What is a Divine Idea? (Rabel)

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Health is a divine idea, a reality. It is the word used to describe the true estate of man and God's will for man. After we had established that, I said, "Let's all join forces and let's believe in that divine idea. For the time being, dump all concern about sickness. It will be there when you are ready to take it up again. No one will kidnap it from you, but for the time being abandon it, and let's give all our powers of attention to believing in health. Now don't think about somebody's body at this moment. Think about the divine idea of health itself, and let's believe in it. Now, let's each in his own way, make our own individual effort to become totally willing for it. Remember, this is whether you are doing it on behalf of yourself or on behalf of another person. “This is the way we do it." Then I explained how we teach that divine ideas are never depleted, in fact, it is just the opposite. The more you draw upon them, the more they seem to have to offer you. Then I tried to explain how this is in the case of health. I said, "Now look, here is a sick person.” Maybe it is you or maybe it is someone else. This person who is sick gets tired of that condition and turns, in his mind, in his attention, and begins to think about health, about healing. That is the first step. He is at least thinking about it. Then he makes some effort to believe in health.

Now, in most, not always, but in most cases there will be an instantaneous feeling a little bit better, maybe just a shade. There will be a reaction to this attention to and belief in the divine idea. So, to that extent the person has drawn upon it and he feels a little bit better; because he feels better, he is able to believe a little bit more. Logical? Because you believe a little bit more, you feel even a little better, and because you feel a little better, you will believe even a little more. Here you are drawing upon this divine idea of health, and what is happening to that divine idea from your angle, as you draw upon it? It increases. The more you draw the more it gives, the more it is there, etc. This process of drawing upon the idea and increasing your belief in it and, of course, your willingness toward it, the process as observed by observing you is that delightful experience of healing.

Then we went on to the divine idea of substance, and I said, "Have any of you ever heard the old saying, 'The rich just get richer'?" I said, "What do you think about that idea?" They did not quite like it. Some wanted to like it and knew there was a reason why they should, but they still did not like it. I said, "Now that is a cliché, but it is based upon an observable process. A person who is rich, whether that person is good, bad, worthy, or unworthy, is not what we are dealing with now. Somewhere, somehow along the line, that person learned something about substance. Maybe he did not call it that, but somewhere along the line he connected to the substance-idea; and because of that connection and his willingness, he was enriched. Now, as he was enriched, he was more and more willing and believing the substance-idea, whether he called it that or not. He might have called it 'the oil business'; but that is the euphemism for the substance-idea. He just materialized its imagery. Because the more you draw upon divine ideas, the more it has to offer you, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer until something happens to help them connect to a divine idea of substance or prosperity.

Prosperity is just a word that we use that means substance, substance expressing itself, etc. I made a reservation there. I said, "But remember, folks, no matter how rich that person may have gotten, he will not continue to prosper if he insists on having and holding onto the results of his richness. There he may be still in the category of wealthy, but he will not be prospered until he learns the law which is giving, sharing. There must be the flow."

We went on to the other divine idea of knowing or understanding, and I said, "Now look, let's take as an example, there is somebody in your life that you are not getting along with. There is contention between you, and you are concerned about it. You do not like it, so you make the effort to somehow have a little more understanding of that person. Because you have the desire, you make some kind of an effort, you are then beginning to draw upon the divine idea of understanding in regard to this person. Because you have done that, the divine idea will express through you, and you will gain some greater understanding of that person; and because you gained a little understanding of that person, you then become more confident or believing in your faculty of understanding, and because you believe in it a little more, you will draw upon it in greater capacity, and you will find a very, strange and wonderful thing happening.

You will find that while you have gained a little greater understanding of that person you were concerned with, you will also have gained a great deal of understanding about a lot of other things that you did not really go after. What has happened is, more of the character of the divine idea of understanding has responded to your belief and has quickened itself and involved itself in you, and your understanding spreads out and increases. You find you are not only understanding that person a little more, but you are understanding a lot of other things about life a little more. This is the drawing upon the divine idea, which will never be depleted.

One more point. They also loved my two-bit explanation of the way we use the word Truth in Unity. Remember, folks, that the Unity organization is an organization which has deliberately and consciously limited itself. The organization, as such, has accepted a limitation for a purpose. We are not what a lot of people would like us to be, experts on the whole darn cosmos and all-1-1-1 eternity beyond the present. We are not that. We are really an organization that has accepted the limitation of helping people make the journey from Adam to Christ. We are not an organization that delves into pre-Adamic history nor post-Christ-consciousness fortune telling. We are concerned with what Jesus was concerned with and Charles Fillmore and all his cohorts were concerned with; the laws, principles, and divine ideas and realities which help man on his evolution from that point in eternity called Adam-consciousness to Christ-consciousness.

What we designate as Truth simply is the body of teachings which verbalize that work, of helping people, helping people read all their past Akashic records? No. Helping people successfully and as painlessly and as joyfully and as healthily as possible make this evolutionary journey from Adam to Christ. I think if we keep this in mind as ministers, we will not over-burden ourselves with extraneous things in our actual profession. Now, this does not mean that in your own avocation you will not have a lot to do with the history of man. This is fascinating. Or go into the after-Christ probability. Those are equally fascinating. But for your professional work and for the service of what Unity is dedicated to, let us not feel too proud to accept the limitation the Unity movement deliberately put upon itself.

Q. I would like to know what criteria there are for when an idea is a divine idea. A lot of our faculty members say that the only divine ideas there are, are the twelve powers.

A. Those are twelve of the divine ideas.

Q. You have talked about others, like if I had an idea that security was a divine idea....

A. I'll tell you what the criteria is, and I am glad you said security. One man's security can be another man's peril. Security is a good example of what we do not call a divine idea, but if we did not have a certain criteria, other people might.

First of all, the ones we should care about are already listed in the literature, and you can find them in Mr. Fillmore's work. In case there are some that are not listed in our literature, I think the safest criteria to apply would be, could this idea really be a matter of opinion or point of view, or would it be a divine idea, that is something good and true and desirable from just about everybody's point of view?

Now, no sane person will argue about life, love, substance, intelligence, judgment, beauty and power. We know that all of these are good. We would never want to be without them, so we know, especially people like you who are spiritually-quickened, you are quick to detect something that often ordinary thinking does not detect, the difference between matter of opinion and universally-accepted Truth or reality. Now if there are certain qualities that you are in doubt about as to whether they are divine ideas or not, then try to become very flexible, and if I were to err, I would rather err on the side of leniency toward making it a divine idea. For instance, happiness; is happiness a divine idea or is it a matter of opinion? A case could be made for either side. I am inclined to say, give it the benefit of the doubt, because you are not going to hurt anything by calling it a divine idea; but you could be hurting something by excluding something from divine ideas, or at least it might partake of a divine idea without fully being one, you see. Happiness, peace could be one, because peace is a result of other combinations of divine ideas. Yet I do not hesitate to call peace a divine idea, because everybody likes it except cranky people.

Text of the original transcript at the last paragraph of p.306 through the first paragraph of p.309.
Transcribed by Margaret Garvin on 04-15-2014