Spiritual Solutions

It is through the images in our lives that we really begin to tap into the truth of our being and to give expression to it. Even in times of challenge or loss we can move on through it to the healing, because as we tap into the truth of our being we connect with our Divine self and know the truth of God’s presence in our lives. We know that no matter what is happening, the love is there, the life is there and is streaming forth through our loss whatever it may be.

But we don’t often start with that; we have to go through the process. We have to first acknowledge our loss, whether it’s the loss of a loved one, the loss of a job, the loss of a relationship, or perhaps a child has gone off to school somewhere. When we begin to identify and accept what it truly is that is our loss or challenge we can move through it.

We have certain images that we carry in our minds about the situation. It may be an empty nest; it may be a chrysalis. Sue Monk Kidd, in a book called The Heart Still Waits, relates how when she was going through a mid-life crisis finally came upon an image in her mind of a chrysalis, of a caterpillar that had formed a cocoon.

She realized she was going through a time of incubating the darkness and that she couldn’t rush the process, that even when moving toward new life she had to incubate within that darkness and couldn’t force the chrysalis to open. But she recognized that out of that chrysalis would emerge the new life of the butterfly. And she knew that if she focused on the butterfly, the representation of her true self, she would be lifted out of the pain and darkness.

Sometimes it’s in the familiar images of life that we are nurtured and begin to reorient ourselves to the truth of ourselves and that life goes on; we must release and let go of the things that have held us, of the things that have bound us to them. There comes a time to move on, to let go.

It was really not until after Pentecost that the disciples were able to understand and look back and value the experience that they had gone through. Then they were able to take the riches they had shared with Jesus and apply them in their own lives. They recognized that the Spirit was alive in them also and they had a sense of new vitality and new enthusiasm and began to look forward toward life.

We all have our Pentecost moments. We get to that point of awakening, of opening our eyes to the truth of our being that we hadn’t really seen before. We move beyond the thoughts we had about what happened to now feel and know that new life within us. Love’s great presence is always with us, lifting us up, healing us and moving us through the limiting experience.

An image that really speaks to me is contained within a quote by Rabindranath Tagore. He says, “When old words die out on the tongue, new melodies break forth from the heart. And where the old tracks are lost, new country is revealed with its wonders.”

Think of those new melodies, think of that new song that is waiting to be sung in you. It’s there, new roads, new ways are being revealed to you, new country is opening up to you. God in you is saying, “I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?” It’s always there for you, if you will let go.

In the book of Lamentations there is a wonderful quote of how we can move through this process of recovery. It says, “This is what I shall tell my heart and so recover hope: ‘The favors of Yahweh are not all past. God’s kindnesses are not all exhausted. Every morning they are renewed; great is God’s faithfulness.’”

There is new country waiting for you, there are new melodies that yearn to be sung in your spirit. Even in the most desolate times the season of springtime, of new life, is always awaiting you.

Remember, God is Blessing You, Right Now!

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Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham, a Unity minister for over forty 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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This article, Praying for Others, is one that I wrote and published on my blog in March, 2008, as part of a series on Prayer, but I thought it worth reviving and revising a little to bring it to you again for your consideration:

Sometimes we are inclined to try to change one another. We want the other person to become what we would like them to be. We even do that in prayer too. We want to change the other person, to give them our wisdom, and to have them to see it our way.

Whenever I pray for other people, I notice that when a change occurs in me then a change often occurs in the situation I’m praying about. If we are to pray for others we must first pray for ourselves, putting ourselves consciously in God’s presence. When we make that contact within ourselves, within our own hearts, then the situations in our lives are affected in positive ways.

There’s a wonderful story that’s told in three of the gospels. It’s the story about a woman who came pushing through the crowd toward Jesus just to touch the hem of his garment.

Given the crowd around Jesus, many people must have touched him; but he felt the woman’s touch and turned around. He said, “Who touched me?” The woman hid at first; they couldn’t find her. Then she came forward and he told her, “Your faith has made you whole!”

Until that woman touched him Jesus hadn’t been aware of her. He was focused on the consciousness of God’s presence. And out of that consciousness the power came through him to bring about healing in the woman who touched him.

He was a conduit, or contact, for healing.

When we pray for ourselves and feel our oneness with God, we too can be that kind of contact for someone. But the first thing is to pray for ourselves, to put ourselves in a consciousness of God.

Our purpose in prayer is to unify ourselves with God, to become one with God. Then we can be a conduit or contact for others as well. Imagine a wire, a light, and the power. We are like the wire. The wire cannot do anything of itself but it is the contact for the power to come through to bring the light. So my work, and yours, as the “wire,” is to seek to know God’s presence.

As I make that contact, then the power flows through me to bring light into my world, into the situations in my life, and into the lives of others for whom I pray. And those who are in contact with me are touched by the light.

I must first be in a consciousness of oneness with God before any effect is felt, before any power is transferred through me. It is not through the power of my thinking, because there is no power in my thinking; the power is the power of God.

People often talk about how we influence others by our thoughts, and in prayer they try “to send” their thoughts to others. That is a wrong concept of the role of thought, especially the role of thought in prayer. We do not “send” our thoughts to others; there is no power in our thoughts that we send to others to try to influence them.

The power is the power of God; that’s the only thing that can bring about change. Our work in the role of thought is to get ourselves in the right consciousness, in the right place; to elevate our thoughts first. Then we are able to enfold those for whom we pray in the realization of God’s presence.

There is a role of thought, that is for sure, but it is for us to bring about change in ourselves.

Whenever the “hem of the garment” has been touched, whenever that contact has been made, then we know. It is as though God leaves His footprint, and flowers spring up. Someone is healed, or a situation changes, or a poem is written, or a new insight comes. It comes out of the contact we make within ourselves. We come into that place as we begin to take right thought within ourselves, as we reach for God’s presence within.

When I say “reach,” I don’t mean to say we have to “reach out” somewhere. God’s presence is right there within us all the time. And God’s presence is also right there within the other person for whom you are praying.

So we reach inward for God’s presence, and we think of the things that are of God.

The apostle Paul said it in a very appropriate way, recorded in Philippians 4:8:

“Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” These are the things we are to think about as we raise ourselves into the consciousness of God.

So we build our consciousness first. That’s what thought is for.

Prayer is an act of thought, yes. But more than that, prayer is an act of love. Love frees, love does not bind; love does not possess, love does not say “I wish you to do things this way” or “I want you to do things the way I want you to do them.”

Love doesn’t do that. Love frees you to the law of growth in your own uniqueness.

True prayer is a prayer of the heart, isn’t it? It’s a prayer of love.

In the Buddhist tradition, there are several stories where the savior is represented as a steed that soars across the skies over the ocean of life rescuing shipwrecked sailors.

In one story there are some sailors that have gone on a journey to the Island of Jewel and they have stopped at another island. On this island there is a band of seductresses, and the sailors get caught up with them and stay there.

The problem is that these seductresses are sirens; they are man-eating monsters and consume the sailors.

Every once in a while in the story the steed, which is called Cloud, appears over the island and calls to the sailors to mount upon his back. He flies off and takes them to safety, but they must not look back or else they will fall off.

So Cloud, the steed, does not save the sailors by sending his thoughts to them. He may extend compassion and love to them, but he really saves them by perfecting his own flight.

That’s what Jesus meant when he said, “I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto myself.”

We must perfect our flight. Then, as we are lifted up, we also lift up others.

If you want to pray for someone, to help them, to heal them, to bless them, then first reach for God’s presence within you knowing that same presence is in the other person.

Realize that God’s perfection is everywhere present, as much in you as in the other person. God’s perfection is there, God’s abundance is there. It is not absent, it’s already present. Get in a consciousness of that perfection. If you wish, see the person in your mind’s eye as enfolded in God’s perfection.

Then feel the person in your heart, in love. Because it’s the love that really makes the connection. And love does its perfect work. It casts out fear. When we are in love, we are one with one another.

I was reading an article by Bill Moyers about a retreat place for people who have cancer. The place is called Commonweal, just north of San Francisco, on the Point Reyes National Seashore.

He told about his experience there. He said that people were coming together and just loving each other, sharing their stories and being recognized as a person. Not as a person who has something wrong with them, but simply as a person.

They loved each other, massaged each other, touched each other, and told each other their stories.

Bill Moyers said there was such a feeling of love there and healings were taking place there, because of the love and caring.

The prayer that heals is the prayer of the heart, the prayer of love.

When we pray from the heart then we are one with the other, and one with God. When we pray with the heart then we are in the “secret place of the Most High.” Only love can enter there, because God is love.

It is the mansion of miracles.

Remember that Jesus said, “In my Father’s house are many mansions.” It is the creative house of life, the creative house of the Spirit within you; it is that secret place of the heart where we are all one and where there are no differences.

So if you want to pray a prayer that will help someone, pray the prayer of the heart, pray the prayer of love.

“In my Father’s house are many mansions.” No one is left out; that’s what Jesus meant.

No one is ever left out of our Father’s heart. When we pray the prayer of the heart, no one is ever left out. No one is shut out in prayer. I never pray only for myself, even when I pray for myself.

Whenever you pray, whether it is for yourself or another, no one is ever shut out. You always lift others. You always make contact, if you pray the prayer of the heart. And something changes. The hem of the garment is touched.

As you lift up your life, you also lift up the lives of others.

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

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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

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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.

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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If you haven’t done so already, soon you will be taking down the Christmas tree and putting away the lights and Christmas decorations for another year. The nativity scene has been put away. But will you also be putting away the Christ for another year?

So now what? At Christmas we affirmed the birth of the Christ within us. So what happens now? Where do we go from here?

We often go back to the same old routine, the same patterns and beliefs, the same mistakes we have made before. We forget that we have affirmed a truth of our being, of the presence of God born into our awareness in a whole new way.

I was reminded of this recently when talking to a man who was telling me about his dog. He said, “We have a wonderful little dog in our family, but he does some stupid things. He likes chocolate, and chocolate is poison to dogs. A few weeks ago somebody brought a chocolate cake over. They had put it on the

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From the Fourth Conversation of Brother Lawrence in his book The Practice of the Presence of God, we learned some valuable lessons we can apply in our own spiritual practice, as follows: Let go everything which does not lead to God.

 Recognize God as being immediately present by having a continual conversation with God, with freedom and simplicity, and with praise and love for His infinite goodness.

Seek God’s help in knowing His will when things are not clear, or for your acting rightly when you see things clearly, and to pray for God’s grace with complete confidence.

Don’t do things to try to please others, but do all things purely for the love of God.

Put your whole trust in God, surrender completely to Him.

All things are possible to the one who believes; they are less difficult to the one who hopes; they are more easy to the one who loves; and still more easy to the one who perseveres in the practice of these three virtues. (This is powerful!)

Don’t be too concerned about troubles, temptations, oppositions and contradictions. Bear with them, and know that these things can be highly advantageous to us, making us more dependent upon divine grace – the outpouring of God’s love.

Filled with a sense of God’s immediate presence, do your work as well as possible. Afterwards examine if you did it well and if so, give thanks to God; and if not, ask pardon and set your mind right again as you continue to exercise the presence of God as if you had never deviated from it.

Let your example be a stronger inducement for others to adopt a spiritual life than any arguments for it.

Now we turn to the Letters of Brother Lawrence. Here is the First Letter;

Since you desire so earnestly that I should communicate to you the method by which I arrived at that habitual sense of God’s presence, which our Lord, of His mercy, has been pleased to vouchsafe to me, I must tell you that it is with great difficulty that I am prevailed on by your importunities; and now I do it only upon the terms that you show my letter to nobody.

If I knew that you would let it be seen, all the desire that I have for your advancement would not be able to determine me to do it. The account I can give you is:

Having found in many books different methods of going to God, and diverse practices of the spiritual life, I thought this would serve rather to puzzle me than facilitate what I sought after, which was nothing but how to become wholly God’s.

This made me resolve to give the all for the all; so after having given myself wholly to God, that He might take away my sin, I renounced, for the love of Him, everything that was not He, and I began to live as if there as none but He and I in the world.

Sometimes I considered myself before Him as a poor criminal at the feet of his judge; at other times I behold Him in my heart as my Father, as my God. I worshiped Him the oftenest that I could, keeping my mind in His holy presence, and recalling it as often as I found it wandered from Him.

I found no small pain in this exercise, and yet I continued it, notwithstanding all the difficulties that occurred, without troubling or disquieting myself when my mind had wandered involuntarily. I made this my business as much all the day long as at the appointed times of prayer; for at all times, every hour, every minute, even in the height of my business, I drove away from my mind everything that was capable of interrupting my thought of God.

Such has been my common practice ever since I entered in religion; and though I have done it very imperfectly, yet I have found great advantages by it. These, I well know, are to be imputed to the mere mercy and goodness of God, because we can do nothing without Him, and I still less than any.

But when we are faithful to keep ourselves in His holy presence, and set Him always before us, this not only hinders our offending Him and doing anything that may displease Him, at least willfully, but it also begets in us a holy freedom, and, if I may so speak, a familiarity with God, wherewith we ask, and that successfully, the graces we stand in need of.

In fine, by often repeating these acts, they become habitual, and the presence of God rendered as it were natural to us. Give Him thanks, if you please, with me, for His great goodness toward me, which I can never sufficiently admire, for the many favors He has done to so miserable a sinner as I am. May all things praise Him. Amen.

I am, in our Lord,

Yours, etc.

God is Blessing You, Right Now!

Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham

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Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham, a Unity minister for over thirty-six years, invites you to enjoy more articles and/or subscribe to his free inspirational newsletter, Spiritual Solutions or go directly to the Spiritual Solutions Blog

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

I have been asked how a person can donate to “Spiritual Solutions.” Just go to Send a Love Offering and it will take you to a form you can use for your donation. Thank you – I am very grateful for your generosity!

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