Sunday, August 19, 2001


                       The Master Mind Jesus, stated, "I and the Father are One."  And of course, we can believe this without doubt, for God is Omnipresent.  Since God is Omnipresent and we can read in scripture that, "He is closer than breathing," then, a reasonable person understands that God hears every word we speak, every thought we think and is part of every action we take. Since we are always in the Presence of the Presence, then we are praying without ceasing.

               We might ask, if we are already praying then why do we take special periods of time to pray?  This question is important and its importance becomes greater as we move into the awareness that we are praying without ceasing.  Since we live in the world of effects, most of us experience times when we lose sight of the fact that we are in the Presence of the Presence.  So, we do things like gossip, or criticize others, or we get sad or mad and even depressed because we don't think God is listening to us at all.  But God is always listening and always giving us what we give out into the Universe.  If we are expressing God by giving of our joy, our love, our peace, our harmony, our strength, our goodwill and even our money, then all this is returned to us multiplied abundantly.  "As we give, so we receive."  This is a Principle of Life we can depend on.  However, if we give of these things but we throw in a little criticism, judgment, deceit, dishonesty, gossip, doubt, fear and gloom - guess what - God gives us that back too!  When we do it we don't realize that we are praying, that we are asking for this to be an experience in our own lives.  But we are, whether we realize it or not!  That's why the Master Teacher stated, "love your neighbor as yourself - judge with righteous judgment - as you sow, so shall you reap."  We are the Thinker that Thinks the Thoughts that Create our Experiences.  Need I say more?

                And this is why we must take time out for "concentrated prayer."  We must remove from our very own consciousness the "stuff" that we do not want, the "stinking thinking" that entered our consciousness, unconsciously from our habitual "wrong thinking,"  from our not being aware that we are praying without ceasing.  Periods of Prayer, then, become periods of "cleaning up" that which we have created "evidence" of in our consciousness that we do not want to "experience" in our Life.  The 5 Steps of Scientific Prayer practiced properly, has a rhythm and energy that dissolves the attachments we hold in consciousness to the things that we "unconsciously" created in our consciousness.  How do we know that we have created evidence of the negative in our consciousness?  By being honest with ourselves and understanding that whatever we are experiencing, we have created the experience, first, in consciousness.  We created it, so we don't have to look for the person who did it.  We can't blame anyone else because they didn't do it.  We did.  And that is the Good News, because if we created it, then we have the power to create its opposite!  If we are experiencing sickness, we can create health by ridding our consciousness of the evidence of sickness.  We can affirm health, wholeness and perfection in its place.  If we are experiencing poverty, we can affirm prosperity, and reinforce our belief in God as our Supply.  If we are experiencing loneliness or depression, we can affirm that Divine Joy is within us and create a greater conviction that it is the experience that we truly desire and accept for ourselves.  We must spiritualize our thoughts and our words so that we lift ourselves up in consciousness above and beyond the "stuff" that is appearing in the world we live in.

                  We live in a world where the negative makes the headlines and is blasted to our listening ears from our radios and television sets.  As we accept all this gloom and doom in our consciousness, this acceptance creates within us the "possibility" of gloom and doom in our lives.  But, we are not subject to the world of effects and Scientific Prayer can rid our consciousness of its "seeming" power to deceive us into believing that this is the way Life has to be.

                   As we maintain the awareness that we, everyone, is created in the image and likeness of God and that we are always in the Presence of the Presence, this understanding empowers us to create a beautiful and magnificent Life that is filled with joy, love and purpose as we fill our mind and hearts with joyful, loving, purposeful prayers without ceasing.
                                
 And So It Is!           

Letting Love use me in Its own Good Way,
Henry Lee Bates