"The
Upanishads inform us that by "knowledge of God the bonds of
ignorance and unhappiness are destroyed." The Talmud says,
"Pray not that sinners may perish, but that the sin itself may
disappear." This means that evil has no existence in
itself, for if we persist in seeing the true rather than the false,
then the false will disappear and the true will make its
appearance. In the midst of confusion there is a place of
peace. In the midst of sorrow the joy of life persists.”
- The American Mystic
Ernest Holmes, This Thing Called Life
I
have never liked the words "ignorant" or
"ignorance" but I am aware of the reality of both in
describing a pathway to unhappiness. There are spiritual seekers
who spend vast amounts of money and time seeking enlightenment unaware
that our seeking must be preceded by self-examination. Through
self-examination we can become aware of what it is that we seek.
Through realization we can know that we already have that which we are
seeking even though it may be in the early stages of our awareness.
I have
always been surprised when I hear someone use the term "poverty
consciousness" as if it can be real. Can an absence of
intelligence be real? Of course not. G-d consciousness
which is a combination of Intelligence, Power and Spirit is
omnipresent ... present within all things and all people. To say
that someone has a poverty consciousness or worse yet to identify our
own consciousness with this term is to reveal ignorance of
consciousness. It is to declare a false-idea as truth. To
arrive at an intelligent conclusion about this we only need to
understand the universal nature of the Infinite Mind or Spirit.
Either everyone or no one is intelligent. Either everyone or no
one has a prosperity consciousness, a health consciousness or a
success consciousness. It is our use of these things that create
the seeming appearance of "evil" ... that is that which
falsely diminishes the truth of us.
We can read in
"This Thing Called Life" some insight into the truth of
us: "While
it is true that God Power is always with us, it is not true that we
have always realized Its presence. To realize this is to be able
to make conscious use of It, to direct It, for ourselves and for
others.
If you knew that the
Creative Energy of the universe were at your disposal and that the
same Power which made everything is flowing through you, would you not
naturally feel that you possessed the "pearl of great
price"? If you knew how to use this Power would you not
feel that you were on the verge of a new experience, wonderful and
limitless in its possibility? Would you not have a new hope and
enthusiasm about living?”
It
is not enough to know that we have Power available to us. We
must learn how to use It and then use It. Let's not wait until
something happens in our lives that causes us to think that we need
this Power. It is not a Power to be used on special occasions or
in times of emergency or urgency, It is available to us to use in all
things; that which seems small and that which seems large. As
the mystic stated, "there is no big or small to the One who makes
them all" .. or something like that. The way of ignorance
and unhappiness is to know and then not make use of the Power,
Intelligence and Spirit that is always seeking our recognition of It
... our identification with It and how faith to declare It as present
and working in our lives. To love G-d is to know G-d and to know
G-d we must embrace G-d's Power, Intelligence and Spirit in our daily
experiences. In this we are realizing the way of intelligence
and happiness in all that we do.
AND
SO IT IS!
Keep
the
faith!
Rev.
Henry Bates
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