Understanding Unity Series
Click for audio: The Oneness Enigma: Part 4 of 8
There is a widespread perception among religious advocates that humanity is living in a fallen state that began with Adam and Eve’s disobedience to God. According to this perception the canada tablets generic cialis consequence of this “sin” is the condition of separation, illustrated by the first couple being cast from the Garden of Eden. This assumed separation is a powerful belief that is reflected throughout all aspects of religious architecture, art, music and the commonly held theology of sin and salvation embraced as a defining element by most mainline Christian sects.
The new paradigm of oneness begins with the recognition of unity between God and the individual. Understanding this unity puts us in the position of having already received the life, love, power and intelligence of God. Our acceptance of this truth allows us to begin now to express more of these divine gifts as healthier minds, bodies and more prosperous conditions without fear that we need to first earn the approval of God. As expressions of God, the question of approval becomes a moot point.
Because so many people have been influenced by the old belief that we are separate from God, there will be challenges associated with transitioning from a separation-based faith to a oneness-based understanding. It’s important to discern the difference and order zithromax become aware of the times you might be attempting to put new wine into old wineskins, of seeking to apply principles of unity while inadvertently holding the old belief in separation.
The late Rev. Eric Butterworth suggested that we think of our relationship to God as a wave on the ocean. The wave is distinct in its individuality, but it is still one with the ocean. We do not earn the relationship of oneness with God; oneness is our true estate, our spiritual inheritance by birth. Bringing this awareness into all that we do is an important key to spiritual empowerment and guidance in every aspect of our life.
John, theology has always been an enterprise seeking to make sense out of a rather whimsical biblical narrative. The silence of the Bible is often deafening when it comes to connecting the dots, thus leaving room for theologians, teachers and preachers to pick up their threaded needles and attempt to close the holes. This was the charm of sermon preparation and the open pulpit.
I think the ancient story tellers (in so far as we can gather their thoughts) sensed separation as an inbuilt part of human nature, but separation would have little meaning were it not preceded by some prior union or unity. This is the divine unity of the created order and the breath that breathes us is the spirit that unites us.
There is a depth to the human experience that can only be plumbed in silence. It is only there that we breathe the breath and encounter the inner movement of the divine.
I especially like your concept that the human experience of unity gives meaning, and perspective to the experience of separation. I submit that the dimly perceived unity with God is re-experienced in silence (Ps 46:10).
In the acts of the martyrs, we read the following dialogue between the Roman prefect Rusticus and sale levitra ca a Christian named Hierax: “‘Where are your parents?’, the judge asked the martyr. He replied: ‘Our true father is Christ, and our mother is faith in him’”.5 For those early Christians, faith, as an encounter with the living God revealed in Christ, was indeed a “mother”, for it had brought them to the light and given birth within them to divine life, a new experience and a luminous vision of existence for which they were prepared to bear public witness to the end.
Christ is also our father, and faith is our mother. Those of us in the Christian tradition cherish this idea.
The Adam and Eve story is often deconstructed by Westerners, but seldom re-constructed. The Jewish editors told it for a good reason. Separation, the perception of it, is the default position of human nature which it constantly returns to.
Emma Curtis Hopkins admitted as much. She wrote of omnipresence — the very word itself as acknowledging separation. “Ni’ comes from nihil the Latin word for nothing, absence, emptiness, hence separateness.
Mr. Fillmore, as a Christian man, admitted man had fallen from his experience of oneness, pointing to Jesus Christ and his restoring work for humanity, his mission in life, as the defining moment.
My final thought is that modern Unity, in becoming a school of non-Christianity, has no sacred text, no authoritative voice to speak to this culture.
Jesus Christ’s words are our text. The study and practice of them is our way out of the experience of separation, Doug. I remember Gandhi saying, “Jesus does not just belong to you Christians. He belongs to all of us”. And so it is.
Thank you, John. It is unfortunate that the words of Jesus have been transmitted to us only through the perceptions of others. Wouldn’t it be a wonderful gift to us all if someone stumbled across an authentic Gospel According to Jesus? Only then could we truly know who he was and what he taught. Until then, our current Gospels, the letters of Paul, and the interpretations of people like Charles Fillmore will continue to stimulate our thinking.
Yes, Doug, I would like to have had Jesus write something. But we have what we have. Even so, we have much that the mere academic critic lacks. As T.S. Eliot said of the thinking of such a shadowy small-souled man, that his life finally becomes “the burnt out end of smoky days.” Instead Jesus does not leave us as wasted postmodernists. Jesus affirms that “many will come from the East (people of those lands) and the West (people of those lands) and banquet together in the kingdom of God.” How wonderful!