By Anthony J Whitehouse CS
I have invariably found Muslims to be people of great grace. When I started looking into their scriptures I found them to be based on the Abrahamic and Mosaic tradition I found we had a great deal in common.
Visiting a young Muslim man in prison I found I did not have to resort to Christian stereotypes to teach him about divine science. He understood his relationship to God just as well as I did. After having introduced the science implicit in that relationship i.e. the sense that he should not let his mind be a place which harboured self-pity (irrespective of the circumstances) the healing was immediate. He was released from prison after only serving 18 months of a six year sentence for attempted manslaughter.
What was equally interesting to me was passing a morning with a young Muslim man on a beach near Colombo in Sri Lanka. His parents had the beach villa next to mine. We talked about God and he asked me very pertinent questions. I still remember his quiet demeanour , his white robes and skull cap. Here was a soul of great gentleness and devotion. He took in what I said and then gave me a back a succinct summary which he took pains to point out he agreed with in every measure.
He was a marketing specialist with a large multinational about to be transferred to work in Bombay for the same company. Our own church has a member whose husband worked for the same company. Some months later both he and my Muslim acquaintance were at the Taj Mahal hotel in Bombay when it was attacked by terrorists and they both escaped unharmed.
We should be more concerned with what unites us than with what appears to divide us !
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Why Does Matter Exist?
By Anthony J. Whitehouse CS
Well we are certainly never going to answer that question if we rely on physics. If we are using the testimony of the material senses to probe the issue we are going to come up short because the physical senses are just not going to play ball on the question. The physical senses depend on matter for their manifestation so they are not going to cooperate in any rationale which unbundles their existence.
So, if we want to answer the question as to why matter exists we have to realise that the concepts we generally hold about God insist that God is infinite and omnipotent and everpresent. If God was not like this then God would not be God. But matter basically denies the nature of God by saying that matter is a somethingness besides God. And within the ambit of this pretense we can see that matter exists solely as the result of a belief in a dimension besides God.
If we hold that there is more than one dimension to life, a dimension besides the dimension of Spirit and Mind then we are going to be presented with the evidence of it i.e. matter is only the evidence our own conviction that there are two dimensions to life ; both the dimension of spirit/mind and the dimension of matter.
Herein lies to answer to our freedom from the material senses and from the exigences of material conditions: we must insist that there is only one dimension to our lives, the dimension of Spirit or God. In Deuteronomy 25:14 we find biblical authority for this monastic approach. " Thou shalt not have in thy house divers measures, a great and a small".
Obviously it does involve bit of pitched battle to stick to our guns on this. Pharaoh , or the material senses, does not like to lose it slaves. But Mrs Eddy points out that we have to work with this principle to gain our freedom. " We only have to avail ourselves of God's rule to receive His blessing, which enables us to work out our own salvation." It is clear we are not going to drown in Red sea. But we are going to have to be very determined and clear in our thinking. Even Jesus indicated that " strait is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life and few there be that find it". Matt 7:14
We can take great comfort that the material dimension to our lives is illusory because God is the only dimension of consequence. We have to operate in the dimension of goodness because the cost of not doing so is to find ourselves in hell. There is no other word capable of conveying the cost involved of not operating within the sole dimension of goodness.
" In him we live and move and have our being" as the Bible tells us, unless of course we are going to take on board the illusion of a second dimension to life.
Well we are certainly never going to answer that question if we rely on physics. If we are using the testimony of the material senses to probe the issue we are going to come up short because the physical senses are just not going to play ball on the question. The physical senses depend on matter for their manifestation so they are not going to cooperate in any rationale which unbundles their existence.
So, if we want to answer the question as to why matter exists we have to realise that the concepts we generally hold about God insist that God is infinite and omnipotent and everpresent. If God was not like this then God would not be God. But matter basically denies the nature of God by saying that matter is a somethingness besides God. And within the ambit of this pretense we can see that matter exists solely as the result of a belief in a dimension besides God.
If we hold that there is more than one dimension to life, a dimension besides the dimension of Spirit and Mind then we are going to be presented with the evidence of it i.e. matter is only the evidence our own conviction that there are two dimensions to life ; both the dimension of spirit/mind and the dimension of matter.
Herein lies to answer to our freedom from the material senses and from the exigences of material conditions: we must insist that there is only one dimension to our lives, the dimension of Spirit or God. In Deuteronomy 25:14 we find biblical authority for this monastic approach. " Thou shalt not have in thy house divers measures, a great and a small".
Obviously it does involve bit of pitched battle to stick to our guns on this. Pharaoh , or the material senses, does not like to lose it slaves. But Mrs Eddy points out that we have to work with this principle to gain our freedom. " We only have to avail ourselves of God's rule to receive His blessing, which enables us to work out our own salvation." It is clear we are not going to drown in Red sea. But we are going to have to be very determined and clear in our thinking. Even Jesus indicated that " strait is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life and few there be that find it". Matt 7:14
We can take great comfort that the material dimension to our lives is illusory because God is the only dimension of consequence. We have to operate in the dimension of goodness because the cost of not doing so is to find ourselves in hell. There is no other word capable of conveying the cost involved of not operating within the sole dimension of goodness.
" In him we live and move and have our being" as the Bible tells us, unless of course we are going to take on board the illusion of a second dimension to life.
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
God reigns!
By Anthony Whitehouse CS
Yes ! you will say. God does reign. But I realised this morning that we problem we face in our practice of the Science of the Christ is that the physical senses are claiming to reign as well. We seem to have been caught on the horns of a dilemma..... and a painful one at that.
But if we are to avoid the confusion " of these latter days" we have to be quite clear that God alone reigns and the senses are just myths and delusions of no consequence.
The genius of both Jesus and Mary Baker Eddy was to instinctively understand that God reigned despite all human evidence to the contrary. Their conviction about the rule of God overrode the chaos that senses were seeking to impose. In the end they had enough humility to realise that only God COULD reign. It is only in having enough humility to admit that this must be the case that we can begin to figure rightly.
For those with seemingly incurable medical conditions this approach represents a stark choice albeit a glorious one. Who is reigning here ? Is it medical opinion or is it the decree of the Divine Mind which has made everything glorious like itself ? Obviously the answer is that medical and human opinions cannot reign within thought if we are going to demonstrate this wonderful science that we have been given.
The power inherent in the sense that God reigns must mean that we can totally disregard what the physical sense are telling us. Unless we can arrive at this point no healing will occur because we are effectively allowing those senses to reign and dictate our thought and action. Yet we are told " Thou shalt have no other God's before me!"
We are helped in this endeavor by realising that the physical senses are delusional.
Certainly it takes courage and persistence but we have the wonderful examples of both Jesus and Mary Baker Eddy. They have provided the precedents for us to follow.
Within the ambit of the up and coming elections the understanding that God reigns must require that we understand that political parties do not reign and neither do individuals preside. God does. That understanding must translate into opinions being correctly formed about who best to vote for because we detect which candidate best understands this.
There is a valid argument which would say that this postulate does not really hold water because the world has been in such chaos for so long. God only rarely has made an appearance on the human stage. This is not unsurprising bearing in mind that the physical world tends to objectify human belief. As long as human belief hangs onto the delusion that the stars foretell or the spirits of our ancestors impel or the God is subject to human foibles of anger etc then this is how our world is going to operate.
But change the sense that these beliefs reign and you usher in the kingdom of heaven " so will our material theories yield to spiritual ideas , until the finite gives place to the infinite, sickness to health, sin to holiness and God's kingdom comes in earth as it is in heaven" S&H 339:22.
All you have to do is give up the idea that you live under the jurisdiction of the physical senses
Yes ! you will say. God does reign. But I realised this morning that we problem we face in our practice of the Science of the Christ is that the physical senses are claiming to reign as well. We seem to have been caught on the horns of a dilemma..... and a painful one at that.
But if we are to avoid the confusion " of these latter days" we have to be quite clear that God alone reigns and the senses are just myths and delusions of no consequence.
The genius of both Jesus and Mary Baker Eddy was to instinctively understand that God reigned despite all human evidence to the contrary. Their conviction about the rule of God overrode the chaos that senses were seeking to impose. In the end they had enough humility to realise that only God COULD reign. It is only in having enough humility to admit that this must be the case that we can begin to figure rightly.
For those with seemingly incurable medical conditions this approach represents a stark choice albeit a glorious one. Who is reigning here ? Is it medical opinion or is it the decree of the Divine Mind which has made everything glorious like itself ? Obviously the answer is that medical and human opinions cannot reign within thought if we are going to demonstrate this wonderful science that we have been given.
The power inherent in the sense that God reigns must mean that we can totally disregard what the physical sense are telling us. Unless we can arrive at this point no healing will occur because we are effectively allowing those senses to reign and dictate our thought and action. Yet we are told " Thou shalt have no other God's before me!"
We are helped in this endeavor by realising that the physical senses are delusional.
Certainly it takes courage and persistence but we have the wonderful examples of both Jesus and Mary Baker Eddy. They have provided the precedents for us to follow.
Within the ambit of the up and coming elections the understanding that God reigns must require that we understand that political parties do not reign and neither do individuals preside. God does. That understanding must translate into opinions being correctly formed about who best to vote for because we detect which candidate best understands this.
There is a valid argument which would say that this postulate does not really hold water because the world has been in such chaos for so long. God only rarely has made an appearance on the human stage. This is not unsurprising bearing in mind that the physical world tends to objectify human belief. As long as human belief hangs onto the delusion that the stars foretell or the spirits of our ancestors impel or the God is subject to human foibles of anger etc then this is how our world is going to operate.
But change the sense that these beliefs reign and you usher in the kingdom of heaven " so will our material theories yield to spiritual ideas , until the finite gives place to the infinite, sickness to health, sin to holiness and God's kingdom comes in earth as it is in heaven" S&H 339:22.
All you have to do is give up the idea that you live under the jurisdiction of the physical senses
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