Tag Archives: Christ Mind

Having A Hard Time With Silent Prayer?

Allen, you write so much about silent prayer, but I find it difficult. Every time I give it a try all kinds of thoughts pop up. One time my prom date popped up, and I hadn’t seen or heard from him in thirty years. Can you give me some suggestions to help with these thoughts?

Like other Truth “teachers,” I speak and write about the importance of silent prayer. Because I believe it is an essential practice, I hammer away at the nail of silent prayer like a crazed carpenter. Silent prayer is important, but it’s not the end goal. Silent prayer is a means to an end, and that end is Revelation. And nothing facilitates Divine Revelation like silent prayer.

But, as the questioner points out, silent prayer has its challenges. The main challenge is handling those random, unrelated thoughts that buzz around in your mind while you’re trying to listen to the “still small voice.” Here’s how most have handled it: They stopped doing it. That’s not a wise choice. Without the practice of silent prayer, you can believe God is All, you can affirm God’s Allness, but you can never know that God is All. That truth must be revealed, and silent prayer expedites that Revelation.

In past writings, I’ve suggested many ways to deal with these busy-bee thoughts. In one post, I urged you to stop trying to still your mind. That is a game you cannot win. In this post, I’m sharing what I’ve found to be the least frustrating and the most effective practice to deal with those pesky, unwanted thoughts.

When your silent session begins, know that thoughts will come up. Let them. That’s right. Don’t fight them. Don’t try to mentally swat them away. Just let them come. However, at the outset know this: THOUGHTS HAVE NO POWER TO OBSTRUCT, HINDER OR DELAY MY REALIZATION OF GOD.

Isn’t that comforting? Because those irksome thoughts have no power to obstruct Revelation, you don’t have to fight them. They are no longer your enemy. They are powerless. You may have to refocus your attention many times, but the fighting is over.

Have you ever watched the sun peek through the clouds? That’s how Revelation emerges through a cloud of unwanted thoughts. It’s a beautiful experience, but you will only know it once you’ve tried it.

Don’t give up on silent prayer. Try this approach for a few weeks and see for yourself how effective it is.

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There Is No Believer In Evil

corey

I’ve been asked why I never quote anything from Science and Health — the Christian Science textbook. It is undoubtedly a great book. Today I’ve chosen to quote from Arthur Corey, one of the brightest lights in the Christian Science movement.

Problems Are Truth Misread

When you reach the point where you know that all the errors appearing must be truths misread, you begin to realize the futility of handling appearances alone. Stopping with effects, you would fail to handle the underlying cause, so that it is like fighting the hydra-headed monster who shows another head or two for every one you cut off. To recognize that Truth perverted becomes the creator of error, is to imply a perverter.

A wrong sense of something indicates that there must be a wrong see-er, does it not? You may have to first recognize the devil’s lies as lies, in order to see who’s talking, but your work is not done until you have disposed of the devil himself. The fundamental claim is that there is someone or something to misapprehend or misrepresent divinity, and this claim is uncovered by the analysis and exposure of the lie as such.

If God Is All, There Is No Believer In Troubles

Again, to say that an error is only a belief is to admit a believer; and until you dispose of the believer, you are going to have either this troublesome belief or some other before you. You can’t alter the image in a mirror without getting at the thing imaged forth. Effect can be influenced only by way of its cause. The claim in every last instance is that there is an evil cause or believer, and so you are obliged each time to analyze the effect to uncover the fundamental error as the claim that there is an evil thinker and that this mind is yours. In human experience, this analytic approach must precede the realization of Mind as infinite and divine, inclusive of all reality and exclusive of all evil.

It may be superfluous to again reiterate that matter does not taste, feel, hear, smell, see or think, so matter cannot be the complainant. Doesn’t the claim always come to you as, “I see a sick man,” or “I see myself as sick, or material, finite, limited?” What is this I? Surely the divine Mind cannot know or experience anything contrary to its own infinitely flawless and harmonious nature. “Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity.” (Habakkuk 1:13). What is this other I or ego which seems to interpose itself? The claim that there is a conceiver or experiencer of evil is the claim we name “mortal mind,” and it is the root at which we must lay the ax, or the evil will but sprout forth in another form for us.

Are You Still Asking About The Reasons For Your Troubles?

Asking why error exists implies that it does exist as an actuality, and from that standpoint it is impossible to perceive that it cannot really be. The attitude that demands an explanation of the non-existent excludes the understanding of existence. You will never understand nothingness so long as you try to account for it as somethingness, whether in belief or otherwise, for “error” is simply a name for nothing. Mathematical understanding is not achieved through trying to explain the errors, but only by seeking the truths. Automatically thereby the errors are explained away, so that you are no longer handicapped by them. Finding God as All leaves nothing else to explain. There may be an intermediate period when you are conscious of both Truth and error, but you cannot climb up out of this while preoccupied with the error .

Rectify The Inversion

When assailed with the claim that your Mind is finite, material, mortal, counter that with the confident assertion that this that is Mind unfolding as your consciousness must be infinite, spiritual, divine, and that it cannot unfold negatively as anything else but itself and in accord with its divine nature. To see that evil mind and all its forms are divine Mind inverted – but divine Mind – is to rectify the inversion, and to find yourself truly alone with God, and all the hateful aspects of mortality fading away. “This is Life eternal” – and this is divine Mind. Appropriate your heritage through your God-given authority.

 

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