Tag: christianity

The Love Dynamic

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Love, expressed as understanding, is our topic for this second week of Advent. As we consider the love dynamic, it should become clear why new understanding for a word so familiar is important.

Most of you are probably aware of the statement I make concerning the action of love:

Love draws to me that which is for my highest good, and dissolves that which is not.

When asked about the greatest commandments, Jesus said to love the Lord your God with all your mind, heart, and soul. The second is to love your neighbor as yourself.

God is love (1John 4:8), drawing to us that which is for our highest good and dissolving that which is not. To love the Lord our God is to recognize this is happening now and always. This is the ultimate affirming attitude toward God. To hold this same thought for others is the highest, most freeing form of prayer we can utter. To pray, Love draws to you that which is for your highest good and dissolves that which is not, is freeing both to you and to the one for which you speak it.

Think of love, not as a thing that can be given or withheld but as a perpetual action. At this very moment, as you read or hear these words, know that the action of love is drawing to you that which is for your highest good. Do there appear to be obstacles to your peace, success, health, prosperity, or harmony in relationships? Then know that these obstacles are being dissolved right now. If we are tempted to feel undeserving, we let love dissolve this feeling. Love is not a thing we earn. It is the very nature of the creative life force that is loving us into existence. All feelings of undeserving are based on our misunderstanding of the unconditional nature of God as love.

Affirming this love dynamic is active in us and in our life right now is key to experiencing the spiritual birth we celebrate during this Christmas season. With this understanding, we open our minds and hearts to the more abundant life that we know can be ours.

The Tie That Binds

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“Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven”. (Matthew 16:19).

I have always been curious about how Matthew connected this saying to Peter’s recognition of Jesus as the Christ. It never seemed to quite fit. For me, it seems better suited as a reminder of the connection between the quality of our consciousness and the quality of our external life. If we believe a certain thing is true, for example, we tend to express that belief in our life. The belief is what we bind on earth. The invisible laws of manifestation we set in motion is what we bind in heaven.

I once spoke with a young woman who said, “People never take me seriously.” She then went on to name about three examples where her opinions were dismissed. If you continually affirm that people never take you seriously, chances are good that people will stop taking you seriously.

The question is, does affirming people never take you seriously actually cause people to comply with your expectations? Or, do you just latch on to those situations where this seems to be the case? I bought a Jeep Wrangler from our daughter. Now, everyplace I go I see many Jeep Wranglers. Did the whole world run out and buy Jeep Wranglers just because I did? I don’t think so.

The principle contained in the statement from Jesus basically says whatever gets your attention will tend to show up because you look for it. It becomes inevitable. If you want to be taken seriously, then it would be a good idea to stop saying no one does.

This is just an example, but it plays out in many ways in our life. There is a definite connection between what we believe (bind on earth) and what we latch onto from the river of events that flow through our life (bind in heaven).  

Manifestation Principles

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J Douglas Bottorff

It occurs to me that the ministry of Jesus focused on helping people experience better health, prosperity, and more harmonious relationships by applying spiritual principles. As I began jotting these down, I quickly came up with twelve. To begin, he emphasized the spiritual nature of God, the importance of forgiveness, acknowledging the intuitive promptings of the Father, accepting that it’s the Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom, the need for faith, the attitude that you have already received what you ask for in prayer, singleness of eye (imagination), letting go of spiritual preconceptions, the need to be born of spirit, persistence, don’t follow the crowd, and break the worry habit.

These ideas are scattered throughout the gospels and are not presented as a specific formula to follow. We’ll drill down into each one of these ideas in today’s talk. Here, I want to point out the mental and emotional emphasis Jesus put on his teachings. As a mystic, he would have focused on the importance of a firsthand experience with God. However, he would have also understood that many in his audience would not make this kind of breakthrough, but that would not prevent them from reaping the benefits of a spiritual change of mind.

If we think of God as Spirit, the creative life force that stirs in and through us at all times, we want to be aware that our mental and emotional atmosphere influences the way this creative energy displays in our life. When Jesus said it’s the Father’s good pleasure to give us the kingdom, we accept the truth that this creative process is bias toward our highest good. We do not think of prayer, as someone has suggested, as a means of overcoming God’s reluctance. We think of prayer as a way of cooperating with God’s willingness.

In light of the twelve principles I’ve listed, our prayer is grounding ourselves in these ideas at different times throughout our day. We develop a general attitude of optimism, or faith that greater good is now unfolding through our life. Jesus, of course, highlighted many other principles we can add to this list, but the important thing is to stay aware of how we are using our faculties of faith and imagination. Just the single thought that it is the Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom is enough to raise your level of expectation to a healthy place. The more of these principles work through your mind and heart, the better off you will be.

The Reluctant Messiah

Podcast: Episode 3: The Reluctant Messiah

In this episode we explore the notion of Jesus as Messiah. Even though the gospel writers portrayed him in this way, we explore some of the reasons Jesus himself might have rejected the role.

“Perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself” (John 6:15).

He would have known that every self-proclaimed messiah had met the same tragic fate. Recalling that Jesus was a Jew, we look at the differences between Jewish and Christian concepts of the Messiah. Modern scholars know that the Christian Messiah was pieced together from various Old Testament passages those early followers of the Jesus movement insisted supported their belief.

Many sayings attributed to him suggest that Jesus was not the typical apocalyptic prophet but a Jewish mystic, a teacher whose ministry was dedicated to the mission of helping “break every yoke” and lift open-minded members of his peasant class from the drudgery of daily life. He introduced his audience to a new, spiritually empowering way of thinking of the kingdom of God as an underlying, ever-present reality, whose point of contact was centered in every individual. Because the region in which Jesus was raised was Hellenized—imposed Greek culture, language, and philosophy—it is not inconceivable that his understanding of the kingdom of God was influenced by Plato’s Theory of Forms. This major paradigm shift required a new birth, a new way of seeing and thinking of themselves and their relationship of oneness with God. This mission he drew from Isiah, which, according to Luke, he read at the outset of his public ministry.

“Is not this the fast that I choose:
    to loose the bonds of wickedness,
    to undo the thongs of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
    and to break every yoke?” (Isiah 58:6)

Is Jesus God?

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The debate about the nature of Jesus, whether he was a man or God, has been ongoing for centuries. It can be traced back to the early days of Christianity, with different interpretations and understandings emerging. In the first few centuries after Jesus’ death, various theological perspectives arose, leading to intense debates among scholars, theologians, and religious leaders. The Council of Nicaea in 325 AD played a crucial role in clarifying the divinity of Jesus, affirming the belief in his full humanity and full divinity. However, the debate continued to evolve and resurface in different forms throughout history. Different Christian denominations and theological schools of thought have approached this question differently, resulting in ongoing discussions and disagreements. Today, the debate about the nature of Jesus as both man and God remains a significant topic of theological exploration and interpretation.

To the mystic, the question is a no brainer. Jesus, like all human beings, is an expression of God. When we visit the ocean and see a tidepool, we do not wonder if the tidepool is the ocean. It exists because of the ocean. And the same water that is in the tidepool is also in the ocean. When the tide rises, the pool and the ocean are one. The human being, including Jesus, is like the tidepool. Our life essence is God, but we are not all there is of God. We are expressions of God.

The people of Jesus’ day, like people today, see God as separate from humanity. But in truth, we are all one with God. Our physicality, like the defined tidepool, gives us the impression that we are separate from God. We are taught this from childhood, and we are taught that Jesus is a human unlike any other. This is unfortunate. If we see the tide come in over one hundred tidepools, all equally merge with the ocean.

The breakdown of this analogy is the physical boundary that defines the pool. In our case, the boundary is perceptual. The ocean of God perpetually mingles with our soul. All people possess the same spiritual architecture as Jesus. We are all human and we are all divine. The difference is in our degree of knowing. Most define themselves only as a tidepool. Some realize they exist because there is an ocean as the source of their being. Jesus was a man who taught our oneness with  God.

The Whispering Messiah

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I believe Jesus intentionally distanced himself from any association with the expected Messiah. Making any claim to that title would put him in a position that did not represent the message he believed he was born to teach. The expected Messiah would usher in an external kingdom of God that would change the religious, social, and political landscape. The kingdom he spoke of was an inner awakening to the presence of God.

Why would I refer to Jesus as the whispering Messiah? With literally millions of followers around the world, he appears to have done much more than whisper. Appearances, however, can be deceiving. Biblical scholar Bart Ehrman believes Jesus had about twenty followers in his core organization. Considering he focused most of his ministry on the tiny villages that dotted the countryside, the impression we’re given by the Gospel writers of thousands following is, no doubt, an extreme exaggeration.  

The idea of the whispering Messiah comes from my belief that the true teachings of Jesus were misunderstood. Through decades of oral tradition passed down to the authors of the Gospels, the message changed from an inner awakening to an external expectation of the dawning of a new age. Though fragments of the teachings of the Jewish mystic survive, the loudest voice of the Gospels is that of the evangelists who wrote the books. Theirs is the message that caught the fire that roared over the world. So, we have to learn to listen for that whisper of a voice.

The God of which Jesus spoke is not the wholly other that exists beyond the comprehension of the average person. God is Spirit. To worship in spirit is to go within and feel our way to the inner sanctuary, our very own holy of holies. It is as if we stand on the beach with the surf washing over our feet. We lift our eyes to behold the vast ocean in which we stand. This place on the beach is ours, and ours alone, yet the ocean belongs to us all, and we belong to it.

Nothing from the heavens is coming to change the world. The whispering Messiah, that still small voice within us, prompts us to lift our vision and see the vastness of this ocean of spirit in which we live and move and have our being.

Quest For the Lost Sheep

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He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Matthew 15:24

This passage has always intrigued me, but only recently has it taken on special meaning. Who were these lost sheep? From what I now gather, they were Jews who did not choose to live under the restrictions imposed by the 613 commandments found in the Torah.[1] While the religious system deemed them as sinners, today we might see them as the type who had exposure to the mainstream but, like many of us, prefer to define the conditions of their own spiritual inquiry.   

The concept of the kingdom of God within was a complete reversal to the teaching that God and man are separate. Jesus would naturally seek an audience who was open-minded enough to explore new ideas, and these so-called lost sheep of Israel perfectly fit the bill. For them, his commonsense approach was probably a refreshing change. “And they were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one who had authority, and not as the scribes” (Mark 1:22). For me, this also throws a different light on his parable of the lost sheep, where the shepherd leaves the ninety-nine to find the one. It’s probably fair to assume that 1% of the Jewish population was open to his radical new way of thinking about the individual’s relationship of oneness with God.

Jesus challenged the system by ignoring several rules concerning the Sabbath. Yet he said he did not come to break the law but to fulfill it. Think of it this way: a stop sign tells you to stop. If you run the stop sign, you break the law. If you stop, look both ways, then proceed, you fulfill the law. You do not take the sign literally and stop indefinitely.

Just as the higher purpose of the stop sign is to ensure safety, Jesus looked beyond the letter of the law to its higher purpose of spiritual freedom. “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27). “Which of you, having a son or an ox that has fallen into a well, will not immediately pull him out on a sabbath day?” (Luke 14:5). A good teacher knows his audience. The lost sheep of Israel finally found their shepherd.

[1] 1st 5 books of the Old Testament

Forbidden Fruit

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Religious tradition tells us that our struggle with sin began with the first couple, Adam and Eve. Despite being explicitly told not to eat the fruit of a certain tree, Adam and Eve still did it, leaving the rest of us to struggle with the consequences. Though people often portray this forbidden fruit as an apple, Genesis names it as “… the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” (Gen 2:17).  

This ancient writer is not talking about gardens, trees, or any of the fruit we might find in a bowl on the dining room table. He’s answering this question: Why is life such a struggle? His answer is this: Life is a struggle because, from the beginning, man has disobeyed the commandments of God.

In Unity, we affirm that there is only one Presence and one power in the universe, God, the good, omnipotent. It is the belief in two powers—good and evil—that establishes the basis for struggle and gets us kicked out of the garden, so to speak. In traditional belief, people depict this dualism as God and Satan, attributing distinct origins to both powers. At the beginning of its account of creation, Genesis mentions light and darkness, but names only light as good. John echoes this when he writes, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5).

The belief in two powers can take many forms. In the traditional religious context, people consider sin as a power that can condemn the soul to hell. In our alternative approaches to spirituality, negative thinking and the soul that is not spiritually awakened become a destructive power. It matters little how we characterize evil as a power. The consequence of embracing it manifests itself as some form of struggle.   

The importance of this entire issue comes down to how we characterize God and the possibility of a competing power. Though the subtle serpent continuously tempts us with the assurance that there are no consequences of believing in two powers, we should understand that this belief is the basis of all fear and serves as the source of most of our struggles in life.

Jesus The Rabbi

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I believe Jesus envisioned a time when religious authorities would shift from being protectors against the consequences of sin to become instructors devoted to opening the doors to the inner kingdom. As a scholar and teacher, this is the intended role of a rabbi.

A religion that is focused on saving people from sin is based on the need to protect a weakness. Here, the weakness is a distorted understanding of the true nature of God, the individual, and their inseparable oneness with God. Essentially, it is a belief in two powers—good and evil.

An educationally focused religious system will dedicate itself to developing strength. It acknowledges that God is the only power, and oneness with God is the ultimate truth. Translating this understanding into practical applications that have a positive impact on everyday life is the goal. This type of system explains the existence of evil, not as a power, but as a blockage of light, a misperception of the true nature of underlying reality. Instead of addressing the shadow, it seeks to bring light to the blockage that causes it. For instance, the practice of denial is not simply saying, “There is no shadow.” We acknowledge the shadow, but we see it as the effect of something that is obstructing the light. Denial is a deliberate act of withholding the power we give to this obstruction.

When people addressed Jesus as a rabbi, they acknowledged him as a scholar and teacher who had a unique grasp on the letter of Mosaic law. His special talent, however, lay in his capacity to shed light on the unity between man and God, and the transformative power this awareness brings to one’s life.

While religious tradition has always devoted itself to convincing people it could protect them from the consequence of their named list of sins, Jesus devoted his ministry to saving them from the greatest sin of all—spiritual ignorance. He pointed out that it is not the type of food that goes into the mouth that corrupts, but the words and actions that stem from a corrupt understanding of one’s relationship to God. Teaching this truth, I believe, was the sole purpose of his ministry.

I believe Jesus envisioned a time when religious authorities would shift from being protectors against the consequences of sin to become instructors devoted to opening the doors to the inner kingdom. As a scholar and teacher, this is the intended role of a rabbi.

A religion focused on saving people from sin is based on the need to protect a weakness. Here, the weakness is a distorted understanding of the true nature of God, the individual, and their inseparable oneness with God. Essentially, it is a belief in two powers—good and evil. I hope you can join us in Sunday’s exploration of Jesus The Rabbi, whose revolutionary approach went beyond teaching religious rules to teaching spiritual principles that could change lives. 

The Natural Prayer

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During my talk last Sunday, I discussed the topic of prayer and its perceived failures. After the service, a friend raised an interesting question regarding the purpose of prayer altogether. Raising such a question can help us reach a better understanding of prayer. If we treat it simply as a formula intended to invoke spiritual forces that we hope will influence outcomes in our favor, we miss the fuller scope of our involvement. We are, in fact, constantly in a state of what we might call a natural prayer, with our overall mindset as the primary influence. While we may use the tools of affirmations and denials to bring about change, it is ultimately our state of mind that determines the course and overall condition of our life.

The two main faculties we employ in natural prayer are faith and imagination. Here, faith is synonymous with expectation. The influence of expectation runs in our mind like a background program on our computer. It’s always working, but we don’t see it. What we see at the mental and emotional level are the images our faith generates through the faculty of imagination.

In his novel, The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho makes this observation:

“When each day is the same as the next, it’s because people fail to recognize the good things that happen in their lives every day that the sun rises.”

This attitude is the mindset that we want to pay attention to. When we expect each day to be the same as the next, we are training the creative power of our imagination to match our level of expectation. All things considered; this may seem reasonable. And, if we are content with the monotony of each day being the same as the next, why bother investing effort in fixing something that isn’t broken? If we are restless and dissatisfied with our life, it will be advantageous to recognize the good things that present themselves and raise our expectation and appreciation for these gifts that each new day brings.

Natural prayer does not center on a single aspect but encompasses our overall quality of life. It directs our awareness to each present moment, every individual we encounter, and any circumstance that calls for a creative resolution. We naturally raise our own expectations and the imaginative visions that these inspire.