Tag Archives: affirmative prayer

It’s the Law! Spiritually Speaking, That Is

I am recently coming into a deeper fascination with the spiritual law of cause and effect, and the absoluteness of it in producing a result. Ernest Holmes, founder of the Science of Mind philosophy, said, “Our belief sets the limit to our demonstration of a Principle which, of Itself, is without limit…As much as we can believe will be done unto us. When the consciousness speaks, the law receives and executes.”

This to me is really the beauty of the Science of Mind teaching – its emphasis and clarity on the absoluteness of spiritual law. The Law will always produce something of like kind to what is in our consciousness.

What we set in motion with our consciousness, through belief and our speaking it forth, is a cause, not an effect. I think this is why we can sometimes get frustrated and think we are less powerful than we are. The cause we set in motion always produces something like itself, although it may not always look like the effect, or outer manifestation, that we thought it would.

Nonetheless, our word is powerful, and our word is especially powerful when backed with strong belief, conviction, and trust in the Law. That this is true is less subject to debate than it is to experimentation. Why debate it? Try it out and see if it’s true. See if what you constantly dwell on or what you open yourself to and claim for yourself with feeling and trust begins to manifest in your life in some form. In trying this in earnest, we quickly see that it does.

Ernest Holmes also said, “trained thought is far more powerful that untrained.” When we understand that spiritual law is at work and we begin to practice our cooperation with this law, we begin to train our thought. We begin to only think on those things we want to create in our experience.

I recently found that I had allowed my thought to be a bit out of training, sort of like going through the motions at the gym rather than really working out. To digress for a moment, I remember a man at a gym I belonged to who used to show up at the gym, get a towel (presumably to wipe off sweat), and then walk around the gym talking to people while carrying his towel, never touching any piece of equipment or doing anything strenuous. Clearly, over time his body began to reflect this behavior.

In training our thought to make use of spiritual law, it is also important to continue with the training and not just carry our spiritual towel around. For me, this has first meant remembering how powerful and unlimited our use of spiritual law is, and then getting refocused and reinvigorated in my use of it. It includes what some have referred to as “going to God for everything.” Put another way, it is speaking my word powerfully in all situations, rather than meekly muttering something like, “it’s all good.” It is all good and calling forth the good involves continuing to train our thought in the direction of our desired good.

The invitation this week is to speak your word powerfully and specifically around some area of current challenge. Call forth what you want to experience, let your thoughts be in the direction of having what you want, fully accept it, and trust that the Law is operating upon your word to make it manifest. Then report back on our Facebook group page about the demonstration or manifestation. Make it count – this is not a dress rehearsal!

Enjoy the journey.

The Power of Prayer

photo for website 2

In honor of National Prayer Day, which is this week on Thursday in the United States, I am dedicating this blog to the power of prayer.

Recently I have reflected on the role of prayer in the Science of Mind philosophy, the basis of my ordination as a minister. The Science of Mind teaches a particular form of affirmative prayer called Spiritual Mind Treatment, whereby we align with what we are accepting into our lives by clearing from our minds anything unlike what we want, and by aligning our minds with the spiritual qualities and principles that align us with what we are choosing to experience.

Prayer is the central practice in Science of Mind, and the philosophy’s real gift to the world. Those who practice Science of Mind have deep conviction around the efficacy of prayer. In my recent reflections I have come to appreciate just how much we go to prayer in our teaching and how much we are empowered by the practice. In affirmative prayer, we are not hoping for a result, but rather we are knowing a result based on the very nature of the spiritual universe whereby life conforms to what we can establish a mental likeness for in our interior.

This is not to say that we control all the conditions and outcomes of our lives. What it does say is that something happens whenever we realign our thinking, our intentions, and what it is we are willing to welcome into our lives. There is still mystery – in particular there is mystery in the how. What we do know is that prayer shifts us and it shifts our experience.

Excerpt from my blog post of September 15, 2015 (How to Manifest Anything)
The beauty of affirmative prayer is that we learn the power of our words in prayer, and, even more so, the power of our words spoken with conviction and with a deep felt sense. We learn that there is a universal subjectivity that is always receiving our thought stream whether we are consciously praying or not. Who would have thought that Aunt Mabel was so right when she implored us to be mindful of what we say?

It turns out that our words are very powerful; creative, in fact. We are co-creators of our lives with universal spirit. How we look at life and talk about it, and what we believe about ourselves and life is utterly important in determining the overall content of our experiences in life. Those thoughts and beliefs that have strong feelings associated with them are the ones that have the most power to manifest in form in our lives as something that directly corresponds to the thoughts and beliefs.

The discovery that our thoughts, beliefs, and words have power is what led to the development of affirmative prayer. After all, if our words have power, then it behooves us to harness them for something good, rather than just allow our unconscious thought streams to create our experience.

Here’s how to consciously use your thoughts, words, and consciousness with affirmative prayer:

Step 1 (Recognition): Recognize that there is one power and intelligence that moves and creates everything. That one impulse is animated and expressed as love in action.

Step 2 (Unification): Know that you are one with the one power and intelligence. Allow yourself to feel the significance of the truth that infinite power and intelligence reside within you, that the love within you aligns you with divine creative intelligence.

Step 3 (Realization/Declaration): Speak your word affirmatively and in the present tense, accepting and claiming that which you want as an already accomplished fact in your life.

Step 4 (Thanksgiving): Give thanks for the one creative power that is operating in your life. Give thanks for your awareness. Give thanks for the manifestation of what you have declared in step 3.

Step 5 (Release): Release your words of prayer to the universal subjective creative medium that receives the words you have impressed upon it and makes them manifest.

 

Don’t forget to go to our Facebook group page and either post a prayer or speak one of the ones there to add your voice in prayer for our world. It makes a difference!

Becoming Caterpillar Soup

monarch butterfly on flower

Ferris Jabr writes in Scientific American, “If you were to cut open a cocoon or chrysalis at just the right time, caterpillar soup would ooze out.” That is because, in order to become a butterfly, the caterpillar must first become completely liquid to reorganize itself to become a butterfly. Apparently, everything needed to create a butterfly is already in the caterpillar. In the soup that is the dissolved caterpillar, the ‘imaginal discs’ that contain the information about each butterfly body part become activated.

Fortunately, as human beings we do not have to completely dissolve our physical bodies in order to transform. However, we do need to become like caterpillar soup in the act of surrender to something greater. It is in this process of letting go of what we previously thought of as solid and permanent that we open the way for newness to emerge.

Similar to the caterpillar, everything we need is already within us, but we must dissolve the old mental structures to create the environment for transformation to occur.

One thing we can learn from the caterpillar is to let the body experience fluidity, to feel ourselves letting go by relaxing and opening the body, perhaps by practicing yoga or other mindful movement. If we truly have let go and are surrendered, we will feel it in the body. As a former yoga teacher of mine used to instruct – “loosen your jaw.” Yes, when we are holding on mentally, it also shows up as tightness in the body or shallowness in the breath. The same yoga teacher once asked me if I thought someone was going to punch me in the stomach because I was holding so tightly in the abdomen area.

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in 2007 published the following about prayer: “We are creatures of body as well as spirit, so our prayer is not confined to our minds and hearts. It is expressed by our bodies as well. When our bodies are engaged in our prayer, we pray with our whole person.”

Somehow we must become liquid in order to create the greatest opening for transformation. This is with our mentalities and our physical bodies together, as each are reflections of the other.

To go along with creating opening and space in the physical body, here are seven mental conditions that create the fluidity conducive to transformation:

  1. I am willing to let go of limiting beliefs and behaviors.
  2. I am willing to be wrong (in some cases, very wrong) about what I have previously believed.
  3. I am open to new ideas and ways of thinking.
  4. I am open to considering new ways of doing things.
  5. I am willing to be uncomfortable if that means I am transforming into something greater.
  6. I am willing to look silly (in some cases, really silly).
  7. I am willing to spread my wings and soar to new heights.

As you read these mental conditions, watch your body’s reactions. Do you feel any resistance when you read any one of them, or all of them? Do you feel excited? Does your body expand or contract? What you’re feeling provides feedback as to how fully you are currently embracing these mental conditions so that you know where you might want to adjust and dissolve a little.

The invitation today is to become the fluid, surrendered vessel through which great good can flow into your life and into the world.

Enjoy the journey.

How to Manifest Anything

Do the ideas around manifesting talked about in New Thought spiritual circles ever feel “woo woo” to you? They certainly did for me at one time. I remember meeting a woman named Lena when I first came into a New Thought community some 21 years ago. Lena spoke with absolute conviction about her prayers, so much so that at first I thought she was arrogant. “How could she be so sure?” I thought.

The beauty of affirmative prayer is that we learn the power of our words in prayer, and, even more so, the power of our words spoken with conviction and with a deep felt sense. We learn that there is a universal subjectivity that is always receiving our thought stream whether we are consciously praying or not. Who would have thought that Aunt Mabel was so right when she implored us to be mindful of what we say?

It turns out that our words are very powerful; creative, in fact. We are co-creators of our lives with universal spirit. How we look at life and talk about it, and what we believe about ourselves and life is utterly important in determining the overall content of our experiences in life. Those thoughts and beliefs that have strong feelings associated with them are the ones that have the most power to manifest in form in our lives as something that directly corresponds to the thoughts and beliefs.

The discovery that our thoughts, beliefs, and words have power is what led to the development of affirmative prayer. After all, if our words have power, then it behooves us to harness them for something good, rather than just allow our unconscious thought streams to create our experience.

Here’s how to consciously use your thoughts, words, and consciousness with affirmative prayer:

Step 1 (Recognition): Recognize that there is one power and intelligence that moves and creates everything. That one impulse is animated and expressed as love in action.

Step 2 (Unification): Know that you are one with the one power and intelligence. Allow yourself to feel the significance of the truth that infinite power and intelligence reside within you, that the love within you aligns you with divine creative intelligence.

Step 3 (Realization/Declaration): Speak your word affirmatively and in the present tense, accepting and claiming that which you want as an already accomplished fact in your life.

Step 4 (Thanksgiving): Give thanks for the one creative power that is operating in your life. Give thanks for your awareness. Give thanks for the manifestation of what you have declared in step 3.

Step 5 (Release): Release your words of prayer to the universal subjective creative medium that receives the words you have impressed upon it and makes them manifest.

The steps above are from the Science of Mind philosophy of Ernest Holmes and are the basic structure of Spiritual Mind Treatment, the type of affirmative prayer taught by Holmes.

Affirmative Prayer Example

I close by offering you a sample prayer that you can repeat to yourself. This is a prayer for prosperity. Speak it with feeling and conviction.

I recognize that there is only one power with no opposite. This one power moves with infinite intelligence. It is love in action. It is the creative intelligence that created the entire universe and all that is.

I am one with this infinite power, intelligence, and love. My very life and being is an expression of the one divine life that moves through and as all that is.

In the consciousness of oneness, I speak my word. I declare and know that there is no lack or scarcity in the infinite divine life, and that this is also my truth. I am one with the source of all abundance and prosperity and I now accept abundance in my finances and in all areas of my life. I am prospered in all that I do. Divine perfect action takes place through me and all around me. I am in the flow of life. I have money to meet my needs, to share, and to spare.

I am so grateful for this truth, for my awareness, and for all of the abundance I am experiencing in my life.

In gratitude, I release my words to the universal subjective medium of life, knowing it is done as I have declared. I let it be. All is well. And so it is. Amen.


Enjoy the journey.

Prayer without Ceasing

It is interesting how, even as a minister, I can sometimes forget the power of prayer. Of course, I am praying all the time. But then there will be that one nagging situation that I’ll just keep dealing with at the material level, somehow forgetting that prayer would be helpful there too.

The title for this blog comes from the Christian Bible in first Thessalonians: “Pray without ceasing.”

In Tibetan Buddhism, there are prayer wheels with the mantra “Om Mani Padme Hum” inscribed on them so that one can continuously turn the wheel and repeat the prayer, said to be the most important mantra in Buddhism. It is thought to contain the essence of the entire Buddhist teaching. Its literal translation is “Praise to the Jewel in the Lotus,” and it is about purification in all aspects of our being.

In the Bhakti yoga tradition, devotional prayers or mantras are sung in groups, repeating the same lines over and over, sometimes using mala beads to count to the sacred number 108, repeating the prayer that many times.

Jesus, when asked, “How often should I forgive?” responded “up to 70 times 7.”

In so many religious and spiritual traditions, we find the practice of repetition when it comes to prayer. Surely, this is not because God “out there” needs to hear our prayers many times before answering them. Rather, it is because we in human form need to practice aligning our own consciousness with a greater spiritual truth. Often we have deep-seated unconscious beliefs and alignments from past conditioning and these can be transmuted with continuous, or repetition of, prayer.

I liken our subconscious, habitual thought patterns to a floating board in a swimming pool that just keeps returning to the surface once we stop applying conscious attention. Often, awareness of a limiting thought pattern is only the first step. Old thought patterns can be so insidious that we need to continue applying new wisdom until we clearly establish a fresh thought pattern.

This was certainly true for me when I began to learn the spiritual principles of prosperity. At first, I had grasped the principle of God as my unlimited source only intellectually and consciously. I had previously believed in ‘prosperity through struggle’ for so long that, whenever I discontinued my conscious prayer practice around prosperity, I would find my thought patterns contracting back to the belief in struggle.

The invitation today is to remember the value of prayer; not the kind where we beg ‘God out there’ for something, but affirmative prayer, where we open ourselves to accept something greater in our lives.

Where could you apply prayer in your life today? You might take a moment and open to a new possibility. Perhaps you could say to yourself, “I am open to this situation being resolved. I now accept peace and prosperity” (or whatever applies in your situation). Then claim something greater for yourself by declaring it specifically, such as “I now have peace in my relationship” or “I am supported in being successful in my business.”

When we state such affirmations, which can also be included in an affirmative prayer, we begin to open to grace. We align our thoughts with a belief that life is meant to be good for us. In truth, there is really nothing in a spiritual sense that is working against us, and everything that is working for us. Even if we don’t currently believe this, just opening to the possibility is helpful. Try it, and begin to see the power of your words and thoughts to align you with a greater experience in life.

Enjoy the journey.

Next week: A Primer on Affirmative Prayer