Inward Focus: Contrary to Oneness »
In even months, we publish an excerpt from the vast wisdom collection of New Thought luminary, Dr. Ernest Holmes, founder of the Religious Science movement. The monthly teachings from Holmes are then summarized by Rev. Dr. David Alexander, spiritual director of Spiritual Living Center Atlanta.
You can check out his inspirational website and ministry at RevDavidAlexander.com.
Below is his April 2023 “Philosophy in Action” column:
The following is an excerpt from Rev. Dr. David Alexander’s new book “Attained by All: A Case for New Thought Liberation Theology.”
While it may be a harsh criticism of New Thought to say that our problem or challenge for years was that we did not know where we collectively were going, it may be more accurate to say that we left the answer up to each individual. In other words, individual enlightenment was the destination, and where that was for you would be different for me and for the next person. As a result, there could be no collective path that brought us together, no common cause binding our journey together.
The best we could do as a movement was to offer tools via classes and inspirational sermons for the journey: Take what you like and leave the rest. So what is wrong with that? Well, nothing if individual enlightenment is the goal. …
Yet such an inward and individualistic focus violates our principle of oneness and isolates us from the world and work of care and compassion for our neighbor. Leaning solely on the idea that it is up to individuals to do their own inner work is a position of privilege more than it is a spiritual practice. What is worse, many in our movement have collapsed the three frames (beginning, middle and end) into one and then viewed them through a single point. Symptoms of this sound like this: “Consciousness is all there is, and it exists only in a single point of origin, with no past, no future, just the present, in which all needs are already met.” Sure, OK. But tell that to someone struggling to pay the rent or the person behind you at a red light attempting to get to the hospital because their family member has been in an accident.
Now, it’s not that a moment of mindfulness won’t help each of these individuals or those in countless other examples we could give. Mindfulness is indeed a powerful practice that can be used in spiritual and justice work alike, as well as, and maybe especially, in gridlock traffic. Yet mindfulness is a moment; it is a practice and a tool to be used in the midst of a lived context. Unless you are a monk who has denounced all worldly possessions and attachments, you live in a world of sequential order, flow, cause and effect, and time (made up as it may be).
