I’ve recently been reading “A Course in Miracles”. If you want to get rid of pain, torture, guilt, and fear (and who doesn’t) I highly recommend this text. It puts everything into perspective in a marvelous way that has propelled me ahead leaps and bounds on my spiritual journey. Here’s what I felt I should share with you today-

“God is incapable of receiving sacrifice, therefore, so are you. Learn now that sacrifice of any kind is nothing but a limitation imposed on giving.”

The one thing I like about the Course and many other spiritual books that I’ve read is that what they say just makes sense, not only logically when you reason through them, but also on a deeper level. This quotation is a perfect example. What else is sacrifice but a limitation? It means I have to give this in order to get that, which means I must be deprived of one thing in order to get another. Of course in the world we live in we see this every day. Currency is the best example- you must pay for something in order to get something else.

But does it make sense that this is also true of God and therefore ultimately true of who we are as His Children? After all, sacrifice is limitation plain and simple. Is God, the Creator of the Universe, Everywhere and Everything, limited? Yet we believe in limitation and therefore see it manifest in our world.

Sacrifice is a limitation on giving. Sacrifice is also deprivation. Is God limited or deprived? So why do you think you are? Yet you do. We all do. And the belief in it is what perpetuates the sacrifice that we continue to see and experience.

So then the question arises that I’ve had and that you may be thinking right now- “How am I suppose to remove my belief in sacrifice when it is such a prevalent part of this world?” By recognizing that here we are limited- by time, sometimes by money, and by other things as well. The key is to continue our lives while recognizing that the limitation, sacrifice, and deprivation that we encounter everyday may be of this world, but aren’t of God. By doing this we can begin to change our beliefs and ultimately our perceptions and the world we experience.

My next post will be about sacrifice and how it relates to love. I’m very excited about it so make sure you come back and check it out!

In wanting so badly to tell you what I know, believe, and live by, I wrote the first few articles from a methodical and intellectual perspective trying to cram all I could into each post.

Don’t get me wrong, I whole heartedly believe everything that I wrote in my first few posts and they ARE the basis of all that I know. But I now realize that I must write about my experiences as I have them. So from now on, I will bring you along with me on my journey as I grow as a person. I will write about my experiences and what I learn as they happen instead, and my hope is that together we will come into a deeper understanding of who we really are.

My first post from this new perspective is about faith and what you believe in. I came to this realization just recently and it has had an amazing impact on my life.

Have you ever been in a situation in which you feared the worse? Maybe you are having a hard time at work so you fear that you will be fired. Maybe your finances aren’t good right now so you fear that the way things are going they will only get worse. Think of a similar situation that has happened or is happening in your life and start to understand what you’re doing. You are looking at the current circumstances and you are putting your FAITH in fear and the negative. You are BELIEVING in something that hasn’t happened yet, and the worst part is the thing that you are believing in would cause you harm, suffering, and unhappiness.

Don’t we often put our faith and belief in thoughts that ultimately make the worst case scenario a reality in our lives?

If it is already so easy for you to believe in the worst, why not change your attitude and start to believe in the best instead? Is it really all that preposterous? If your thoughts create the experiences you actually have, then why would you ever want to think anything that isn’t for your highest good?

Often people believe that if they can think about a situation long enough and anticipate the worst, then they will figure out the solution and prevent it from happening. This is why we dwell on bad things that could happen in the future.

Has this ever actually helped you? Did you come up with a solution to your problem or did you just cause yourself a lot of unnecessary suffering? Worrying does not solve your problems, it only perpetuates an awful scenario in your head. In the moment that you are worrying, the threat isn’t real. It has not happened yet and you don’t even know if it will. This is insanity, and it prevents us from enjoying life in the present moment. Now is all we have, it is all that we ever actually experience.

Now to take this a step further, you must realize that your thoughts are creative. They determine your reality. Not sure about this? First I would say to read two previous posts, The Existence of a Universal Being and There Is Only One. I would also ask you to consider the fact that we are spirits having a physical and human experience rather than the other way around.

As spirits that God made in his image and likeness, we also have the characteristics that He possesses. This includes the power to create. Can you think of one thing in the physical world that didn’t start with a thought or in someone’s imagination? Every invention, every idea, every new product, every thing that you use and see on a daily basis has its origin in someone’s mind.

God works in the same way. He is intelligence in its purest form. How does a tiny cluster of cells that are the beginnings of a human being know how to make a fully developed human being? Well it’s in the DNA you say, and you’d be right. But what is DNA except Intelligence at work? Furthermore, does the mother have to consciously create the baby by making the body systems herself, or does it happen naturally by a seemingly miraculous phenomenon? This is the working of Universal Intelligence, of God Himself.

God has given us access to this same Intelligence through our minds. Our minds are what connect us to Him. What is prayer except you talking to God and asking him for what you want? You are using your mind to create your reality. Your thoughts are what allow you to communicate with God and to create in the physical world.

I realize that I went a little off topic from my original question about what you put your faith in, but I wanted you to realize that believing in something that you have not yet seen isn’t all that unfamiliar to you. You do it all the time when you worry about what bad things might happen.

More to come about how we are connected to God and Divine Intelligence. I hope this post helped you to realize that believing in something that you haven’t yet seen (also known as faith and using your mind to create) isn’t all that foreign to you.

Please let me know your thoughts below under Leave a Reply.

I realize that with all the negativity that we encounter and the horrible events that occur in this world on a daily basis, that the idea that there is only good seems absurd. I completely agree with you when you look at the world around you. There is “evil” in this world and to deny it would be to deny what is. So with this post, I’m not trying to deny what obviously already exists. Instead, my goal is to provide you with a perspective of where we are, where we’ve been, and how we got here.

In past posts, The Existence of a Universal Being and There Is Only One, we established that there is one life force in the universe (God, the Supreme Being, Intelligence or whatever else you prefer to call it). We also realized that this force is the “Livingness” behind all life as evidenced by the formation of the atom, planets, solar systems, earth, and all of the life on our planet including human beings. God created all that is from Nothing. If you have not read these posts I highly recommend that you read them first.

Now to get to this post-

The Creating Spirit is Life. Since it is Life then it must be Love. Why? “Because as the undifferentiated Principle of Life it cannot do otherwise than tend to the fuller development of life in each individual, and the pure motive of giving greater enjoyment of life is Love.” This means that there was only originally Love, and at the level of pure Spirit, that’s all there is. God WANTS us to experience the greater enjoyment of life because he loves us. Any feelings to the contrary, such as I don’t deserve it, or I’m not good enough, or that’s just not how things are is absolutely absurd. That’s a story that your mind and ego creates. This is a false mind pattern that we’ve created for ourselves that has been passed down for generations. It is something that I can’t wait to delve into in future posts.

Love. Photo by las - initially on Flickr

“Then because it is Life guided by Love it must also be Light, that is to say, the primary all-inclusive perception of boundless manifestations yet to be.” To make Troward a little easier to understand, Light is the realization that there are limitless ways in which the Spirit can express itself, particularly through us. If it wants for us the greater enjoyment of life and Spirit itself is Infinite, then it follows that there would be limitless or infinite opportunities for the greater enjoyment of life. This means that unless you limit Spirit by your thoughts, anything is possible.

“Then from this proceeds Power, because there is no opposing force at the level of Pure Spirit; and therefore Life urged forward by Love or the desire for recognition, and by Light or the pure perception of the Law of Infinite Possibility, must necessarily produce Power, for the simple reason that under these conditions it could not stop short of action, for that would be the denial of the Life, Love, and Light which it is.” There must be action, or Power, by which God is able to express and give rise to Life, Love, and Light.

“Then because the Spirit is Life, Love, Light, and Power, it is also Peace, again for a very simple reason, that being the Spirit of the Whole it cannot set one part in antagonism against another, for that would be to destroy the wholeness.” If at this point you’re thinking that people, things and circumstances are set against each other all the time, then that is understandable. I will explain why this is later in the post.

“Next the Spirit must be Beauty, because on the same principle of Wholeness it must duly proportion every part to every other part, and the due proportioning of all parts is beauty.” The best example of this is that the more beautiful a person is, the more proportioned are the features of their face, such as the distance between their eyes.

A flower is a great depiction of beauty. Photo by Tina_S_White on Flickr

“And lastly the Spirit must be Joy, because, working on these lines, it cannot do otherwise than find pleasure in the Self-expression which its works afford it, and in the contemplation of the limitlessness of the Creative Process by which each realized stage of evolution, however excellent, is still the stepping-stone to something yet more excellent, and so on in everlasting progression.”

This last paragraph brings tears to my eyes. As Troward explains, Joy is a natural state of the Universe because it of course finds pleasure in all creation and expressions of Love. And however amazing a creation may seem, because of Light or infinite possibilities, it is only a stepping-stone to something even greater. This continues forever, into infinity.

So now that we have established the perfectness of the Universe, we must pose the question again: why is there evil and negativity?

I will briefly explain it here, because I would not feel right ending this post without an explanation. However, my next post will explain this more in depth.

For now, I will say that at our core we are all perfect beings, but something went wrong somewhere. In Christianity, this is known as The Fall and is when Adam and Eve first sinned in the Garden of Eden. This is a common thread across many religions.

Because God loves us, he gave us free will. This means we have the right to choose between good and evil. Like many you may be thinking, “but I only want Good in my life and in the world so why is evil even an option?” The reason is that God wants us to truly love him in return, out of our own free will. Without the ability to choose, we would be robots.

What means more to you, for someone to truly Love you of their own volition, or for them to be forced to love you? Which implies freedom, a choice or no choice? And what is true love but to give someone you love freedom to live and be however they so choose.

To me, the following is the best way to gauge whether what I have written is true. What do you like to experience in your life? Happiness or sadness, love or fear, companionship or loneliness? Better yet, what do you feel in your soul when something good happens? Isn’t that a pleasant feeling? Now what about when something bad happens or you have negative thoughts? Doesn’t that give you a bad or unpleasant feeling?

So which do you think is our natural and true state as children of God? Goodness, happiness, and contentment, or negativity, fear, anger, and sadness? What do you think He wants for us?

Do you find this post encouraging and inspiring? Do you feel that Life, Love, and Light are the true nature of the universe? Let me know what you think below.

The first concept that Thomas Troward discusses in his “Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science” is the distinction between Spirit and Matter. Upon trying to think of how to start this post, I also believe that this is the best place to start.

Spirit is the essence of life in every living being. It is Intelligence and ultimately God himself. Matter is everything that we experience with our senses such as the food we taste and everything that we see. It is easy to assume that the physical world that we live in day to day is the only reality that exists. However, this limits our perspective and also limits God, and as we will see, God is limitless and infinite.

You may be wondering how we know that Spirit exists in addition to Matter. This will become more clear as you continue reading this post and will be explained in future posts as well. Here is one way of looking at it. Most people believe that once a person dies, the essence of who they are, their spirit, leaves the physical body and goes to a place that is beyond this world. They continue living after physical death. Thus, Spirit (their spirit or life essence) and Matter (their physical body) both exist.

There is only one. Photo by andrechinn on Flickr

In my last post, The Existence of a Universal Being, I explained the concept that a magnificent intelligence underlies the order and organization of the universe and all that is in it, from the formation of planets and solar systems, to the truly remarkable functioning of life on our planet. This remarkable intelligence and order is Spirit itself, which ultimately created Matter. Not sure about this last statement? Allow me to explain.

As Troward states, this intelligence (God) must exist somewhere, so where is it found?

If you are a Christian or believe in the teachings of the Bible, you know that at the very beginning of Genesis it states that God created the heavens and the earth. Maybe you would rather turn to science. If so, consider the big bang. The universe began in an extremely dense and hot state. Then after its initial expansion and cooling, subatomic particles were formed. Then, from those atoms were created which are the building blocks of Matter.

So what am I getting at?

That in the beginning, before anything was created, there was one substance (for lack of a better term) from which everything you can see originated. If you look at the building blocks of anything you will see atoms. From there, you will see subatomic particles that form the atoms. Scientists are constantly delving deeper and discovering even smaller building blocks.

This shows that at its core, all Matter consists of the same basic building blocks. Why does this matter?

Well, we’ve established that the essential quality of Spirit is Intelligence. If we further consider this we will see that the substance from which all Matter was created must be Spirit itself. Why? If we were to conceive of a separate, higher power that created both Spirit and Matter then it would be neither spirit nor matter itself, but would have created both.

There is no logical explanation that this is the case and no evidence that anything exists other than Spirit or Matter. Don’t take my word for it, read “The Wisdom of Thomas Troward” yourself for a more in depth explanation.

As Troward states, “However far back, therefore, we may relegate the original starting-point, we cannot avoid the conclusion that, at that point, spirit contains the primary substance in itself, which brings us back to the common statement that it made everything out of nothing. We thus find two factors to the making of all things, Spirit and–Nothing; and the addition of Nothing to Spirit leaves only spirit: x + 0 = x.”

In summary, what does this mean? Spirit must be in everything! You may have heard in the past that God is everywhere and in everything.

A ring is the best physical representation of unity. Photo by ph0rk on Flickr

What we see then, is that all forms that are separate from each other (form meaning anything you can see with your eyes) at their deepest level share a unity of the same building blocks originating from the same substance from which the universe was born. This originating substance is Spirit and Life in itself.

A form is an extension in space which means that it takes up space. Thought, the essential quality of the Spirit, is not form and does not take up space. Therefore, the essence of Life itself is not characterized by form or an extension in space. It is characterized by Life, Thought, and Intelligence. “The important point of this distinction is that if we can conceive of anything as entirely devoid of the element of extension in space, it must be present in its entire totality anywhere and everywhere–that is to say, at every point of space simultaneously. The scientific definition of time is that it is the period occupied by a body in passing from one given point in space to another, and, therefore, according to this definition, when there is no space there can be no time.”

Therefore, if we realize that Spirit is devoid of the element of Space it must also be devoid of Time. Which brings us to the conclusion that not only is it everywhere and in everything, but only truly exists in the present, which, if you think about it, is all we really experience at a given moment anyway. We think about the past and future, but only ever experience the present.

This is a great summary of this point, “In this view of things nothing can be remote from us either in time or space: either the idea is entirely dissipated or it exists as an actual present entity and not as something that shall be in the future, for where there is no sequence in time there can be no future. Similarly where there is no space there can be no conception of anything as being at a distance from us. When the elements of time and space are eliminated all our ideas of things must necessarily be as subsisting in a universal here and an everlasting now.”

Here is one last concept to really drive the point home-

Since this “all-producing spiritual substance…cannot be limited to any one portion of space, but must be limitless as space itself; the idea of any portion of space where it is not is inconceivable.” It follows then that this substance is characterized by infinitude or being infinite or universal. “Now it is a mathematical truth that the infinite must be a unity. You cannot have two infinites, for then neither would be infinite, each would be limited by the other, nor can you split the infinite up into fractions. The infinite is mathematically essential unity.”

Because a unity is a single unit, wherever it exists the whole of it must be. If you allow your mind to think of it in terms of space, you will begin to think of part of it here and the other part there. You are then thinking of the unity as a fraction of a single unit that can be divided into parts that are limited by each other. You are then no longer thinking of the originating substance as Infinite. Because it is infinite it must be present at every point in space at the same moment.

Why does all of this matter?

When pure spirit is thought of in this way, devoid of time and space, it is pure intelligence and has not been differentiated into anything. “As pure intelligence it is infinite responsiveness and susceptibility. As devoid of relation to time and space it is devoid of individual personality.”

This means that, with our intelligence, we can impress on it whatever we choose with very positive consequences as long as we choose good. Thus, we can actually create with our intelligence, using thoughts from our minds. This is something that will be delved into in greater depth in future posts.

What do you think of the concept of the unity of spirit?

After exploring the blog and reading my first article you may be thinking to yourself “Why should I believe what you write?”

Well of course, you don’t have to. However, I must ask you this. Are you living your best life? Do you realize that Life is Good and that there is so much more to it than what our current awareness permits us to understand? If not, this blog is for you. If you do realize these things, there is always more to learn.

Some of the concepts I will write about will be abstract. That being said, I will do my best to explain them in a way that is easy for you to understand. My hope is that if you have any questions, you will leave them in the comments box so we can discuss them.

You will have to exercise Faith. I don’t mean Faith merely in a religious context such as Faith in a certain set of religious beliefs. However, I do believe that the Bible best sums it up. This is one of my favorite verses “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for. The evidence of things not seen” Hebrews 11:1.

When I say this will require Faith, I don’t mean blind Faith. I don’t mean for you to take my word for it without doing any analysis for yourself. In fact, I encourage you to read the works of some of the spiritual teachers that I have studied such as Thomas Troward and Eckhart Tolle so that you can form your own opinions.

What I mean by Faith is that when you read a post about a particular concept, realize that as I continue to write, you will see how each new concept is another puzzle piece that forms the greater picture. It’s like circumstantial evidence. One thing may not convince you that everything I’m saying is true, but taken together, they all fit together so perfectly that you realize that they are the fundamental Truths of Life.

The most important thing to understand more than anything, is that what I write about will resonate with your soul if you’re ready for it. You will feel and know that this is the Truth.

Our souls are much more vast and understand more than our minds could ever dream of.

Many people whose beliefs are founded on the idea that God or a Supreme Being exists, often go through life accepting this as true, but never have anything close to proof. This is where their Faith comes in. They learn that you have to have faith that there is a God. Perhaps this is why atheists do not believe in God, because they feel they need proof. Faith is an important part of what we will discuss; however, I think that God has given us the intelligence and evidence to know that He exists.

Before I continue let me say one thing, I will often refer to God using many terms such as Source, the Universe, Supreme Intelligence, and so on.

Now wouldn’t you assume that if God exists He would want us to know that He does? That makes sense to me. The rest of this article will discuss how God reveals himself throughout the universe.

I will now turn to the “Wisdom of Thomas Troward” to help convey my thoughts. Troward lived during the turn of the 19th century and he has been a huge inspiration to me because he uses LOGIC to explain abstract concepts such as how we can know that God exists.

Consider this- what makes an animal have more of a quality of being or “livingness”, as Troward calls it, than a plant? What makes a human have a higher quality of being than an animal? The answer is intelligence. “We see, then, that the livingness of Life consists in intelligence-in other words, in the power of Thought”. Putting it in my own words, what distinguishes beings of higher intelligence from those of lower intelligence is the power of Thought.

Furthermore, Thought does not exist in Time and Space. What do I mean by that?  There’s no direct evidence of it in the world around us. You can’t see, taste, feel, or use any of your other senses to experience a thought. Sure, someone can tell you their thoughts or write them down, but this becomes an action they take in the physical, and not a pure thought. The pure thought existed before they expressed it to you.

So what is the point of the last paragraph? Remember that what defines Intelligence is Thought, which does not exist in the physical world. This will be very important in future posts! So where does it exist? We’ll get to that.

One of the qualities of humans’ higher Intelligence is self-recognition, or the ability to recognize yourself as separate from all other entities. Troward states, “The higher the grade of life, the higher the intelligence; from which it follows that the supreme principle of Life must also be the ultimate principle of intelligence. This is clearly demonstrated by the grand natural order of the universe.”

Look around you, Life doesn’t happen randomly. When a dog gives birth, don’t you expect puppies? How frustrating would it be to know that the dog may have kittens or chicks instead?! The same goes with plants. When you plant a sunflower seed, you expect a sunflower to eventually bloom, not an apple tree.

The greatest scientific minds are constantly discovering things that already exist in our world. Specifically, “the recognition of an already existing order”. This existing order provides the pattern for a greater expression of life in the universe. What do I mean? At the beginning of time, there was first the formation of atoms, eventually planets, then solar systems, galaxies, and eventually life on the planet earth.

This great order and greater expression of Life, then, must originate from “a great cosmic intelligence underlying the totality of things”. A greater intelligence (and thus a greater life form) must be creating the order all around us, or cells wouldn’t form tissue, tissues wouldn’t come together to form organs, and organs wouldn’t work together to form body systems that support the functioning of our bodies.

These components must be driven by some force that brings them together for a higher functioning. This force must be Intelligence. In principle, it’s no different than a human bringing together the components to create a functioning car. We use the world around us to create everyday. Doesn’t it make sense that a higher Intelligence created us as complex as our bodies and minds are?

I’ll leave you with one final point. Think of someone you love. Don’t you want the best for them? Don’t you want them to experience life to the greatest extent they can? If you have a child you want them to grow up, get a great job, and have everything they could ever want in life. Don’t we express our love by giving someone a greater enjoyment of life? It may be something as simple as flowers or as big as a new car, but the motive is always the same.

God is no different. For billions of years He has continuously created greater forms of life, a long process that has led to the creation of human beings. This gift of the greater enjoyment and expression of Life that we as humans experience is the ultimate expression of the Love of God.

My next article will be about the oneness of God and the fact that He is everywhere and in everything. 

What do you think about the existence of a universal being?

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