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“Whether
humanity will consciously follow the law of love, I do not know. But
that need not disturb me. The law will work just as the law of
gravitation works, whether we accept it or not.”
- Mahatma Gandhi
I
believe that each of us has the power within us to control the
conditions in our lives, by controlling our reactions to them. It
is not what happens to us that makes the difference in our life, but
what happens in us. This is how our "self image" is
created ... and our self image is t he most important thing in our
lives. And by this, I mean the way in which we see our selves.
If we see ourselves as someone who is advancing forward in life, we will
advance forward. But, if we see ourselves as unable to do much
about our circumstances, then we pretty much stay where we are in life.
Most of us have goals and
aspirations for something greater in our lives. This desire within
us for expansion and growth is in alignment with the nature of the
Universe. The Universe is always growing and expanding even in its
infinity. This growth and expansion is a combination of Love and
Law ... Love desires to create ... and Law is the natural response that
puts this desire into action. This natural sequence of Love and
Law functions throughout nature and throughout Life. Love alone
will not bring us the Good that we desire.
The desire for a greater expression of Good in
our lives arises from the Law of Love that brings this desire to our
awareness. The more universal this desire is ... that is, the more
who are benefited by it, the greater the impulse within it to be made
manifest. And this impulse to be made manifest is accomplished
through Universal Laws. Even those things that seem personal to
us, at first glance, contain a universal Good; i.e. when we pay our
electric bill we are not only paying for the electricity that we used,
but we are also part of the financial support of all the people employed
by the electric company and those who the electric company does business
with. When we take this more universal idea into our consciousness
when we write checks for services and things, it does not take long for
us to realize that we are part of the universal circulation of Good.
Eric Butterworth, the great Unity teacher, once
stated that often he would hear a person say, "I understand the law
but I cannot seem to demonstrate the good I desire and need."
Or more likely as a result of human rationalization, the statement is
put in this way: "I have gotten all the good out of this and
now I am going on to a higher teaching so I can demonstrate the good I
desire." Often this is just a reaction of someone who is
understanding the Law ... but is not going to that deeper understanding
and realization of a very few spiritual principles: "There is
only God." "I am a part of God." (or child of
God) Eric Butterworth was referring to the Unity teaching, but
similar comments have come to me about the Science of Mind. God Is
Mind ... and the only way in which we can approach God is in our mind
and the only way in which we can demonstrate a greater Good in our
experience is to demonstrate more of God in our experience and we do
this by knowing that God Is All and God Is In All; Omnipresent,
Omnipotent.
We must understand this relationship of
Love and Law in order to demonstrate Truth ... or the Good in all things
that concern us. Dr. Holmes writes in The Science of Mind,
"Love points the way, and Law makes the way possible."
This is a great Truth, but also one that will not be demonstrated with
platitudes. We must "know the Truth" ... for there is no
freedom in Truth unknown ... or a mere intellectual understanding of
Truth. We must go deeper within our mind and work to
"convince ourselves" of the Truth that we desire to
demonstrate in our lives. The Truth is Health, Happiness, Success,
Abundance and Peace ... the measure of these things that we enjoy in our
lives is the measure of Truth that we embody in consciousness.
It is important that we
learn to confront the issues of our lives with the Truth; Truth known is
Truth demonstrated. However, we must be willing to do the work ...
and often the work is very repetitive and not at all glamorous ... it
requires that we study, not only books that teach us the Truth, but
study our life and our reactions to our everyday experiences. And
as we foster and cultivate our understanding of Truth, we will soon
recognize that whenever Love is not enough, it is our recognition of Law
that fills the gap and brings forth the Good that we desire.
AND
SO IT IS!
Keep
the faith!
Rev.
Dr. Henry Lee Bates
Visit Rev. Bates BLOG: Living
the Science of Mind
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