Youtube: Five Faculties for Effective Prayer: Elimination

In countless ways, nature illustrates how the faculty of elimination is inherent in plants and creatures. For example, in response to the mysterious urge to be something more, the caterpillar lets go of its identity as an earthbound, worm-like creature and submits to a transformation that, in our eyes, seems nothing short of miraculous. There is an inherent willingness to let go of one aspect of the identity so something new can emerge.

I have pointed out that the process many think of as soul evolution is really an evolution of values. Can we not imagine that, from the beginning, the soul of the butterfly existed within the caterpillar? The faculty of elimination is the ability to know when it is time to reevaluate our values, to determine when we are clinging to our caterpillar thinking, and when to yield to our soul’s nudging to expand into our butterfly level of expression. While we tend to cling to things we value most, moving forward always involves letting go of something we once considered an essential part of our identity.

Most of us identify strongly with our body. As it matures, we say, “I’m getting older.” But as I pointed out last week, the soul does not age. It is more accurate to say, “This physical vehicle that I am using is maturing. I myself am eternal.” This may seem like a metaphysical mind game, but it is the truth. We will not always have this body, but we will always be alive.

Eliminating the thought of the physical body as a core feature of our identity opens new ways of thinking about our earthly experience. Rather than lament over activities our bodies no longer allow, we are still capable of living a fulfilling life. I doubt the butterfly laments over its days as a caterpillar.

As I think of my own life, there is no time to which I long to return. If I could live it all again, would I do it differently, possibly better? Since I’ll never be able to find out, it is best to let go of that thinking. I’m here now and it’s up to me to make the best choices. Like the butterfly, I let go of my identity as an earthbound creature and focus on the best way that I can be here now.  

Go To Form

Dear Friends,

In an effort to expand Independent Unity’s online presence, I would like to begin conducting Zoom classes on various spiritual topics. To allow for the most interaction, I want to keep each class small, around 4 or 5 participants. If there are more requests than this, I will schedule additional classes at different times. To start, I’m thinking of meeting once a week for a 4-week period.

If this is something that would interest you, please click the “Go To Form” link and fill in your name and email. You will be notified when a class is scheduled. Your information will only for Zoom meeting invitations and for announcing upcoming classes.

I think this will be a great way to make new friends and to explore spiritual subjects near and dear to our spiritual quest.

Warmest blessings,

J Douglas Bottorff, Independent Unity  

Go To Form

Five Faculties for Effective Prayer: Part 4: Will

If we think of the Way, as taught by Jesus, aligning with the Way of Taoism (the natural flow of the universe), we see a new layer of meaning in at least two familiar passages from the New Testament. In the Lord’s Prayer, for example, we have this passage: “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, On earth as it is in heaven.” Thy will be done is an affirmation of the Way, this natural, unseen flow through the material aspect of our life. In our modern vernacular we might simply say, go with the flow, or don’t push the river.

In the context of the soul, the meaning of will aligns with volition, the commitment to a particular course of action and direction. It is a willingness to allow for a desired good or something better. Again, in Gethsemane, when Jesus prayed three times that this cup be removed, he concluded with, let Thy will not mine be done.

From the point of view of our spiritual homecoming, the will is the faculty that allows us to raise our point of view to greater possibilities and then keep our every step pointed in the new direction. We exercise the faculty of will as our means of keeping the picturing aspect of the imagination properly focused, our faith directed to spiritual wholeness, and our judgment functioning at a higher level.  

We exercise the will when we reign in negative thinking and emotion that has been carried away by challenging appearances. We become willing to look beyond immediate circumstances and consider different possibilities. The soul has but one desire, and that is its commitment to freedom of expression without limits.

Our desire to reconnect with the soul is prompted by this internal call of freedom. Let thy will be done, then, is the highest form of prayer when directed to the soul. Follow this with the acknowledgment that thy will is being done, on earth (in expression) as it is in heaven (the unseen realm of the soul). Affirm the willingness to let go and trust that greater good is now naturally unfolding through your life.

Youtube: Judgment

The subject of judgment is probably one of the most controversial in our spiritual studies. For the most part, our attitude toward judgment is based on this passage from Matthew:

“Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? (Matthew 7:1-3)

The message seems pretty straight forward. We should focus on correcting our own shortcomings before we criticize the shortcomings of others.

In this series we are treating judgment as a faculty rather than as a morally correct practice. The key to understanding judgment from this perspective is found in the line, “… the measure you give will be the measure you get.” The spiritual principle involved here could be stated like this: The level you see from is the level you experience. Emerson said it in a more direct way. “You can only see what you are.”

If you are driving and in a hurry and you hit a red light, you’ll experience the light differently than if you are relaxed. The light itself is what it is. Your state of mind gives it the meaning of good, bad, or indifferent. If you have a challenge in your life and you do not believe you are up to the task, you are using your faculty of judgment to degrade your quality of life, at least momentarily. Jesus also taught that we need not judge by appearances. We are not required to define ourselves according to a passing feeling of inadequacy.

Next time you are confronted with a challenge, try using your faculty of judgment like this: Things are not as they appear. Greater good is now unfolding through this situation. God’s perfect wisdom shows me the best and highest way to my greater good.

When this attitude becomes the measure you give, you can be sure that the measure you get will be equally rewarding.

Youtube: Effective Prayer, Part 2: Faith

Faith is a word often used to describe a system of belief. We usually use it in a generalized manner, assuming we know something of a person’s faith if we know what religious denomination they subscribe to. This may tell us something of the religious tenets they subscribe to, but it tells us nothing about how they actually engage their faculty of faith.

Belief and faith are not synonymous. We can say we believe a certain way, but on closer examination we discover that we really don’t have faith in what we profess to believe. Belief is an intellectual construct. Faith is expectation at the gut level.

Depending on how we are using it, faith can manifest as peace of mind or as stress. We experience peace when our expectation is focused on greater good unfolding. Stress is the effect of expecting the worst. We do ourselves a favor when we get in touch with our expectation at the gut level. Then we can redirect our faith in a way that is conducive to the peace we desire.

The faculties of faith and imagination work closely together. Jesus advised that we lift our eyes and see the field ready for harvest. He is referring to the mind’s eye, the imagination. Faith is the expectation of reaping this imagined harvest.

Whatever challenge you may have in your life, get the feeling that it has already reached a successful conclusion. On one level it may appear that there are “four months to harvest” but turn your faculty of faith on the harvest you desire, as if it is already complete.

Jesus also advised that when we pray, we should go into our room and shut the door, to pray in secret. It is best to keep your prayer work to yourself. Hold the highest vision concerning your situation and then expect that vision to come forth either in the way you see it or in some better way. If we focus only on the opening of a specific door, we may not notice the other door that now stands open.

Youtube: Imagination

Five Faculties for Effective Prayer

In my book, The Complete Soul, I name the five faculties we’ll be covering in this series on prayer. I’ve labeled them executive faculties because we choose how we use them. Imagination, faith, judgment, will, and elimination play key roles both in our daily thinking and in our prayer work. We do well to pay attention to how we use them.

Let’s begin with what we mean by effective prayer. We should not think of prayer as a means of getting God to behave differently or to give us something we do not have. We obviously do not have the thing for which we pray, or we would not be praying for it. Jesus said we are to believe we have received it. This is the work of imagination. To act as if we already have it puts us in harmony with the thing or condition we pray for. God does not pull it from a great stockpile in heaven and toss it down to us. We place ourselves in an expectant and receptive mode which opens doors we may not otherwise see.

If you are praying for healing, see your body radiating the healing energy of light. Give thanks that this balancing energy is now fully at work in your body’s area of concern. Spend designated time visualizing it then carry this vision through your day. Do not ignore intuitive promptings or information that may come to your attention. Be open to all avenues of guidance and action that may become part of your healing solution.  

Apply this same principle and practice to any type of prayer request. You may have a financial concern, a challenging relationship, a need for guidance, or concern for the well-being of another. Believe that everything in your universe is working to bring about the highest and best resolution concerning your prayer request. Do not try to force a specific outcome but hold the attitude that this or something better is now presenting itself. If doubt creeps in, gently bring yourself back to knowing that the greater good you desire, or something better, is now unfolding.

Next week we will explore the role of faith in effective prayer.  

Youtube: Understanding the Way

The book of Acts tells us that before the followers of Jesus were called Christians, they were known as followers of the Way. I like to think of the Way as a body of principles taught by Jesus. These rest on the bedrock of understanding God as the changeless, omnipresent reality centered in all people and in all things. Or as Paul stated it, “… one God and Father of us all, who is above all and through all and in all” (Ephesians 4:6).

Most of us have encountered the idea that there are many paths to the peak of the mountain. The implication is that there are a variety of teachings and experiences that can lead to conscious union with God. However, the Way is singular, not plural. We would think of the Way, not as one of many paths that lead to the top of the mountain, but as the mountain peak itself. In other words, the peak is not a destination, but a point of departure, that place where we truly begin our firsthand relationship with God. There is only one place where this can occur, and that is within our own being.

The world’s religions all share a mystical component that recognizes the omnipresence of God centered in all people. This truth often becomes lost among the more surface teachings and practices offered to the public. At the level of orthodoxy, wars have been fought over religious differences. At the mystical level, all agree. The Way of which Jesus spoke is found in all religions and can be summarized in his statement that the kingdom of God is found, not by looking for it somewhere in this world, but by looking within one’s own being (Luke 17:21).

I would summarize the Way as the understanding that God is the changeless, omnipresent reality behind all things. Every individual is an expression of God. The relationship between God and the individual is inseparable oneness. This means that in our time of prayer, God is always with us, a present help for opening the way to our path forward.

Youtube: Resurrection of Resuscitation?

“Where I am going, you cannot come.”

John 8:21

Critical scholars have long understood that while some events recorded in scripture have their basis in history, the writers used these facts to support their own narrative. The Gospel writers, after all, were evangelists, not historians. As such, their purpose for writing was to advance the narrative of the early church rather than produce an accurate account of historical events. John, for example, has Jesus cleansing the temple in the beginning of his ministry while the other three Gospels place the event in the last week of his life. Historically speaking, both accounts cannot be true. An event like this may indeed have occurred, but each writer uses it to bolster the story they want to tell.  

My research into the near-death experience has prompted me to raise some interesting questions about the resurrection story of Jesus. For example, death by crucifixion normally took from between two days to two weeks. The victim would succumb to suffocation or exposure to the elements. Jesus was pronounced dead only six hours after he was crucified. When Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for his body, Pilate, an experienced executioner, wondered how Jesus could be dead so quickly. He summoned the centurion who made the death pronouncement to confirm it. The centurion, who believed Jesus was an innocent man, assured Pilate that he was dead.

What if Jesus had slipped into a coma and revived or spontaneously resuscitated prior to being entombed? This could certainly explain appearances after his “death” and serve as a factual basis for the rumors that he had been raised from the dead. When he told his disciples that he was going away, and “…where I am going, you cannot come” (John 8:21), he could have been telling them he was fleeing the country and they could not go with him. Perhaps Joseph of Arimathea arranged to have him smuggled from the port city of Caesarea to another Mediterranean country safer from the long arm of Roman law.

For me, this is an intriguing possibility that can provide a factual basis for the resurrection. After all, resurrection and resuscitation both carry the same meaning of bringing one back from the dead.

Youtube: Understanding the Seed Self

Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.

John 12:24-25

Our focus throughout the Easter season is on two seemingly incompatible terms: death and life. Generally speaking, we treat death as a negative and life as a positive. In the above passage, however, death is required to advance the expression of life. With seeds and plants, we understand this relationship. When we drop a seed into the ground, we do not mourn its impending death but anticipate its forthcoming transformation into a fruit-bearing plant. The experience is characterized by positive expectation.

In our spiritual endeavor, the seed self is our body-based identity, our life in this world. While John suggests we hate this life to gain eternal life, we should take this as an attention getting exaggeration intended to make a point. Everything about our earthly experience responds best to praise and acceptance. Dying to this seed self is not a rejection of it but rather an understanding that our true essence is something much more.

That Jesus referred often to familiar, agricultural metaphors to illustrate spiritual principles tells me he was not merely calling attention to himself but trying to make these principles practical to the average person. It is the same principle he discussed with Nicodemus when he spoke of the need to be born again. These also bring to mind the popular metaphor of the caterpillar’s transformation into the butterfly. In each case, we are acknowledging that a greater condition is poised to emerge from a presently existing condition.

You and I spend most of our time operating in and around our seed self-awareness. It is to our advantage to spend time letting go of the cares and concerns of this limited aspect and allow the truth of our eternal nature to shine its light into our awareness. Perhaps Paul said it best when he wrote, “Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind …” (Romans 12:2). This is certainly a great summary of what the Easter story is all about.     

Youtube: Self Love is Your Divine Birthright 

Erika Satie

In this day and age, we are bombarded with the mindset that our value comes from the outside world and that what our friends, partners, and coworkers think of us is of utmost importance. I don’t know about you, but haven’t you noticed that looking to others for your self-worth can be very short lived and unsatisfying? 

It is crucial and vitally important that we find ways to love and nurture ourselves rather than look to other people, places and things to provide it for us. 

Think of how your life would look if you really knew that you were God in human form? How would you feel, and how would you behave? Would you walk with confidence and love, knowing that the Force that orchestrates the universe is within you? Would you have a more loving and faith filled experience of life itself? Can you imagine knowing that you could never be without love, health and money because you were part of God and that it was God’s absolute pleasure to give you the keys to the Kingdom? 

We will address all of these questions and more this Sunday when we explore the topic of self-love.