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Can we - you and I - get this
into our heads? There simply
aren't two ways to live, the
short-range and the long-range.
The long-range, the perfect,
eternal life of unlimited
possibilities and all-goodness,
is the only life, the only world,
the only universe, there is. It's
what God created in the beginning
(that is, it's what has always
been even without beginning), and
it has no ending. There are no
failures, nothing is going wrong,
we are simply learning more about
it as we go along.
As a person who has believed
this ever since Unity opened my
eyes, I have loved telling people
that I think the essential thing
is to start with eternal life and
work down instead of thinking we
are at some point in the struggle
trying to work up, trying to get
there, trying to be perfect and
good so we can qualify for
Heaven.
It has been clear to me ever
since I came into the Unity way
of thought that Heaven is a
misnomer. It is not our final
destination, but our eternal
home, which means right
now. Eternal means
always. It defines the reality of
the present. It is innate within
us, ready when we are!
So, if the eternal is our
present reality,
and it is defined as perfect,
complete, lacking nothing,
dynamic rather than static with
an end, we sense that there is
more within us to learn and apply
in the now. Science
and religion have come into an
agreement that is metaphysically
based:do you have a problem? Get
a new idea! Science has actually
forged way ahead of religion in
this, but religion is gaining
fast because it has moved into
the dimension of reality that we
call spirituality. By this we
mean that we have moved beyond
manmade religious dogmas, final
beliefs from which to deviate is
to be heretical, sinful, even
worthy of the death sentence. Now
we realize that what we know is a
good framework, a strong rocklike
foundation for going on into the
future of the eternally present,
and enjoying every moment!
There is something strangely
wonderful about the framework,
our beginning or early ideas
about Truth, Reality. It's
symbolized by the changes in our
bodies from fetus to adulthood
and the eventual passing of that
body - that state of
consciousness - into still more
evolution and unfoldment in the
mysterious realms of the
so-called invisible. The original
idea is somehow always there
throughout all the developmental
dynamics. Newtonian physics is
still enfolded in what is going
on now.
In this brief treatment of the
subject, let's just make our
point so we can focus on more and
more application.
Paul Tillich, a famous
theological/philosophical
thinker, wrote: "We cannot
love unless we have accepted
forgiveness, and the deeper our
experience of forgiveness is, the
greater is our love."
This is to practice the
long-range of love in this
eternal now, with
no stops in the short-range of
unforgiveness.
The essential application:
always assume there is an answer
to every problem, a new idea, a
better idea, a change from bias
or hopelessness or self-doubt.
The answer (the Kingdom of
Heaven) is here. It unfolds into
experience to the degree of our
practice and comprehension.
The path to Heaven? It's
within us right now
to be practiced, practiced,
practiced. The full experience
will come!
Don
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