A few days ago the LightPath Center in Bend, Oregon posted a presentation I did for them on how we can respond to what's going on today in a way that leads to thriving, not merely surviving...

Continuing to explore the ideas in my last post, I had the realization that when the Unity of Spirit is thought of as the 3 aspects of the trinity, which are usually illustrated as 3 overlapping circles, there are actually 7 segments...

Recognizing that a 2-dimensional image doesn't even begin to portray the reality, it nonetheless begins to provide a framework for the experience and teachings of spiritually adept beings over the millennia - and hopefully gives us a way to make sense of the many terms and concepts that are floating around in different religions.
[NOTE: This and any other image on my site may be downloaded by right-clicking and copying. If you share it with others, please let them know where it came from. Thanks!]

Thoughts on Good Friday during the Corona Virus shutdown...
​
There is only one beingness, showing up in its own nature in, through, and as all that is, everywhere. That beingness, is-ness, essence, extends itself infinitely in all directions and as it does so, aspects of its fundamental nature cause some of what is being extended to be attracted to each other. In our universe Fermions (named after Enrico Fermi, the first person to split an atom) are the aspect of the one that tend to extend outward, and Bosons (named after Chandra Bose, the person who, along with Albert Einstein, discovered that some compounds cannot by taken apart) the aspects that tend to coalesce.
Complexity
As the fundamental beingness continues to extend, the tendency to coalesce shows up as nodes within it, and as they attract more Bosons and increase their patterns of attraction and extension in complexity, they reinforce the experience and expression of the nature of the beingness.
So, for example, the elements of our universe exhibit more and more tendency to extend themselves as they are more and more complex. Hydrogen, the simplest, is constantly attracting and coalescing with other atoms to maintain itself. The more complex elements, uranium and “heavy metals,” constantly radiate aspects of themselves outward. The galaxies, stars, and planets made up of these elements can be seen to extend these qualities still further
The compound chemicals these elements form in the galactic clouds and planets exhibit the same pattern. Simple sugars bind together; complex proteins constantly form and reform, working with other proteins to make still more complex molecules.
The simple life forms, like protozoa and bacteria, consume to form colonies and grow until they can consume no more and it’s impossible to get to the resources needed to maintain the cells within the colony. The fundamental beingness of all-that-is attracts and coalesces within them, but the pattern of interaction between coalescing and extension is too simple to do more. It’s more complex in multi-celled life forms, which are typically more mobile, and the shift from reproducing oneself to merging with another to reproduce makes the pattern even more complex.
Which then leads to the ever-increasing complexity observed in the evolution of life forms.  As each minute set of interactions occurs, attracting and extending at the molecular and cellular levels, layer upon layer of complexity can be seen to develop. The human brain, with its ganglionic bundle, on which is built a reptilian base, then a mammalian function, then a primate’s capacity to choose, and finally the integrative function connecting all of them with and in mutual support with one another, is a prime example of this process.
And with each layer of complexity comes an increased activity of the fundamental beingness, an increased capacity to choose to function in the same way.
Infinite Creation
So the question becomes: what is the functioning of the fundamental beingness, besides to extend itself and coalesce aspects of its extension? At the simplest level it is to continue to extend and coalesce in increasingly complex patterns. However, there is the fact of self-maintenance to consider. The beingness must maintain itself to continue to extend itself, which means there is a primal urge to benefit all aspects of being, to maintain the well-being of all within the whole.
So we are part of a creative process of extension and attraction, constantly working for the benefit of all the parts within the whole – all of which are continually creating through the same extension and attraction.
And since the whole process is extending out infinitely, it must therefore include infinite possibilities of nodes and structures. And each choice point, each time something coalesces or not, leads to another set of possibilities – and other universes.
In our universe, these possibilities have occurred within the framework of Fermions, Bosons, the elements they form, and the chemical compounds they form, leading to the various forms of life that have evolved over the millennia.
In other universes, though, this fundamental beingness may not be extending as the matter and energy that we see here. Fermions and Bosons may have their parallel in other forms besides matter and energy, so beingness may be extending as aspects of information, or patterns of connectivity, without the material base we’re used to. Or it may be extending as something we can’t even imagine.
A Second Universe
In fact, there are some universes that certain people have explored mentally where the tendency to extend and the tendency to attract seem to be exhibited as more like thought forms than the matter-energy forms of our universe. And across traditions and generations, around the world, thousands of people have described a realm in which people like us exist but without material form. Some call it the Astral plane; others say the “underworld” or the “overworld,” “dreamtime,” or simply another dimension of existence.  

I'm leading a new group through the 12 lessons of Emma Curtis Hopkins, using the workbook edition of my book, Unveiling Your Hidden Power; Emma Curtis Hopkins' Metaphysics for the 21st Century.  
Several people have asked to have the classes recorded and someone offered to do so. The plan is to upload each of the recordings on Youtube. 

CLICK HERE for audio versions of me reading highlights of the lessons, with commentary and explanations.

I recently had an opportunity to go back into a book I had created some years ago - a book with a title I've never liked, but whose message is a powerful one for all of us.
 
The original text was by a man with the unfortunate name of Wallace Wattles. His book launched a whole body of material that has been called "the masculine arm of New Thought": books and lectures on how to create a prosperous life. It was also the book referred to in the film The Secret, as having turned Rhonda Byrne's life around at a particularly dark time.

I've understood and applied the principles he teaches for many years now, but it wasn't until I read (and rewrote) his first few paragraphs that I really got the fundamental basis he was working from
.
Here's what Wattles has to say:

• No one is kept in poverty by limits in the supply of riches; there’s more than enough for all. …In truth, the visible supply is practically inexhaustible, and the invisible supply really is inexhaustible…
• Nature is an unlimited storehouse of riches; the supply will never run short… 
• The formless substance responds to the needs of mankind; it will not let humanity be without any good thing… 
• Nature exists for the advancement of life, and its primary impulse is the increase of life. Because of this, everything that can possibly enhance life is bountifully provided.

The book he wrote is called The Science of Getting Rich. The book I created (at the request of and with the wonderful folk at Beyond Words Publishing) includes his text along with an updated version, with simpler language and exercises. 

Life is truly becoming more heavenly, every day. Yay! And if we are to sustain the experience we need to find easy and enjoyable ways to continue to let go of old beliefs and assumptions – and the consequences we may be experiencing from having lived with them so long.

In Lessons in Truth Emilie Cady says,

“little vexations and fears come up in your life... Calmly and coolly say within yourself, ‘That’s nothing at all. It cannot harm or disturb me or make me unhappy.’"

Later she says,

“No person or thing in the universe, no chain of circumstances can, by any possibility, interpose itself between you and all joy, all good. You may falsely think that something stands between you and your heart's desire, and so go through life here with that desire unfulfilled; but it is not true.”

In How I Used Truth she tells a story about her ankle swelling and stopping her work (we've illustrated it in my Paths of Power biography of her life, The Power of Practice):

“Ordinary affirmations of Truth were entirely ineffectual, and I soon struck out for the very highest statement of Truth that I could formulate. It was this: "There is only God; all else is a lie." I vehemently affirmed it and steadfastly stuck to it. In twenty-four hours all pain and swelling – in fact, the entire "lie" disappeared.”

She gives guidance on how to enter into that “intersphering” state with the Christ – to FEEL the Christ within “that doeth the work”:

If, then, you are manifesting sickness, you are to ignore the seeming--which is the external, or circumference of the pool where the water is stagnant and the scum has arisen--and, speaking from the center of your being, say: "This body is the temple of the living God; the Lord is now in his holy temple; Christ in me is my life, Christ is my health, Christ is my strength, and Christ is perfect; therefore, I am now perfect because He dwelleth in me as perfect life, health, strength." Say the words with all earnestness, trying to realize what you are saying, and almost immediately the perennial Fountain of Life at the center of your being will begin to bubble up and continue with rapidly increasing activity, until new life will radiate through pain, sickness, sores, all diseases, to the surface, and your body will show forth the perfect life of Christ.

 …in thus looking to Him for health, when by an act of your will you stop looking to any material source (and this is not always easy to do), and declare the Christ in you to be the only life of the body, and it always perfect life, it needs but that you hold steadfastly, without wavering, to the thought, in order to become well.

She does the same with supply:

“Christ is my abundant supply (not supplier). He is here within me now, and greatly desires to manifest Himself as my supply. His desires are fulfilled now." Do not let your thoughts run off into how He is going to do it, but just hold steadily to the thought of the supply here and now, taking your eyes off all other sources, and He will surely honor your faith by manifesting Himself as your supply, a hundredfold more abundantly than you have asked or thought.

She quotes an epistle attributed to James, saying there can be no wavering if we are to see results…

Cady was a Christian living in a predominantly Christian culture. Not all of us are, so this language may be hard to accept.

It may help if we understand that she used the term “Christ” to describe, not a man who walked on the planet, but a state of being that is totally and continually at-one-with the divine Source of All That Is. It’s the Spirit of us – not intellect, body, or soul, for those are shaped by material experience – but that aspect of each of us that has never forgotten its Source and Supply. Jesus the Nazarene called it “Abba” or “Abwoon”, usually translated as “Father,” and his declaration of unity is usually translated as “I and the Father are One.”

So we can use the word Spirit instead of Christ. Or, if we want to acknowledge the feminine as well as the masculine attributes of the Source, we can say “Mother-Father within”. In the Hebrew tradition, we might say Adonai or Elohim. If we’re more comfortable with the teachings of the blessed prophet Mohammed, we can use the Arabic name of the One: Allah. Or, if we honor the Bhagavad Gita as a source of spiritual teaching, we can, as Lord Krishna suggests, focus entirely on Him and feel His Presence fill our being.  If Buddhist, we would acknowledge that the Atman of our individuality is part of, and one with Brahman, the ground-of-all-being.

The words do not matter, but the feeling does. We need to know at a feeling level, that there is no separation from our Source and the Good that is constantly surrounding us, being offered to us, expressing as us.

Then we can allow the Power to manifest and, as Cady says

…almost immediately the perennial Fountain of Life at the center of your being will begin to bubble up and continue with rapidly increasing activity, until new life will radiate through pain, sickness, sores, all diseases, to the surface, and your body will show forth the perfect life…

Blessed be!