From New Dawn 197 (Mar-Apr 2023)
“What you think upon grows. Whatever you allow to occupy your mind you magnify in your life. Whether the subject of your thought be good or bad, the law works and the condition grows. Any subject that you keep out of your mind tends to diminish in your life, because what you do not use atrophies. The more you think of grievances, the more such trials you will continue to receive; the more you think of the good fortune you have had, the more good fortune will come to you.”
– Emmet Fox
“Life is a mirror and will reflect back to the thinker what he thinks into it.”
– Ernest Holmes
Using New Thought principles to change the self can change the greater collective. As we have been told, we must be the peace, the change, and the love we seek in the world because, as the teachers of New Thought understood, it begins within the individual first.
In a world that wants us to think we have no individual freedom or power and thus no influence to create a different and better collective, it is imperative that we shift the “locus of focus” from the things we do not want to those we do.
Knowing we are part of the divine, of God, we come to understand that all the things which hold us in fear – inflation, crime, racism, natural disasters, climate change, political strife, corruption, viruses – are all external to us and have no real sovereignty over us. Our truth is our connection to the invisible substance and infinite Source. It is not the government or Bill Gates or a vaccine made by Pfizer. We are free in our minds and thoughts, and when we learn to direct our minds through focused thought, we create our reality and destiny.
Going Within
Everything begins as a thought. Everything. There is no war, circumstance, financial collapse, job loss, or hateful social media post that did not begin as a thought in an individual or in the collective hive mind. This applies to the good in life, too. It starts with our thoughts about who we are, what we want, and what we hope to achieve and experience.
The first step is to turn within for wisdom, knowledge, guidance and understanding. As spiritual beings having a human experience, we always have access to our spirit via prayer, meditation, quiet time, mindfulness, guided visualisations, and practising feeling the Presence of God within. When we focus on externals, we become consumed by them and forget who we are, and that we have the power to use our minds for a better experience and outcome. By turning off the news, we can tune in to the wisdom within and act upon it.
New Thought teaches that there is unformed “substance” all around us from which all form is created, sort of like a quantum field of all possibilities. Our thoughts act upon this substance, similar to how the observer acts upon the quantum field, bringing the desired form into being. Through things like prayer – which can be focused attention on a desired outcome – meditation and affirmations, we shape substance into what we want. Prayer in New Thought is not about begging or pleading but affirming we are one with God, one with Source, and that we are aligned with it to create that which we focus our thoughts and minds upon. This has a whole different vibration than begging some anthropomorphic being up in the clouds to please pity us and give us something.
Affirming is always in the present tense, and a declaration of “I am” such as “I am healed. I am peace. I am prosperous. I am loved.” We do not say “I want” because the mind focuses on the “want” as lack and that becomes the locus of focus and we get more want. Ever heard the phrase, “You can never get enough of what you don’t want?” This means that if your focus is on lack, on disease, on chaos, on political strife, on inflation and the crappy economy, or on this or that negative external person, event, or situation, that is what you will draw more of into your experience.
Powerful affirmations could look like this:
I am an individual expression of the God Source, and the invisible substance with which God creates is within me as my thoughts and beliefs. I have the power to direct my thoughts to use that substance to create my reality.
I focus my mind and thoughts upon the true source of all there is, God within me, and allow my mind to align with Divine Mind to create that which I desire.
I am divine spirit in a human body having a human experience and my thoughts direct that experience. Therefore, I choose only empowering, powerful thoughts.
Treatment of the Mind
A powerful tool used by New Thought practitioners, specifically in Religious Science, is spiritual mind treatment, also known as affirmative prayer. This is a five-step process that works to change our thoughts, remove doubt and fear, and allow the realisation of the presence of God within so we can then align with it and take right action toward the solution we want.
The five steps are as follows:
1. RECOGNITION (GOD IS) I recognise God as the ultimate, unlimited Presence and Power in the universe. God is all there is and all is God.
2. UNIFICATION (I AM) I am one with God, unified. I know God through me, as me, in me, and in all things. I am one with God now.
3. DECLARATION/REALISATION (I ACCEPT; I AFFIRM) Knowing I am a part of God; I know that without doubt or reservation that the good I desire to experience is now taking form through God’s Power. I declare my desire is complete and I accept it.
4. THANKSGIVING / ACCEPTANCE (I GIVE THANKS) I thankfully accept that the good I desire is mine right now. I accept and give thanks for this good right here and now.
5. RELEASE (I LET GO and LET GOD) I release this prayer/treatment to the activity of the Universal Law of Mind, completely freeing myself of doubt or concern. I let go and let God. I release this truth in total belief that it is already done.
We end a treatment with the words, “And so it is,” much like “Amen” at the end of a prayer. This allows us to release the spiritual mind treatment to God with the total conviction and knowing that it is already done for us. We can repeat the treatment again if we really feel the need, or let it go once with certainty.
Treatments literally “treat” the mind to focus thought, desire, and belief toward a certain outcome rather than hope and beg for something, and to filter out all that does not align with that desire. There is even a little science behind this in our Reticular Activating System (RAS), a complex bundle of nerves in the brain stem responsible for regulating wakefulness and sleep-wake transitions. The RAS also acts as a filter for sensory information that comes into the brain and connects the subconscious to the conscious brain and might be responsible for why we perceive certain things and ignore others. If we focus on the bad, we see more of it thanks to the RAS. Same if we focus on the good.
Illness & Healing
As COVID-19 spread across the globe, critics argued that the New Thought emphasis on using the mind to heal was useless as a treatment for human diseases. The old-school ways were all about taking pills, having surgeries, and relying on dangerous vaccines and pharmaceuticals. Viruses exist, as COVID proved, and people got sick whether they believed it or not. Though, in the past, New Thought adherents adamantly believed that illness was the lack of realisation of our oneness with God/Source, New Thought practitioners today recognise the scientific aspects of disease while also emphasising that healing does begin in the mind and point to the many examples of people who have healed themselves of cancer, heart disease, and other ailments by using the power of their thoughts and beliefs.
While we may not all have the mental capacity right now to cure ourselves overnight, we do know that positive and empowering mindsets create viable shifts in the body that promote healing. We are learning every year about the mind-body connection and how healing involves both working in tandem.
Let There Be Peace on Earth and Let It Begin With Me
As we return to our true power and understand our divine nature, our lives change. But how do we apply that to the collective? Can one person truly change the world? Change occurs first in the person, then in the home, then the community, and then the world.
David R. Hawkins, the author of Letting Go, The Pathway to Surrender, notes that, “The crucial point is: by changing ourselves, we change the world. As we become more loving on the inside, healing occurs on the outside. Much like the rising of the sea level lifts all ships, so the radiance of unconditional love within a human heart lifts all of life.”
We realise how powerful we are as individuals aligned with the Source of all there is, and how that power emanates outward to others we come in contact with, but it begins within each of us to first get right with our own truth. Someone with no idea of their divinity will not act divinely to others. Someone who believes they are a powerless victim will submit to control by others and teach their children and loved ones to do the same.
“Let there be peace on Earth and let it begin with me.” So say the lyrics of this beautiful song written in 1955 by Jill Jackson Miller and Sy Miller and is often sung in New Thought Churches. The sentiment applies to love, goodness, healing, wealth, prosperity, and joy. New Thought principles align us with the God/Source within, which is all good, so that we can express goodness outward to others and, in this way, change the world one spirit at a time.
Sources
www.csl.org/magazine/wp-content/uploads/sites/16/2018/05/CSL_SoM_Treatment_022117.pdf
www.extension.umn.edu/two-you-video-series/ras
www.scienceofminduk.org/what_spiritual_mind_treatment.html
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