Transcription
Two plus three equals five. What is with Ro thinking about making the principles that much more complicated? No, actually, it's, it's, it's a trick of mine. And as many of you know, I've had the pleasure and honor of teaching the Path class over the past couple of years, following Mary Boleyn. And we really focused quite a bit on just teaching people that are new to Unity our five guiding principles. And so I was, I'm a member of the strategy team and we've, as you well know, we had a survey a while back. And part of that survey came back and said, you know, we want to hear more about our fundamental teachings here at Unity. So here I am. So here I am. Here I am. That was kind of anemic. And I am gonna take my coat off this time. It's because I need to. No, no, none of that, none of that. Why two plus three equals five? I'm gonna give you the short version of our principles. The first two, to me, from my point of view, go together. God is love. I am love. As Ellen so eloquently put in our opening, in the greeting, God is love. I am love. I'll come back to those. The last three, prayer and action, are how we choose to put those first two into this world. They are practices. They are practices for each and every one of us, regardless of how we show up. So two plus three, did I get there? Two plus three? Yes. Yes. Two plus three. I'm, yes. Okay.
Let's talk about principles. Why do we use the term principles and not rules? They're, they're very different, especially in the way I'm going to use them today. Many of us have come from another theological philosophy. And, and for me, I loved my original church. I've been through several, and I left. I left on my own. That's my version. But it was kind of heavy on rules. And in, in, in church theology, in church practice, we call that dogma. You know, where you, "thou shalt," "thou shalt not." And it's fine. One thing to here at Unity, we do practices. And we talk and we teach from, regardless of where you came from, all paths, all paths are valid, valid. But there is one truth to all those paths. And regardless of how we got here, that one truth stands. But back to whatever I was saying before, principle. Principle applies regardless of whether we're aware of it or we're not. Principle applies to every single one of us, whether we're aware of it or not. Let me give you a kind of a worldly example. The principle of aerodynamics. So let's think about aerodynamics for just a second. Aerodynamics is a law, a principle, a scientific fact that existed forever in this three-dimensional world that we live in, right? It, birds could always fly. It wasn't a time when birds couldn't fly. Well, maybe, but I don't know. I think birds always knew how to fly. Man did not know how to fly, but they could watch birds. So the, the principle of aerodynamics was always there, right? It was always there. But it was just in the last hundred years or so that man learned how to master that principle. You get it? The principle was always at work. We just learned how to put it to our use. So when I talk about principle, our five principles, I'm talking about something that has always existed, that doesn't change. The law doesn't change. And it's best if we learn how to use the principle for our good. Okay? Okay. Got it. Good.
Principle one. And by the way, if you were paying attention to the affirmations, those are the five principles, set another way. God is all, and God is love. God is good. Principle one: God is all there is, everywhere present, also known as omnipresent, omniscient, and absolute good. Now, how does this differ? It's always good to draw contrast. How does this differ, maybe, from from what we grew up believing? If you really look at the Abrahamic faiths, Judaism, Islam, Christianity, this, this God that appears in the Bible does not always appear to be absolute good. You know, it's, he, he punishes, he intervenes. And by the way, it's a he, almost always. And when we look at the Bible, in Unity, we look at the Bible as a wonderful sacred text of teaching, but it teaches, teaches lessons beyond the words, beyond the stories that are actually there. We interpret. We freely interpret and draw meaning from the Bible beyond what's written. That's called metaphysical Bible interpretation, and that's a whole other discussion. But we interpret the Bible so that God was trying at that time, the people who were using it, that wrote the Bible and were teaching from it, we're teaching that they couldn't understand what was going on in their lives. So they used God as a way to say, you know, "God comes in and he punishes us," or "he blesses us," whatever. In Unity, we say, God is good. God is good. That's all there is. God is all. God is good. Amen. Amen. Amen. And we can debate that, I'm sure. But for us, that's what we teach from. And by the way, while I'm on that phrase, I like to remind our Truth students, whether they're new or whether they've been a while, that I like to think of what we talk from this, this platform, or what I'm talking this morning, it is what we teach from, not what we believe. What's believed is really up to each and every one of you. We don't require that you have to say yes to come through the door or say no to this, but we will teach from these understandings, these principles.
So let's move to principle two. God is good. God is all. I am created in that image and likeness of God. Principle two: Human beings are created in the image of God, and our very essence is divine. Therefore, we are inherently good. We are inherently good. Yes. Thank you. I'll draw one example that's fundamental to another contrast that I'll draw as to how we view ourselves. Again, in many traditional theologies, you'll hear that we were born into sin, we were born imperfect, and we need to be, we need to find salvation from something out here. We come at that from a completely opposite way. We were born perfect. And the only time we sin, and by the way, sin is an archery term, which means "I missed the mark." The only time we sin is when we forget. When we forget our divinity. That's. And guess what? We can, we can change our minds, right? We can change our minds about that. We are born perfect. Jesus the Christ, our way sure. By the way, Christ was not his last name, neither was his middle initial. Jesus the Christ. And by the way, we only know about his last three years for the most part when we start reading the Christian scriptures about Jesus the Christ. He had already achieved his divinity. He was aligned with the power of the divine. He taught from that perspective. He taught many times and said many times, even according to the scriptures in the traditional Bible, "Whatever I can do, so can you." And even better, he would say, "Even better." Think of that. This is Jesus the Christ saying, "Hey, if I can do it, so can you." That's that divinity within us. The divinity within us. He was recognizing that he was telling us, if only we could remember as well, right? For ourselves and for one another. For ourselves and for one another. So those two, we've been through two. Now we're forty percent of the way there. Those two are fundamental. I mean, we will teach from that understanding. God is good. I'm created in the image and likeness of God. I am good. I am inherently good as well. Got it? Okay.
The last three. The last three are practice. Unity was first known as practical Christianity, and that's what the last three are. Okay. You buy into these first two, you kind of understand that it's, it's a little bit of a twist on what many of us grew up with. But the last three are practice. Number three: We create our life experiences through our thoughts and feelings. We have somewhere between twelve and seventy thousand thoughts a day, depending upon who you listen to. It's a lot. One every, I don't know, twenty a minute or something. That's crazy. And ninety percent of those, they say, are negative. When I say, "You got to listen to your thoughts," you can't listen to fifty thousand a day. It's impossible. But notice that this is all about noticing how I frame in my life what's happening. I can frame it from a negative point of view, or I can frame it from, "There's got to be, if it's not, if it doesn't appear good, there must be good in this. There must be good in this." And I will look for the gift. So it's a, it's a positive view versus a not-so-positive view. There's an old story about, I think it's not in the Bible, but let's pretend that might be. It's, it's about an old man on the road to somewhere, and a couple walks up to him and said, and says, "Hey, we're looking, we're going to the village over there, the next village. How do you know anything about it?" And the old man says, "Well, yes, I live there." "Well, how do you find the people there?" say the couple. And the old man says, "Well, how do you find the people from the village you come from?" And the couple responds, "Wow, they're kind of, yeah, they're not good people. There's a lot of problems. They're not, they're not godly," yada, yada, yada. And the old man says, "I'm afraid the town you're moving to will have the same problem. Their people are the same." Two minutes later, another couple walks up, same story. "How do you find the people where you're coming from?" "Hey, they're wonderful. They're enlightened. We have good friends. We have a good time." And the old man says, "Then that, those are the people you will find in the new village you're going to." It's all a matter of how you frame your world. It's all a matter of how you frame the world. It's not that bad things in appearance don't happen. They do. What I can choose, and here's the practice, what I can choose in the moment when something comes to me that I'm not quite expecting, I can always choose how I respond. I can respond in sorrow or guilt or anger or fear, or I can respond in love. That love that is God. It's my choice. It's my choice. And what we teach from is, work on choosing that which benefits you. That's principle three.
Principle four. Don't, don't. Prayer. Prayer and meditation. In fact, our lives can be changed and transformed through the power of prayer and meditation, as often as possible, as often as possible. In the first service, and I'll use it again because it appeared to work, we, the image of the cross, right? It's one we're carrying. Traditional Christian theology, the crucifixion. My choice is looking at the cross fundamentally differently. In the vertical, when I stand and vertical, this is me, and this is you, connected from where I am to the divine, to the divine, always connected. And this is me connected to each of you. It's not my magic, it is true. So I invite you in. I had somebody come up after the first, the second service and say, "You know, I, I never thought of that. I'm gonna start wearing my cross again." Of course, of course. Divine. And each of us, we are all the same. We are all the same. And I could go on and on about prayer and meditation, but I've got to move on.
Number five. These first four that we've gone through, they're great. They're wonderful. But if I don't practice those and then move them from thought into manifestation, into action in my world, what's the point? So number five: Knowing and understanding these principles is not enough. We must live the truth that we know. Show up. Shine your light. Shine our lights. We are all lights, even if we don't quite believe it. We are always, we all have a gift. We all have a story. And it is each and every one of us have value in this world. There's a lot about action, but it's showing up, being in service, and of service to ourselves and to one another. Just show up with your Christ consciousness, your own divinity, and make the world just a little better. Just a little better, one act of kindness at a time. Choose. Choose to act. And I'm going to give you the chance to do that right now. Right now. Right now. The word that I almost never can pronounce correctly: Koinonia. Koinonia is an original Greek word. Means church. It means fellowship. It means being together. We are in fellowship. We are connected through this teaching. We choose to be here through this teaching. So what I would like to ask for the first, last five minutes of my talk, which I won't talk at all, will be, I'd like you to stand, and I would like you to greet, to go meet somebody that you don't know, or share a story with somebody about maybe something I said, maybe something you learned. But share with one another for five minutes, or about five minutes. Meet somebody new. And those of you on Facebook Live, just sit and think about somebody that maybe you're not with right now that you would like to be with, and just think about them in meditation, in reflection. But for all of us right here, please stand. I'm not joking. I'm not joking. Five minutes. And I'll bring the tinkas when we're done. Just go meet somebody. Last class, class, class.
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Class. It's like lighting a candle, isn't it? You know, just, it just burns and burns and burns. Well, thank you so much. There's something magical about just talking with one another, sharing stories. So I encourage you to not let it end today. Do this on a regular basis with one another. Somebody that you don't know or don't know well, allow yourself to be open and vulnerable and authentic with them. It's a powerful, powerful ministry. Now is the time in our service where we get a chance to offer our blessings, offer our gratitude for this spiritual home. So as our ushers are coming forward, and hopefully you are preparing your gift, let's say together our blessing offering. Thank you for joining us today. If you liked the message, we invite you to like it or share it. And we also want to let you know that we're on Instagram, Twitter, and we'll see you again next Sunday on Facebook at 11:25. We're at a New Thought Church where lives are transformed, and we welcome you to check us out. Check out our website, unityhills.org. I'll see you next week. Namaste.