we
know we must "renew" our minds to the Truth, and follow the
way of right thinking and Divine Wisdom. Lack of spiritual
understanding sees something in others that we refuse to see in
ourselves. In the Science of Mind we understand that we can only
see from what we are seeing with. If we are looking out on the
world with a consciousness filled with prejudice and judgment, we will
find many things and people to be prejudiced against and to judge.
But the judgment is against us for the seeds of iniquity have been
planted in our very own consciousness and we are falsely believing that
we can harvest them outside of ourselves. This is why we can never
"blame"
anyone for anything. We
are always only experiencing ourselves.
If our mind is filled with ideas that we can have enemies or dissension,
we will find many demonstrations of enemies and dissension to validate
our beliefs.
In order to "forgive" or "give up" the sins of the
fathers, we must cultivate, foster and nurture the opposite beliefs and
concepts. As we contemplate Truth, Love and Life as God, as Good,
we "renew" our minds to the Truth and our consciousness begins
its "transformation." In this transformation we will
find that God Is All and All. Its All God, All Good and
everybody and everything is Good. It can be no other way.
Love alone can overcome fear because love
surrenders itself to the object of its adoration.
-
Ernest Holmes - The Science of Mind
And
So It Is!
Letting Love use me
in Its own Good Way,
Henry Lee
Bates
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