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Weekly Message for
Sunday, May 5, 2002
It
has been over a year since I met Don Miguel Ruiz at the City of Angels
and participated in a panel discussion of "The Four
Agreements." It was a wonderful opportunity  to get a closer
sense of the power of the Toltec Wisdom as compared to Religious
Science, the "Religion of Jesus." I will always
be grateful to Dr. O. C. Smith for putting
me on this panel at the City of Angels Church of Religious Science as it
gave me a greater insight into Don Miguel Ruiz' work and his four
agreements.
I am in agreement with 3
of the 4 Agreements:
1) Be Impeccable With Your Word -
"Say only what you mean. The word is the most powerful tool
we have as humans........" this is a
powerful statement ... but, it is not new and we can trace the power of
the word back to Moses, the Old Testament and beyond. Jesus
demonstrated this greater than any other teacher and it is well defined
in the Science of Mind, the textbook of Religious Science, written in
1926.
2) Don't
Take Things Personally - "Each of
us lives in our own personal dream, and what we say, what we do, and the
opinions we give come from the agreements that we have in our own minds
- they have nothing to do with anyone else. By the same token,
others' opinions have nothing to do with us, so there is nothing to take
personally. When we make the assumption that whatever happens is
because of us, we continue to hurt each other and brood about what we
call injustice. A huge amount of freedom is gained when we take
nothing personally. - I DISAGREE
COMPLETELY (see below).
3) Don't
Make Assumptions. - "We make
assumptions when we think we know what others mean, or when we think
they know what we mean. The problem with making all those
assumptions is that we believe them as the truth, and we blame others
for the assumptions that we make. We must have the courage to ask
what another means, and the courage to say what we really mean.
The day we stop making assumptions, we communicate cleanly and clearly,
free of emotional poison." - I AGREE
COMPLETELY, courage is the "key word" in this agreement.
However, without the courage to "ask" and the courage to
"say what we really mean," this agreement is meaningless and
useless.
4) Always Do Your Best. - "This
agreement makes the other three possible." ........
Everyone can agree with this.
Back to Agreement #2- Don't Take Anything Personally - In
Religious Science, as did Jesus, we understand that we live in a
"cause and effect" Universe. We also realize that there
is only God, there is none other, there is One Mind and that Mind Is the
Mind of God, there Is only One Life, and that Life, Is the Life of God.
God individualizes as us and we not only function from our individual
consciousness but also from the collective consciousness.
Consciousness is everything and our consciousness out-pictures into our
world of experience. Everything Is God, so everything Is Good,
even the opinions, criticisms and judgments from people seemingly
against us. Yes, it is true these are Good, the Good is just not always
apparent. But every message we receive both praise and criticism,
is the Universe responding to our consciousness of the spiritual law, "God
Is Good and His Creations are Good." If we don't
listen to these messages, then we most likely will continue to remain in
the consciousness that demonstrates both Good and seemingly not-good
experiences. As we look at these messages trusting that they are for our
Good, what we need to know or to correct in our consciousness will be
revealed to us.
Don Miguel Ruiz states that "when we make
the assumption that whatever happens is because of us, we continue to
hurt each other and brood about what we call injustice."
Actually this is an assumption that we can only understand at that level
of spiritual awareness. A spiritually aware person would not brood
or call anything an injustice. A person who is not spiritually
aware of consciousness, is not helped by this assumption but hindered.
EVERYTHING IS GOD! This is the Highest
Truth and we must understand this. There is no God and something
else that tries to hurt us, shame us or blame us. It Is Always
God, always Good.... and
if we ignore the Truth that these messages are for our Good, then we
will not transcend this level of consciousness and remain in bondage to
our lack of understanding and spiritual awareness. Both the great
Missouri Mystic, Charles Fillmore and Dr. Ernest Holmes taught that we
are to go from where we are... but we won't know where we are unless we
pay attention.
I
bless Don Miguel Ruiz and the Toltec Wisdom that has blessed countless
numbers of people, but let's not back-track to a teaching that is not
complete when we have been Divinely guided and directed to the "Real
Thing - the Religion of Jesus" that can and does set us free from
the old beliefs, assumptions and ideas that continue to hold many of the
world in bondage. In the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,
"free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, we're free at
last!" This is our Truth when we know that "It's All
God."
And
So It Is!
Letting Love use me
in Its own Good Way,
Henry Lee
Bates
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