Open What Is Sacred

“If we listen under all our politics, we can hear the elders of all traditions. Can you hear them? Their voices mix in the wind before we wake. They plead and demand that we open what is sacred, within us and between us, and make good use of it. In family, in friendship, in town halls, in synagogues, in mosques, in churches, in elder circles, in diplomacy and treaties, what is there to do but place what is sacred in a bundle and pass it on?”

Mark Nepo asks these questions in his latest book, “More Together Than Alone,” as he examines the nature of community. With his poet’s sensitivity to language and nuance, he says, “As pollen gathers and disperses, as inlets form and wash away, instances of meaningful community cannot last.” But, he adds, our goal is not to make moments of community last forever but to carry their legacy to our next encounter.

He further offers that when conversation is rooted in our hearts rather than in our heads, we can find that which we have in common. “Listening to each other’s stories changes the conversation from ‘How can you think that way?’ to ‘What can we learn from each other?'."

One thread ties the stories in this work together: When fear makes us think that self-interest will protect us, suffering and love confirm that we are more together than alone. “This is archetypal,” Nepo says. “Fear, pain and worry make us retreat, while great love and great suffering break down those barriers.”

— A more in-depth look at “More Together Than Alone” appears in the cover story of the July 2018 issue of Guide for Spiritual Living: Science of Mind magazine. Find this and other life-changing titles at www.MarkNepo.com.

New Thought Leaders Speak Out for Children

Leaders in the Association for Global New Thought on June 18 added their voices to other voices of faith, asking the U.S. President to immediately cease separating children from their families at the country's southern border. 

The letter includes this reminder from Dr. Ernest Holmes: "As we enter into the spirit of the meaning of U.S. Independence Day, the day when liberty, symbolically, was conceived, the day when freedom, objectively, in our country was announced, we should think of it not merely as a political system or form of government, but we should think of it as a spiritual conception, an idea in the Divine Mind Itself, taking form in human experience; we should learn to love that liberty, and in loving the idea we should learn to tenderly and prayerfully handle the embodiment of that idea and nourish it always to greater strength; we should really conceive again the great spiritual conception of that rugged man of God who said, “…that government of the people, by the people and for the people shall not perish from the Earth.”

Compassion Drives Us

Together — and Forward

In his June “Engaged Spirituality” column published at www.AGNT.today, Dr. Jim Lockard discussed the role of New Thought in our ever-changing world. “The pace of change,” he says, “driven by cultural evolution, is requiring increasingly complex responses to challenges such as climate change, the proliferation of high technology and social media. The pressure on human beings to adapt to these increasing levels of complexity is immense.

 “A sound foundation in effective and relevant spiritual principles is critical,” he adds. “Even then, the challenge to attain and remain in balance and harmony can be daunting at times.”

From political vitriol to nationalist movements that blame “the other” for the plights of their followers, at times render us both horrified and unable to find a response based in our truth.

 “We know that when we take dominion over our thoughts and feelings that we can be in a state of harmony,” Dr. Lockard writes. “We also know that when we let appearances knock us off center, we suffer. Our current world challenges us in New Thought to double down on our spiritual practices and to truly embody them so that we are prepared for the challenges of a changing world. What was sufficient in the past may not be sufficient in the future.”

He argues that compassion is the way forward in a complex society where people are pulled apart by differing worldviews. That compassion, he says, “arises from a deep realization of oneness and connection,” central elements of our teachings.

 “It is time,” concludes,” that we find more effective ways to express who and what we are. It is time to face our future with courage and clarity.”

Free To Be Whole

Rev. Dr. Nancy Fagen offers a prayer, excerpted here, for the freedom to be whole in the July 2018 issue of Guide for Spiritual Living: Science of Mind magazine.

“In awe, I recognize the One Power and Presence as all-powerful and everywhere-present in its entirety. As It naturally and effectively expresses in, through and as me, I rejoice knowing I am an individualized expression of It.

“In the consciousness of this unity, I step boldly into freedom. I courageously claim freedom from stress, freedom from lack, freedom from any false beliefs and freedom from any sense of separation from my Source. I courageously and joyously express the freedom to live in unlimited and opulent ways that sustain increased love, peace, creativity and prosperity in all areas of my life. In this consciousness of freedom rising from my soul, I am increasingly aware of new and expansive ideas and my infinite potential. …

“Knowing nothing is too good to be true for me, I expand my vision to vistas of new opportunities for increased good, lovingly filling myself and generously overflowing to those in my world. …

“I live in freedom to be whole as I am, thankful for this clarity and right action. And so it is.”

The Spiritual Meaning of Freedom

— By Dr. Ernest Holmes

Ever since the dawn of civilization, ever since the first humans began to grasp the significant fact that they were individual beings in a universe that seemed to be more or less hostile to them, the entire search of the human mind, its whole endeavor, has been to get free from evil, from bondage and the shackles of lack, want, fear, superstition, uncertainty, pain, disease, poverty and fear of the hereafter.

And because of this, human systems exist — organized philosophies spring up, sciences develop, educational systems are conducted, collective security is sought after and religions are formulated to allay the fear of humankind relative to the soul.

The great demand in the world today is for a sense of security, freedom and liberty. But we must be certain that we do not swap one image of bondage for another. …

We desire freedom. We do not like evil, we do not like pain, we do not like poverty, we do not like unhappiness. Why should we? None of us likes to go to bed and worry all night. God does not impose it on us. Why do we do it? Because we sense freedom, we sense liberty, we sense God, yet out here in the objective world we experience limitation. …

If we want freedom, we must understand that freedom can never come by the imposition of a will of the minority over the majority. It is born finally — and only is such degree as some system is devised whereby individuals are allowed complete freedom so long as they do not, in their freedom, impose bondage on someone else.

I believe that the true spirit of democracy is a spiritual conception where there is freedom, liberty without license and a flexibility that makes evolution possible on the foundation of freedom.

— From a talk given by Dr. Ernest Holmes on July 4, 1937, excerpted from the July 2018 issue of Guide for Spiritual Living: Science of Mind magazine.