Note how often the speakers refer to "state of consciousness." When one's state of consciousness has become directed toward God or Spirit, it is known as Faith. Faith is the focus of this lesson and it is the foundation for prayer.
The video refers to The Law of Mind Action. We find the same concept in the first point below that refers to the "laws of prayer." That "prayer is a science" is the same point that Sharon Poindexter speaks about when she describes a stone being thrown into a pond of water; the water will always respond in a perfect way to the nature of the stone.
Faith, as the second point below makes, is the "most vital condition" for our prayers to be effective (Unity would say "for our prayers to be demonstrated"). When the speakers in this video talk about "changing our thoughts" or "changing our mind", they are referring to shifting into a state of consciousness that has become "spiritually developed" and which has faith in the demonstrable laws of prayer.
Reading:
- Prayer and Faith
- The Supermind
- Thought Substance
- Thoughts Are Things
- Thought Images
- How to Handle Psychic Forces of Consciousness
- (Supplementary) Lessons In Truth — Chapter 5
- (Supplementary) Revealing Word: Faith — Page 67
- (Supplementary) Matthew 9:29
- (Supplementary) Hebrews 11:1
- (Supplementary) God a Present Help — Chapter 5
- (Supplementary) Twelve Powers of Man — Chapter 2
- (Supplementary) Keep a True Lent — Chapter 15
1. Faith
- "Prayer is a science susceptible of being reduced to rules that prove it to be based upon demonstrable laws."
- The most vital condition, then, for demonstrating what we pray for is FAITH.
- Faith-Thinking. "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he."
- LET'S PRACTICE!
"We who are testing out the laws of prayer cannot say with assurance that we have discovered and applied all of them so clearly that we can teach them to the multitude."
"The laws of prayer require a spiritually developed mind to give them full expressions; hence not all persons are at once competent to cover the whole range of mental and spiritual activity requisite to the unfailing demonstration of prayer. Jesus taught that whatever we ask in prayer, believing, we shall receive."
Faith comes out of complete understanding of God's law.
Faith is the foundation of all that man does in his day-by-day life. Examples: Banking—how do you know your money is in the bank? Have you seen it? Electricity—do you know what makes it work? But you have faith that when you flip the switch, the light will come on. Do you question the principle behind the working of your radio, telephone, or television?
We all need a better understanding of the principles at the very foundation of Being, of the spiritual character of God, and especially of the omnipresence of the spiritual principles.
Next we need to understand our relation to these spiritual principles and what we need to do to make them operative in our mind and affairs.
We often pray as if we were separate from God. Man came out of God, is of the same mind elements, and exists within the mind of God always. "I and the Father are one."
The most important power of man is his original faith-thinking faculty. We all have this ability.
Our thinking faculty is supplied with second-hand ideas of our ancestors, dominant beliefs of the race.
The faith thinker does not compare, analyze, or draw conclusions from known premises. He does not take appearances into consideration; he is not biased by precedent. His thinking gives form without question to ideas that come straight to him from the eternal fount of wisdom.
The faith thinker takes the ideas from the Divine Intelligence and works with them until he knows.
What do you name things?
What kind of a world do we create for ourselves by our thinking?
How, then, do we build faith? How do we train the subconscious mind to believe? By practicing the Presence through meditation and prayer.
Science says that there is in our universe dynamic power beyond anything we can imagine. Jesus used this unseen power when he healed the sick and raised the dead. He was "tuned in" to the Mind which has ideas of unlimited capacity. Paul says that we have the same mind that was in Christ Jesus. If we take him at his word, we too should expect miracles when we pray.
There is great power in group meditation. "Where two or three are gathered together in my name there am I in the midst of them."
(Practice the 5 steps in Lesson I using any statement that will be faith-building)
2. Affirmations And Denials
Mary Rexroth's instruction for LET'S PRACTICE above is "Practice the 5 steps in Lesson I using any statement that will be faith-building." When she refers to "any statement that will be faith-building" she is referring to affirmations and denials. It may be said that affirmations and denials are "faith building statements".
The video you see to the left is segment six of On Wings of Truth, which was produced by Unity sometime in the 1990's. This segment introduces affirmations and denials.
As Dorothy Pierson says in the opening clip of this segment, "We have the privilege of choosing our thoughts." The tools for doing so are affirmations and denials. Further on in the segment Dorothy will refer to the "four great affirmations of truth" in Emilie Cady's book Lessons in Truth. This is one of the supplemental readings for this lesson.
