Spiritual Solutions

There is an ancient scriptural Truth that should be pasted on the medicine cabinet of every home: “Thou dost keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee.” (Isa. 26:3) This could be altered to read: “Thou dost keep her in perfect health whose mind is stayed on the idea that God is the healing power of nature, that God is ever with her and in her as the limitless healing and sustaining influence.” You see, LIFE is the gift of the infinite to you. You can’t get away from it. It has hold of you and it will never let you go.

Life itself is whole, complete, perfect. Life never gets sick or tired. But you can mobilize and use this gift of life in the way you choose. If you think you are weak and sickly, then that is the way you will draw upon, and use, life. You live in a world of your own making. Much depends upon what you give your mind to think about. Paul said, and I paraphrase, “Whatever is good and pure and lovely, think on these things.” (Phil. 4:8)

It requires a lot of real discipline and self-control to meet the challenges of life with peace and poise and with a positive attitude of mind. But you have no other choice. A healthy mind is essential if you would have a healthy body. It may well be more important what you give your mind for breakfast than what you give your body. Interestingly, I just received an email from fellow Unity ministers Lauren and John Mclaughlin to say that, for the past 90 days, both of them have been experiencing what John calls “opportunities to heal.” They said they accepted many of those opportunities as they worked their way through their challenges.

It’s good to remember that you have a built-in capacity for health and for the healing of the ills that have intruded their way into your system. But you must cooperate with God and also with the physical body. There are certain built-in control mechanisms that determine the needs of the body, either the need for rest or for nutrients. When functioning properly, this mechanism will lead us to desire sleep or this or that good through which the needs may be filled.

It is well to have faith in the innate perfection of the body, perhaps even to declare that the body is the temple of the living God, and then to let the inner spirit guide us in the right and wise use of mind and body. There is a wisdom within that will keep us balanced in wise action, if we believe in it and act upn the belief.

There is probably nothing more effective than the healing therapy of joy. Happiness is something too many people take for granted. Either you are happy or you’re not, and there is nothing you can do about it – so the thinking goes. But there is so much more involved. Joy is an instrument we can learn to play, like the violin or the piano. If we studied happiness and delved into it the way we do the various disease symptoms that are in vogue today, we would have less discontent – and we would find it easy to release the free flow of life.

A happy heart, a cheerful countenance, and a smiling face – all are concomitants of health. We need to have the liberating, harmonizing currents of love and  joy awakened within us. The key is to get the mind lifted up on a new level of consciousness. Start the day with a song – even when you don’t feel much like singing. Make joy your way of life.

Did you ever notice that when a person does something that is relaxing and enjoyable, he or she may say, “Ah, this is the life!” Remember, the potential for abundant life is always within you. You must express it. So, every day of your life, no matter what lies before you, declare with enthusiasm, “AH, THIS IS THE LIFE!” And feel good about it.

Begin every day with a song. Know that the body is the temple of the living God. Give thanks with joy that an Infinite intelligence within you guides you in what you eat, how you exercise, and in the complete and whole expression of life itself.

Remember, God is Blessing You Right Now!

Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham

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Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham, a Unity minister for over thirty-nine years, invites you to enjoy more articles and/or subscribe to his free inspirational newsletter, “Spiritual Solutions,” at www.spiritualsolutionsblog.com

Feel free to share this article in its entirety with a friend. You may also reproduce and publish this article if you also include this reference box. Thank you!

If you’d like to receive “Rich Words,” featuring weekday inspirational quotes, you can subscribe at www.alanrowbotham.com
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Without deep roots we merely exist; our lives are shallow. Unless deeply rooted in spiritual principles, we do not and cannot develop into individuals of stature and worth, such as we are intended to be. If we felt sure that our roots were deep set and established enough to withstand whatever storm comes along, then our morale would not be shaken by any winds that might blow.

George Elliot once said that no human being can live a whole and wholesome life unless rooted to some particular spot in the soil. The spot of soil we allude to also means for us a working philosophy, an orientation of spiritual principles without which we lead superficial lives with only surface roots; and the winds of worldly experience easily bowl us over.

There are two aspects to every strong life, rootage and fruitage, receptivity and activity, relaxation and tension, leaning back and thrusting forward. But he or she who cannot do one cannot do the other very well. He or she who is unable to rest cannot work effectively either. He or she who cannot let go cannot hold on very firmly. He or she who cannot find footing cannot progress. If one cannot let go, one has nothing substantial to rest on; one hasn’t grown dependable roots and doesn’t know how to “let go and let God.”

With strong roots you can withstand any wind; and this is what we are urging – building an awareness of your inner resources, an awareness of your divine son-ship, the Christ in you.

The story is told of a young war veteran who was finally released from the hospital where he had been recovering after being seriously wounded in action. Arriving home at last, he discovered that not only was his only child ill with pneumonia and in a foster home, and was to die a week later, but also that his wife had been living in a most irresponsible way, drinking to excess, and had wasted virtually all of the young man’s property and savings. To top it off, she was now getting a divorce from him. Stunned by this, he felt he was truly done for, and that there was no reason for him to go on living.

Shortly thereafter, while riding on a bus he passed the spot along the highway where stands the old live oak under which the poet Sidney Lanier wrote The Marshes of Glynn. This made him recall the poet’s struggle to attain perfection in his composing and writing although handicapped by serious illness. He remembered these few lines which he had memorized as a schoolboy and which had been his favorites:

“As the marsh he secretly builds on the watery sod, behold I will build me a   nest on the greatness of God. I will fly in the greatness of God as the marsh hen flies in the freedom that fills all the space ‘twixt the marsh and the skies. By so many roots as the marsh grass sends in the sod, I will heartily lay me a hold on the greatness of God.”

Suddenly, things began to happen in the young veteran’s mind. “Why, I can be like that; I can do that too!” He wrote down these lines as a commitment to himself on a little card and placed it on a mirror where he couldn’t help but see it frequently: “I must put the past out of mind and relax; live one day at a time, reaching out each morning, every hour to take hold of the greatness of God and the beauty and goodness and healing power that surround me without and within, no matter where I am.”

Later, he spoke a good deal of his experience, explaining that at first he could barely get through a day, but he made these words a daily prayer, thereby finding healing and peace of mind and a renewed sense of purpose and the inspiration to build a new life as he cast all his former hurts and heartaches on that power within.

I firmly believe that when we accept the idea that we are plenteously provided for from within, and also act as if this were true, something happens . . . the taproot begins to grow, so to speak, and the entire experience begins to unfold. In that consciousness we never know lack, we never feel insecurity, we are never helpless. We are rather like the one described by the Psalmist, “He is like a tree planted by streams of water, that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.” (Ps. 1:3)

You can be sure that when you have given good attention to growing roots, the roots will care for themselves and bring forth the fruits of good living.

Remember, God is Blessing You, Right Now,

Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham
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Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham, a Unity minister for over thirty-nine years, invites you to enjoy more articles and/or subscribe to his free inspirational newsletter, “Spiritual Solutions,” at www.spiritualsolutionsblog.com

Feel free to share this article in its entirety with a friend. You may also reproduce and publish this article if you also include this reference box. Thank you!

If you’d like to receive “Rich Words,” featuring weekday inspirational quotes, you can subscribe at www.alanrowbotham.com
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It is normal to want to be with only those people with whom you are comfortable, but this is neither realistic nor healthy. If you were surrounded only with those who agree with you, life would be quite static. If two persons only agree, then there is nothing creative or dynamic in the relationship.

Six hundred years B. C. the Chinese philosopher Lao-tzu defined life as “to be in relation,” and taught that man lives in proportion to the number of points with which he makes contact with life and with the world. There is a great unity of life, but also a great diversity. Everyone, in his or her own manner, is a creative expression of the same Mind, the same Creator, but unity does not mean sameness. You are not like everyone else, and others are not just like you. It is important, from the very beginning of any relationship, to agree to let the other person just be. People have always differed from one another, and they always will; we must expect this and learn to live with it, learn from it, and enjoy it.

I f people are not what we would wish them to be, if they don’t react as we desire, there is no reason to become angry or be discouraged, any more than we would get mad at a light bulb for not shining when there was a faulty connection. You cannot change others any more than you can change electricity, but you can change the level at which you deal with them. You can transform your attitudes, your expectation, your prejudices and your fears; you can overcome your own resistance to them.

When you climb to a different level in order to draw light from the other person, then it will find expression, and now you are seeing a different facet of that person’s nature which has always been there but which had been obscured by attitudes of a temporary nature. Change your vantage point and you will see others from a different level.

Perhaps we have not yet learned to “turn on the light” when trying to get along with others. If we were always to turn on the light before we make contact with people, that light would reveal for us both a basis of relationship. Two people, approaching each other timidly, each feeling that the other must prove himself worthy, both therefore withholding, have little chance of achieving a harmonious relationship. First turn on the light and begin to find the points of contact that will be enjoyable.

We must condition ourselves to enjoy and learn from diversity within unity. We are all children of God, yet we are all different from one another. Don’t expect people to always agree with you or follow your styles or manners or mores. Don’t expect people to live as you. Accept them as human beings just as you want them to accept you

It is occasionally instructive to take a long, hard look at yourself. Do you by any chance see in yourself an opinionated person, the kind that is being invariably disliked? This results from a feeling of insecurity and is expressed with the refusal to consider any variations. You could practice what one writer called the “invincible might of meekness,” the humility to recognize your own limitations and to admit that others have ideas and their own kind of worthiness. Have enough spirit of adventure to listen to others and to consider their ways.

So many of us have a pervasive fear of change in ourselves and a dislike of change in others. Shakespeare wrote, “Love is not love that alters when it alteration finds.” Be sure your motives for befriending someone are not selfish. Relate to the person as he or she really is. Every person has his own life story, his own situation, so be sensitive and responsive to this and not to your own preconceived attitudes or feelings of what he should be.

Try not to fall to the level of being irritated, angry or annoyed at others. Ask yourself as a scientist would, “Why do I react in this way?” Why let someone else determine how you feel? Then ask yourself why the other person behaved as he did. What inner conflicts might he have? Does he suffer from feelings of unworthiness? Has she just experienced a crushing defeat? Is he afraid of you? Dealing with situations in this manner will not only free you from being irritated, but may well find you going out of your way to assist the other person rather than hurting yourself by resenting him or her and fighting back.

It is a great feeling to be able to study others objectively and to master your own personal reactions. It does not require any special greatness of soul, only the willingness to attempt it and to work at it. You will be thrilled to see your true self shine, rather than always resorting to being defensive. Act out of your own largeness of spirit; be what you want to be and accept all others as they want to be.

Refuse to permit life or other persons to decide how you are going to act or feel. Develop control over yourself at all times, whatever the situation might be. Know that life is growth and that everyone has something to bring to it. Meeting life in this consciousness, you will attract to you the kind of people who will make life worthwhile.

Remember, God is Blessing You, Right Now!

Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham
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Rev. Alan Rowbotham, a Unity minister for over thirty-eight years, invites you to enjoy more articles and/or subscribe to his free inspirational newsletter, “Spiritual Solutions,” at www.spiritualsolutionsblog.com

Feel free to share this article in its entirety with a friend. You may also reproduce and publish this article if you also include this reference box. Thank you!

If you’d like to receive “Rich Words,” featuring weekday inspirational quotes, you can subscribe at
www.alanrowbotham.com

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Each person must let his or her own light shine – the illuminating principle within you, the Christ in you, the hope of glory – and cast its beam into the dark and needy places of others on the path.

One of the really heart-warming stories coming out of the darkness of Nazi terrorism in the Second World War is the story of Phillip Vernier, who was subjected to just about every form of indignity because he was a man of peace. They placed him in a filthy prison without cause, and they starved his fine family. An American officer, who called on him afterwards, reported that the visit with this man, this luminous soul, was the high-water mark of his life, and that this gentleman was “incorrigibly Christian.” Here are some words from a letter in Vernier’s hand:

“If you are a disciple of the Master, it is up to you to illumine the earth. You do not have to groan over everything the world lacks, you are there to bring it what it needs. There where reign hatred, malice and discord, you will put love, pardon and peace. For lying you will bring truth, for despair . . . hope, for doubt . . . faith. There where there is sadness, you will give joy. If you are in the smallest degree the servant of God, all these virtues of light you will carry with you.

“Do not be frightened by a mission so vast. It is not really you who are charged with the fulfillment of it, you are only the torchbearer. The fire, even when it burns within you, even when it burns you, is never lit by you. It uses you as the oil of the lamp. You hold it, feed it, and carry it around. But it is the fire that works, that gives light to the world, and to yourself at the same time. Do not be the clogged lantern that chokes and smothers the light, the lamp timid or ashamed hidden under a bushel. Flame up and shine before men. Lift high the fire of God!”

It is very important to all of us, certainly to the world about us, that we flame up and shine, that we let our light shine, rather than hiding our lamp under a bushel of fear, worry, prejudice, bitterness and discouragement. Yes, it is so important to let our light shine. We have a tremendous job to cultivate and keep the light of Christ within our faces.

I love the story about Martha Purdy, who lived alone in a one-room weather-stained shack on a little island of the rocky coast of Maine many years ago. Although she was confined to a wheelchair, she did all her own work. Her few neighbors, on the cliff in back of her little cove, were fisher folk. Every evening, as the shadows deepened, she would light a little candle and place it in her front window. The fishermen coming in late from a haul, sometimes in a storm, would see the tiny ray from Martha’s candle and know where to head for the short strip of beach.

One rainy night, two boats were returning with their load of fish. The men scanned the dark shoreline and there, as usual, was the beam from Martha’s little candle to guide them in. And, as usual, one of the men went up to the little house to tell her they were safely home. But Martha sat very still in her wheelchair. She had quietly passed into “the great beyond” after lighting her one little candle. For a long time after that, the fishermen’s wives would come to Martha’s window and leave a light. They called it “Martha’s light,” in memory of the deed of a thoughtful woman whose candle’s beam carried good to others.

We remember that Jesus said, “Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.” Every time we light just one little candle in our heart, we “glorify” the Father, because through our beam of understanding we more fully let our light shine.

When we light just one little candle of understanding in our heart to aid another who is struggling up from darkness, we lift our own consciousness, and we gain even more than those who we are trying to help. This is the law: “As you give, so do you receive . . . good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over.”

Yes, when you let the light of Christ shine from within out, it will soften your features and give you a new radiance that will have a tremendous influence on what you do. If you are a salesperson, it will help you make contracts. If you work in an office, it will give you a sense of rapport with those around you. At home, it will cause your family and children to respond to you with a respect you have never known before. All because from inside out, you are letting the glow of the real spirit within you express. It will change your life, and you will be a part of changing the life of the world around you.

Remember, God is Blessing You, Right Now!

Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham
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Rev. Alan Rowbotham, a Unity minister for over thirty-eight years, invites you to enjoy more articles and/or subscribe to his free inspirational newsletter, “Spiritual Solutions,” at www.spiritualsolutionsblog.com

Feel free to share this article in its entirety with a friend. You may also reproduce and publish this article if you also include this reference box. Thank you!

If you’d like to receive “Rich Words,” featuring weekday inspirational quotes, you can subscribe at
www.alanrowbotham.com

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There are three simple things that can bring you newness of life by adding life to your years. First of all, live in what Emerson called “day-tight compartments.” Regardless of your age in years, you have the same twenty-four hours to live as has a young child. See the importance of living one day at a time. Don’t let the weight of many yesterdays bow you down. Today is the only time in eternity. “This is the day which the Lord has made; I will rejoice and be glad in it.”

It may be well to remind yourself from time to time of the Sanskrit proverb, “Yesterday is but a dream and tomorrow is only a vision. But today well-lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness and every tomorrow a vision of hope.” As someone has said, “On the great clock of time there is but one word – now!”

Secondly, don’t allow yourself to get into the position where you have nothing in life to be enthusiastic about. Enthusiasm is the fire and flame of life, and without it you only half live. Youth is not a time of life. It is a state of mind. Eric Butterworth was fond of saying, “My age is none of my business.”

Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. When Charles Fillmore, co-founder of the Unity movement, was well into his nineties, he made this statement: “I fairly sizzle with zeal and enthusiasm, and I spring forth with a mighty faith to do the things that need to be done by me.” When have you ever started your day with that kind of consciousness?

Someone said, “We don’t cease playing because we are old. We are old because we cease playing.” The old traditional thought, “Act your age,” should be shunned as a plague. Don’t “act your age;” act your youth! Take a thought such as “I’m alive, awake, joyous and enthusiastic about life.” It doesn’t make any difference how old you are. The important thing is, are you young enough to make such a statement and believe it?

Third, keep your sense of humor. Mark Twain said, “Humor is the great thing, the saving thing. The minute it crops up, all our irritations and resentments slip away, and a sunny spirit takes their place.” As someone said, “The sense of humor is the just balance of all the faculties of man, the best security against the pride of knowledge and the conceits of the imagination, and the strongest inducement to submit with a wise and pious patience to the vicissitudes of human existence.”

With maturity and adulthood in life come certain sometimes serious responsibilities and we shouldn’t become an escapist. But the serious business of life can best be done by the person who has a lightness of touch. As Plato once said, undoubtedly with the need for a sense of humor in mind, “It is important to be serious without always being solemn.”

We read in the Bible, “A cheerful heart is good medicine.” This is a prescription that contributes immeasurably to physical and mental health.

Bruce Barton tells a story about a cabinet meeting at the White House during the Lincoln administration, in one of the most critical hours in American history. Around the table the various Secretaries were gathered solemn-faced and silent. To their amazement, Mr. Lincoln, instead of turning to the business at hand, began reading aloud a chapter from the humorous works of Artemis Ward. The cabinet members were too astonished to speak. Stanton was tempted to leave the room in protest. The President, unheeding, read the chapter through, and then laying the book down, he heaved a great sigh and said, “Gentlemen, why don’t you laugh? With the fearful strain that is upon me night and day, if I did not laugh, I would die, and you need this medicine as much as I do.” And with that, he took from his tall hat The Emancipation Proclamation.

So, why not determine that you will experience newness of life by being truly alive as long as you live? First of all, live in “day-tight compartments,” one day at a time. Second, always keep something in your experience that you can be enthusiastic about. And third, keep a sense of humor. Let your life be made new today, for today is the first day of the rest of your life!

Remember, God is Blessing You, Right Now!

Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham
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Rev. Alan Rowbotham, a Unity minister for over thirty-eight years, invites you to enjoy more articles and/or subscribe to his free inspirational newsletter, “Spiritual Solutions,” at www.spiritualsolutionsblog.com

Feel free to share this article in its entirety with a friend. You may also reproduce and publish this article if you also include this reference box. Thank you!

If you’d like to receive “Rich Words,” featuring weekday inspirational quotes, you can subscribe at
www.alanrowbotham.com

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In the book, Trust in the Goodness of God, author and Unity minister Mary Kupferle says, “Your good is here now! There is a suppplying presence of good that includes light, life, peace, order, courage, faith, joy, wholeness, and well-being with you and within you now. This good is ever-present and unlimited – exactly what you need, when you need it, and where you need it. . . . Affirm for yuorself: ‘My good is here now! I have within me a reservoir of faith, patience, peace, strength, wisdom, courage, love, and happiness that is ready to uplift me and heal any difficulty of mind, soul, body, or life.’”

Yes, your good is here now. Your happiness is here now.  The “pursuit of happiness” is said to be one of your inalienable rights. Can you accept it for yourself now any without reservation?

The following article by Bradley Thompson, a best-selling self-development author, is one I heartily agree with, so I decided to share it with you since the “Word for the Week” is on happiness. Enjoy!

Do you ever catch yourself saying, `I’ll be happy when … I’ve moved house, changed jobs, fallen in love, achieved x,y,z?’
This moment is really all we have. If happiness isn’t in you now, then when will it be?

You see, happiness is a choice. It’s really that simple!

If you keep putting off your happiness until tomorrow, then consider this:

Don’t pin your right to happiness on external factors, circumstances, other people or future possibilities. Be happy now!

Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that buying the latest gadget, car, or material luxuries will make you happy. They may give you fleeting moments of satisfaction but they won’t make you truly happy.

Search inside yourself. You know, there’s a lot to be happy about. You’re alive! You have choices! Embrace the natural joy within.

Don’t know how to find your happiness?

Okay, well try a laughing meditation! Take some time out, let go of the day’s thoughts. Smile, and start laughing.

Feel the laughter as if it’s a bubbling pool of joy deep inside you, and let those happy vibrations surface.

Make time for laughter each day. When you’re laughing, you’re truly in the moment. Life’s challenges simply melt away and you’re left with a feeling of lightness and a sense of well-being that money really can’t buy.

And, if you’re on a journey, aiming to achieve your life’s goals, remember this nugget of wisdom by Albert Schweitzer:

 “Success is not the key to happiness.
Happiness is the key to success.
If you love what you are doing,
you will be successful.”

So, wherever you are, whatever you’re doing right now, be happy. It really is your choice!

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Dear Friend,

Everyone is looking for happiness.

Aristotle said: “Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.”

But how happy are YOU?

Do you still feel as though you’re SEEKING something else? As though you aren’t QUITE in the right place?

The potential for true happiness and freedom exists within you right now.

But most people don’t see it. Instead, they focus on the problematic grey clouds. They never realize the beautiful blue sky that always exists just behind them.

Have you heard of the “Happiness Now” technique? It’s said to be the only technique that helps you uncover your true happiness and freedom – in the most natural and simple way possible!

Let go of fears. Enjoy higher self-esteem. Embrace fantastic relationships. Uncover the real you. And much, much more – all when you ask yourself a few simple questions, using the simple Happiness Now technique.

You won’t believe how powerful this course is – and how it can change your life.

So, if you find yourself still “seeking” in any way, make the decision to explore this one final key.

Click on this link and enjoy Happiness Now – for yourself:

http://www.happiness.fm/?afl=43306

You’ll surprise yourself.

Remember, God is Blessing You, Right Now!

Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham

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Affiliate disclosure: I am grateful to be of service to you and to bring you content which has spiritual value free of charge. Please note that whenever you click links in any of my emails and purchase items, in most cases (but not all) I will receive a referral commission. Your support in purchasing through these links enables me to empower more people worldwide to live more conscious lives. Thank you!

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Rev. Alan Rowbotham, a Unity minister for over thirty-eight years, invites you to enjoy more articles and/or subscribe to his free inspirational newsletter, “Spiritual Solutions,” at www.spiritualsolutionsblog.com

Feel free to share this article in its entirety with a friend. You may also reproduce and publish this article if you also include this reference box. Thank you!

If you’d like to receive “Rich Words,” featuring free weekday inspirational quotes, you can subscribe at
www.alanrowbotham.com

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The free gift of God is eternal life. – Rom. 6:23

How freeing it is to know life as a Universal flow! The flow is personalized in you and as you. You are an integral part of the Universe, where each part contains within it all the elements of the whole. Thus there is that of you that is more than your physical body, and the you that transcends the body is what Eric Butterworth called “a time-space parenthesis in the Universal dimension of eternity.” The important thing is that you are a unique individualization of God. What ever else life is, you are in it, you are its livingness, you are here, and you are alive and living. But where did you come from? Where will you go when you die? 

Unless we have a view of life that transcends or at least includes death, we will experience fear and dread about our own life, and confusing bereavement in facing the passing of another. Some persons are so unnerved at the passing of a loved one that their faith is shattered, and they turn away from religion because of the “untimely” death of a friend or loved one. This indicates that they were trying to understand God through their experiences, indicating a very limited concept of God.

The need is to begin with God as the underlying principle, and then to look at trouble from this transcendent perspective. Looking at death through the consciousness of God is to see not a void, but another dimension of life.

Some persons think it is negative to talk about death. However, fear of dealing with the subject could indicate a subconscious bondage to it. It may suggest that our faith does not include the wholeness of life that transcends death. When we get the realization of wholeness then we see death as a part of the wholeness and not a deviation from it.

Life that appears to begin with birth and end with death is like one instant in the movement of a wave in the ocean. In one instant the wave is a particular body of water. In this moment life for you is your body. But life is not limited to your body. If the body should be laid aside by death, it would not be the end of you or of the flow of life projected through you and as you. The wave moves on! Thus, it is not possible to understand life unless we are willing to look squarely into and through this thing called death.

It could be said that death is the other side of life, and life is the other side of death. Could it be that a transcendent self looks out through the eyes of an infant and sees with the unconscious wisdom of a previous life, and that the loved one who passes from our sight may be on the way to an inexorable new birth?

The important thing is to know that you are an eternal expression of the Universal flow, and that there is no beginning and no end to you. Thus, knowing that you are going to live forever, you can let go your apprehensions and anxieties about death, and get on with the business of living your life from within-out one day at a time.

The Psalmist says, “A day is as a thousand years and a thousand years is as a day.” Imagine life between birth and death as one day of livingness. You rise in the morning, launch into the day, experience its problems and blessings, and then, even if you are not satisfied with the day, eventually you relax into a night’s sleep. And what is night? It is the “brief shadow through which we pass from sunlight to sunlight.” It brings rest and renewal. And the morning comes . . . and beginning again.

Obviously, all this is not easy to realize when you stand before the casket containing the physical form of one whom you have loved. But perhaps your understanding of life is not yet broad enough to encompass life that transcends birth and death. It is natural to have feelings of sadness, but the sadness can be tempered with the joy of knowing that your loved one is in the flow of life and that he or she goes forward to meet his or her good.

Seek to embrace a larger sphere, and know the Truth of a limitless flow of life. God is life, in whom there can be no beginning and ending. There can be no death in God, and thus there can be no death, in terms of the finality of life, for your loved one.

So what is death? Jesus said of the little girl, “She is not dead, but sleepeth.” Death is no more a reality or finality than sleep. Get this thought of the eternal flow of life that transcends death into your consciousness . . . and you will be free of fear of death, free from the burdens of worry over the passing of time or the deepness of grief over the passing of a loved one.

You can resolve to live each day as if it were the only day of all eternity . . . which in fact it is! Yesterday no longer exists, and tomorrow and the days of the future will simply unfold out of the continuous flow of the experience that is now in its unfoldment. In its complete sense, life simply is. Let us accept it, live it, and rejoice in it.

Remember, God is Blessing You, Right Now!

Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham

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Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham, a Unity minister for over thirty-eight years, invites you to subscribe to his free inspirational newsletter, Spiritual Solutions.

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If you’d like to receive weekday inspirational quotes, you can subscribe at Rich Words.

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On the spiritual journey, it seems to me that we travel through three overarching phases.

The first is that of the seeker. There is a nudging from within, and a nagging feeling that there is something more to be discovered, so we start on the journey. We perhaps find confirmation and motivation in the words of Jesus, when he said, “Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.” (Matt. 7:7-8)

Ravi Ravindra, author of Pilgrim Without Boundaries, wrote, “The struggle to know who I am, in truth and in spirit, is the spiritual quest. The movement in myself from the mask to the face, from the personality to the person, from the performing actor to the ruler of the inner chamber, is the spiritual journey. . . . To keep the flame of spiritual yearning alive is to be radically open to the present and to refuse to settle for comforting religious dogmas, philosophic certainties, and social sanctions.”

And, in the words of Thomas Merton:

“In one sense we are always traveling,
And traveling as if we did not know where
we were going.
    In another sense we have already
arrived. . . .
    But oh! How far have I to go to find
You in Whom I have already arrived!

“In another sense we have already arrived.” And the Spirit of God is knocking on the door of our mind, as it says in Revelation 3:20: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock; . . .” It is we who have to open the door of our mind and heart, and “if any one hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.”

Thus we move into the second phase of our spiritual journey, that of awakening.

Lorraine Kisly, editor-in-chief of Parabola magazine, says  “. . . when a moment of awakening comes, it is clear that we are awakened. But to what? And for what? Pir Zia Inayat Khan makes a useful distinction for us. There are two types of awakening, one a sudden glimpse of hidden things which is pure gift and the other ‘a sustained inner capacity,’ an earned state.”

We are awakened to the Truth of God’s presence, the first type of awakening, the “sudden glimpse of hidden things which is pure gift.” Lorraine Kisly says that the gift comes to all without exception. It comes, as Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz tells us, as an “awareness of reality, awareness of something that is calling me, ‘Come closer, come closer.’”

The second type of awakening, “a sustained inner capacity,” an earned state, is more difficult, challenging.

Jesus describes the coming together of people into an understanding of God’s presence as a dinner party, a marriage feast. (Matt. 22:1-6) As you will recall, many were invited to the celebration, but not everyone chose to come. And that is true in our lives today, that not all of us choose to come to the celebration, and not all of us come to experience a heightened consciousness of the presence of God. We live in a mundane world and a mundane experience, so we do not come with open, receptive, and responsive minds.

Jesus said, in effect, that one of the hardest things to accept in our lives is a new idea. And he came to bring a new idea, a new idea of the kingdom of God that is available and accessible to us at all times. In fact, in the Gospel of Matthew, he reminded us of the words of Isaiah (6:9,10) when he said, “You shall indeed hear but never understand. You shall indeed see but never perceive. For this people’s heart has grown dull and their ears are heavy of hearing. And their eyes have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their hearts, and turn for me to heal them.” (Matt. 13:14-15)

In order to heal, we have to see with new eyes, we have to hear with new ears, and we have to feel with a new heart, a new openness of heart. That means changing, and this is one of the hardest things for us to do, to change. But in all the parables Jesus turns us around, and says that in order for something new to happen in your life you must change the way you look at your world, you must change the way you look at yourself. You must open your ears and your eyes and your heart to a new possibility that is already available to you, that is here now, and not sometime else but right here and right now.

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There are moments in life when a change in consciousness appears and enriches us in a quite unexpected way. I remember when I was first in ministerial school at Unity Village; I was thirty-three years old. There was a moment when I realized that everything that had happened in my life had led up to that moment and come together in a kind of threshold which I had crossed. Henceforth all those seemingly disparate experiences would begin to draw together to form a totally new life experience.

Later, in my studies, I learned of the work of Teilhard de Chardin, a French philosopher and Jesuit priest who trained as a paleontologist and geologist. In his book, The Phenomenon of Man, he set forth a sweeping account of the unfolding of the cosmos in which he describes it as being like a peduncle, a stalk-like formation growing vertically yet with fanning out from the main stalk, and the noosphere, or the sphere of human thought; “some branches wither, some sleep, some shoot up and spread everywhere” (Chardin).

These studies confirmed for me my own realization of a threshold of consciousness that we may cross in our own individual unfoldment toward a new level of being, or the beginning of a transformation in our own life experience. As Teilhard de Chardin has said, “The movement of our souls expresses and measures the very stages of evolution itself.” Julian Huxley had the same insight when he said, “Man discovers that he is nothing else than evolution become conscious of itself.”

Being cognizant of the threshold itself, a kind of stillness appears. And with it, perhaps, a realization that one has been asleep; it is a dawning of a new consciousness, an opening toward a hidden existence. This realization can bring one to view life as consisting of a series of thresholds, in turn bringing a realization of the infinite possibilities of one’s existence.

In the Bible we find it described in this way, “Behold, I have set before you an open door which no one is able to shut.” (Rev. 3:8) And Jesus pointed us to the inner possibilities of our spiritual potential when he said, “I am the door.” (John 10:9) The door is your eternal relationship with the Infinite, your changeless oneness with God.

It is significant that my realization of the threshold came after an intensely challenging experience. We live in a world of change and challenge. But no matter what happens in the world around us, nothing can alter the basic Truth of our unity with God. And nothing but our own lack of awareness and acceptance can impede the flow of life and guidance from within ourselves outward, to meet every need in our experience.

It was Emerson who said, “”There is no screen or ceiling between our heads and the infinite heavens; so there is no bar or wall in the soul where man, the effect, ceases, and God, the cause, begins. The walls are taken away. We lie open on one side to the deeps of spiritual nature, to the attributes of God.”

Last Sunday, I officiated at a wedding held in a courtyard of a hotel on the beach and I was very conscious of the power in the moment and in the experience. It was a threshold for the young couple certainly, but depending upon the awareness of those present and applied to their own lives, it could have been a threshold experience for any one of them. And watching the young children playing and filled with energy, I thought of the never-ending series of thresholds stretching out before them which, brought into conscious awareness, could provide an infinite supply of creativity for every experience.

Then yesterday, I watched much of the television overage of the amazing rescue of the thirty-three miners trapped for sixty-nine days in a mine in Chile, two thousand feet below the earth. I thought about the tremendous challenges they faced and overcame, and how their lives would never be the same again. And I thought about the ingenuity displayed by those involved in the rescue operation, drawing on resources from around the world to accomplish the successful results.

Some people meet apparent tragedy and “suffer the disintegration of personality”; that is, they “fall apart at the seams.” But others see their troubles as challenges to their faith and courage, and they make their troubles work for them. The harder they fall, the higher they bounce. Painter and author William Segal said, “Stillness is a nurturing element to help one rise instead of being entirely subject to the negative principle of mechanical deterioration and its downward path.”

Faced with a threshold of any kind, remember that your attitude toward circumstances is all-important. There is an open door before you which no one is able to shut. But if you resist the changes of life, you create mental barriers. You impede the flow of good, through the open door of the Spirit within, if you dwell on self-pity, resistance, bitterness, despair.

Get still, and remember the Divine promise: “I have set before you an open door which no one is able to shut” No one! No one has the power to shut the door to the real source of your good! There is a movement of good in you that is forever seeking expression through you. This is a force as powerful as gravity. Never lose sight of this great thought. Even in the midst of seeming loss or change, hold fast to the idea that nothing can impede the flow of good to you and through you.

The Victorian poet and priest Gerard Manley Hopkins knew how to release the divine potential that lay waiting, unsuspected, in everything around us. A favorite description of that potential which opens my eyes to the possibilities around me is found in these words:

“The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out like shining from shook foil.”

In one of his meditations he wrote: “All things therefore are charged with love, are charged with God and if we know how to touch them give off sparks and take fire, yield drops and flow, ring and tell of him.”

There is a relentless force within you that forever seeks to lead you to, or draw to you, the experiences that will challenge you to release your innate potential, to express and fulfill your uniqueness, as a child of God. Dare to believe that in everything, God works for good. Dare to hope for the best, even when the worst seems to be happening, even though people call you an impractical optimist. Stand steadfast in the belief that a door is always open, and that this is your greatest treasure.

Remember, God is Blessing You, Right Now!

Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham

—————————————————–             

Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham, a Unity minister for over thirty-eight years, invites you to subscribe to his free inspirational newsletter, Spiritual Solutions.

Please feel free to publish this article in your blog or newsletter or share it with a friend, as long as you include this resource box.

If you’d like to receive weekday inspirational quotes, you can subscribe at Rich Words.

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When I was growing up in England, as a young boy I attended a Congregational church. My mother would sometimes go with me, while my dad stayed home and read the Sunday paper. But I would often go alone and I was struck with the fact that relatively few people attended the services. Yet, when I was walking home a mile or so up the hill from downtown I would pass a Catholic church along the way and there would inevitably be a crowd gathered outside visiting with one another. I thought that they must have great faith.

It was only later when I became friends with a young man from a Catholic family that I learned that, for them, it wasn’t an option; they had to go to church regularly.

As I look back over the years, I realize that I always had a longing or yearning within me for something that seemed just beyond my reach. As the poet Don Marquis said, “A fierce unrest seethes at the core of all existing things.” Then he followed it up with these words: “It was the eager wish to soar that gave the gods their wings.”

In an article titled The Path of Yearning found in the summer 2006 edition of the magazine Parabola, spiritual teacher Rabbi Marc Gafni said, “There is something lurking in our souls. It fills us with awe even as it fills us with terror. It strips away all of our pretenses even as it whispers to our greatness. It is the inconsolable longing that beats in the breast of every human being, burning sometimes bright and often dim in the recesses of the heart. It is the knowledge that ultimately this world with all of its dignity and majesty can never satisfy our ultimate longings. We possess a noble nostalgia for a reality that our conscious selves cannot describe and the cognitive mind cannot define. But we know with all of our being that it is there.”

In the same edition of Parabola, Omid Safi writes in All That is Between Them, “What we seek is found in our seeking. And therein is found the real secret of the mystical path. The treasure is mysteriously already here and now with us, but we don’t find it until we yearn for it. Blessed be this thirst, this yearning that leads us to the waters of life that already flow within . . .”

In the early sixties I was in my twenties studying and practicing the Kung-Fu discipline of martial arts in my free time. It was when taking a test for my black belt, defending against six attackers at the same time and doing it smoothly and easily, that I realized there must be something more in me or I wouldn’t be able to do that.

From that time I began to frequent Foyles bookstore in the West End of London every Saturday after my martial arts practice. I was looking for the source of that inner something. I breezed through subjects such as palmistry and astrology, and finally settled on a book called Concentration, by Mouni Sadhu, and began my study and practice of the exercises in the book.

Following that, I began to work with a book called Initiation into Hermetics, by Franz Bardon, which gave me ways to enhance my imaging and visualizing abilities. After eighteen months or so, I began delving deeply into both Eastern and Western mysticism and then began a correspondence course on the mystical Quabalah. I was still working on the course when I came to the United States in November of 1967 to a job with a typesetting company. I fell away from my studies for a while but then was brought up short (that’s another story!), realizing I needed to get back on my spiritual path.

It was then that I found Unity, and knew that I had “come home.” That same summer of 1969 I entered ministerial school at Unity Village (that’s another story too!).Among the examination questions was one which asked why I wanted to be a Unity minister. I remember that I answered it by saying I wanted to become a Unity minister because by doing so I would have to know more of God, and in so doing perhaps I could help others to also find God within them.

After all these years, has that “fierce unrest” abated? Or has my enthusiasm for Unity and its teaching of Truth principles diminished? The answer is “No” to both questions.

It is the inexorable law of the Universe in which everything must continually be growing, expanding, developing. It is a biological, mental, and spiritual impossibility for one to be “satisfied.”

Through an understanding of Truth we may develop a sense of contentment, which is simply a form of nonresistance. But in the words of St. Augustine, “Man is ever restless until his heart finds repose in God.”

God’s spiritual Creation is finished and complete, changeless and eternal. However, in the manifest, this Creation is a continuing activity. The directive force of this activity is what is sometimes called “the Will of God,” which is the ceaseless longing of the Creator to perfect Himself in that which is created. The Bible says, “It is not yet manifest what man shall be.” This is saying, “You are not finished yet!” You are an evolving spiritual being.

The human being is a growing, expanding, evolving dynamic life-idea, in the Infinite Mind of God. There can never be a limit to God. So it must follow that there can never be a limit to the human being in God-consciousness.

As Jeanne de Salzmann (1889-1990) wrote in her notebooks on The Reality of Being: The Fourth Way of Gurdjieff (in an excerpt published in the winter 2009 issue of Parabola): “We are seeking to approach the unknown, to open the door to what is hidden in us and pass beyond. It is necessary to submit entirely to an inner voice, to a feeling of the divine, of the sacred in us, but we can do it only in part. The sacred manifests as inner consciousness. The divine, God, must be found within. Truth, the only truth, is in consciousness.”

We are to fulfill our own uniqueness, or as the poet Robert Browning would say, to “open out a way whence the imprisoned splendor may escape.”

Jesus said it this way: “You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matt. 5:48) But remember, as Jesus said, “I can of myself do nothing” (John 5:30), yet “I can do all things in him who strengthens me” (Phil. 4:13), and “. . . with God all things are possible.” (Matt. 19:26)

We can delight in our longing and yearning, for it is an infallible sign of God’s Presence within us ever seeking greater expression.

Remember, God is Blessing You Right Now!

Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham

—————————————————–             

Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham, a Unity minister for over thirty-eight years, invites you to subscribe to his free inspirational newsletter, Spiritual Solutions.

Please feel free to publish this article in your blog or newsletter or share it with a friend, as long as you include this resource box.

If you’d like to receive weekday inspirational quotes, you can subscribe at Rich Words.

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