Eric Butterworth Unity Podcast #80
This sermon was given by Eric Butterworth on March 29,1992. It is notable because he offers a summation in this lesson of his book The Universe Is Calling. You will have difficulty listening because in the last years of Eric's ministry he suffered from an illness that interfered with speech. However the transcript on this page is good and we also have his sermon notes, which you can download.
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If you're with us for the first time, I'd like to remind you that we're dealing with insights of truth in terms of the relevant ideas of today. I want to talk a little about the new age, the way it's overworked. Matter of fact, I say the new age began 2000 years ago, so what else is new? We're talking about the now age. Jesus said, "If you know these things, bless it be if you do them." Something to do not to talk about.
We are dealing with the suggestion of workshop style and that's the reason I'm sitting in a chair here, not because I'm tired. I want suggest an informality, a communication, a feeling of oneness. We can't take time in such a group as this for questions, but let's just feel that there. If you have questions, you put them into the ether because I'm speaking spontaneously, they'll somehow come forth.
Today we're going to deal with a subject that is probably the single most misunderstood activity in religion. Talking about prayer. Ask the average person if he prays, he will say, "Yes, occasionally." Ask him what he means by prayer, he probably won't have too much to say. We think of prayer so often as a set activity that is self-evident. So, someone says, "Pray about it." What does that mean? If we're doing a word association test from the word prayer, we come up with all sorts of things like supplication and treaty, benediction, begging, asking God for help, talking to God, God talking to us. All these attitudes.
What is prayer? Someone told me some time ago that the approach that we take with new insight and truth dealing with God, he says that, "It leaves me in an empty feeling because you take God out of the sky, what's left? Who do I pray to? How can you pray to omnipresence?"
Well, the fact is you don't. In Revelation, there's a statement that's sort of startling, says we should make end to prayer. It doesn't mean that we no longer have a devotional attitude and seek to spiritually demonstrate good in our lives. It means that we have to get a new insight into the universe. In tradition, the idea is set forth that God is in the universe, God is alive. We hear it said, "God is alive. God is very much alive in my life." To think of God as a power in this universe. You see, if we think of God as a power in the universe, we think of something that transcends God, the universe.
The startling thing is that if we think of God in this way, it seems evident that the next step is to realize that there are other powers in the universe, but God is the greatest power we say. But we think of God as one of the powers, and there's the power of good and the power of evil, power of life and power of sickness. This puts us in a strange position.
It's important to begin to get the idea of oneness. We see the prayer process in a mechanical sense. Prayer is something in usual conscience something that we do to God and that we say to God, something we get God to do for us. The prayer is so much more than that.
We think of prayer as an activity of realizing our place in the universe, to know you are the universe expressing itself as you, universe is in you, you are in the universe. The thing of God then is that which is the activity that creates and unfolds itself as stars and atoms and people. So, we come to realize that prayer is not getting God to do something. Prayer is not conditioning God with our needs. Prayer is conditioning ourselves with the activity of God.
Oneness. The Egyptian... Hindu poet Kabir says, "We should know there's only one. It's the second that leads to misunderstanding." Only one. It's the Jewish Shema. "Here in Israel, the Lord God is one." It's the greatest concept the mind can hold: one. It's not God up there and you down here, God out there and you in here, only God. God expressing himself or itself as you.
The need in prayer is you get away from the answers of God syndrome, ask God for help syndrome. Let go of this tendency of thinking of God as something or someone who is out there with answers who needs, a great answer man, great Cosmic Mr. Anthony. And think of God as the allness, the whole of things in which and of which you are in each of us.
God is not a person to talk to, to relate to, to beg something from or to receive help. God is all, whole. You are one in that whole. You are one in the one. Know your oneness. You tune in on the energy of the universe and experience it dynamically in your life.
Let me take God out of the sky. Emerson says, "When you destroy the God of the intellect and break with the God of tradition, then God fires you with his presence." The fact is most of us much of our lives have practiced the absence of God. We talk about the presence of God. We practice the absence of God because we think of God as something out there that's the Michelangelo figure up in the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, this huge figure of a man, long white beard, bulging muscles reaching down and man stretching his finger up, touching. They say often it's beautiful artwork but it's abominable theology.
He got caught up and hung up on this idea of God is separate from life. God is being able to do all things if he wants to. It was his will.
I like to think of the universe. I use the word universe and God interchangeably. I think of the universe says, "The activity that sustains and continues, that which is created." Emerson talks of guidance, he says, "Guidance is the continuation of the divine effort that made you in the first place. The continuation of the divine effort that made you in the first place." It's the energy of life and the process of perfecting itself in the creation. This is why it's called God's will. The Promethean urge, the ceaseless longing of the Creator to perfect himself in everything he's created.
I don't want to think of it is if we can get into our consciousness, the prayer is not doing something and going somewhere and pleading our case. Very simply awareness. Yet still, there's nowhere to go. There's nowhere to go. But first of all, we find ourselves reacting almost spontaneously. When I pray, I reach out. I reach out by trying to get something, to hold something. Prayer is not doing. It is not doing. Say that again, prayer is not doing. It's not doing. The one thing we must recognize when we seek to pray, there's nothing to do. It's not doing. Let go, because there's nowhere to go.
This person says, "Who do I pray to?" Don't pray to anyone. As a matter of fact, as someone once said to me, "I see the answer is God is praying for me." That's good enough. It's still anthropomorphic, but it's better than the other. The universe is seeking to fulfill itself in me always. I say often the life is biased on the side of healing. There's an inner urge in life itself that seeks to unfold and protect itself. It's the upward pull of life. It's the nature and the life force and the seed that is seeking goes to grow, to unfold, to break the shell and to spring forth, as the blossoms will be springing forth very soon.
We want to recognize then that prayer is not doing, it's be still and know that I am. Be still and know my oneness. Oneness is a strange word. Strange because we have never really let it get into our consciousness as a possibility. I always think of one as a part of two or a part of three. So, when we talk about oneness with God, we say, "Oh, yes, I'm one with God," the same way as I'm one with the neighbor next door. We're close, we talk, we share, but he's still the neighbor next door. We think of God as something that is in our life as a force that guides us, protects us, heals us, directs us if we tune in. There's always God out there.
So, we tend unconsciously to think of God as exerting effort. And if God, at the end of the Seven Days of Creation, he rested because he was tired. After all you'd be tired too if you created the universe. One person said, "I don't pray very often because I feel that God has enough to do. Don't worry about me." They think of the activity of God as being an expenditure of force. God is not an expenditure force. God is force. God is life. God is love. God doesn't have life and love. You get more life by asking God to give it to you. God is the eternal yes, eternal flow of the infinite.
So, there's something in life that is relating to the universe and what I call the upward pull. There's something that's constantly pulling us up, leading us up higher, come up higher, accept more, be more. And the potential for being is infinite, potential for growth, potential for overcoming achievement. Limitless. The only limit is in our attitude around it, our self, our faith or lack of it.
So, it's important then to get the idea that it's an upward pull, it's a constant process seeking to lead me up into the highest regions of experience, to overcome my physical problems, to become successful in my work, to find strength to overcome limitations, to experience the healing force. It's always present. There's a presence. All you need is to practice the presence.
You already get the idea that there's a Promethean voice, I call it, that's seeking constantly to lift us up. That's why I call the universe is calling. Universe is calling you always. It's the wholeness of life, the wholeness of yourself, the potential, seeking fulfillment, seeking releasement. Universe is calling.
The interesting thing is that when we think of prayer, we hear the word of prayer that we express, comes out of our consciousness of desire to be helped or healed or guided or protected. If we could just realize the truth about it. The very fact that we prayed and turned to prayer is indication that the upward pull of the universe is leading us into higher realms. Jesus says, "Before they call, I will answer. Before they call, I will answer." There's something in the verse that seeking to lead you to greater development, greater fulfillment.
The universe is calling. Question is, "Are you listening? Are you listening?" So, prayer in human sense is listening, responding, accepting. Accepting the idea that which I seek in the universe is seeking me. The universe is leading me. The upward pull, the activity of spirit is seeking ever to rise.
I always think that the word heaven, which is used so prominently in the teaching of Jesus, he says it's within you, the meaning of heaven is within you. The word heaven comes in the Greek word Ouranos. It literally means rising. That's why he talked about in his metaphors, the kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed, grows and becomes a great plant. Like a little leaven. The leaven of the whole lump, rising, expanding. there is that which is always seeking to expand, to grow, to unfold. It's the thing that you experience in the cut of the finger. The cut is always renewing itself. The cells are rebuilding themselves.
Life is ever a process of unfolding, growing, increasing. In the concept of science, entropy is the idea that the weather is running out, running down, winding out. It's always using up energy, using up strength, running out of money. The new concept that is being felt in science today, which reflects the basic truth of the now age, its centropy. Of course, centropy means that the universe is ever renewing itself, ever expanding, ever rebuilding.
We're a part of that centropic force of the universe. It's a very fundamental part of our life. Prayer can only work with that. When we pray in a negative sense as we so often do, practicing the absence of God, we're praying in the spirit of entropy. We're saying, this a paraphrase, not what it says in prayer, "I'm getting old. Dear Lord, make me strong. Running out of money, replenish my supply. I'm desperately in need of an idea, fill my mind with inspiration." The emphasis is on the negative, on the entropy, the part that's deteriorating, fading away.
True prayer to get still, know your oneness with the one. In this oneness, your a whole creature. There's a whole process ever working within you, ever seeking to guide you, direct you, to fulfill you, and you're whole. Your need is not to make something happen but to be still and accept that which is already happening.
When we understand that prayer takes on a whole new light. As Teilhard de Chardin says, "We come to a place... There's no place to bow down and worship God, not even within ourselves." No place to worship God. Don't worship him in the sky. Don't worship him in a cathedral. Don't worship him in a shrine. Don't worship God.
To worship God is to go back to the primitive times. The word worship actually comes from this primitive. It means to look at the heels like a dog. That's the basis of the word worship as you find it in the word proskuneo, in the Hebrew [Eric is mistaken; proskuneo is Greek]. Look at the heels like a dog. Bow down and worship. The idea of bowing your head in prayer comes from this ancient concept of bowing down before an idol, bowing down before a force.
That's why we use the word "worth-ship" in our activities here. You don't come here to worship God. As I say, starting enough, God doesn't need to be worshiped. God doesn't need to be loved. God doesn't need to be praised. God doesn't need to be thanked. We need those concepts, that consciousness. We need a praising consciousness, a grateful heart, and to experience the presence of God, which is present as always. So, worship is not something you do to God, not bowing your head before God because God is the activity of life that is present in all forms of life. Fundamental realization of the universe is ever-present within every cell and atom and function of the universe.
God doesn't need to be worshiped, but you need to experience worth-ship, which is where the word worship comes from, Anglo-Saxon. Worth-ship: to experience a greater sense of worthiness, to know yourself, to know you're a part of the divine process. You're worthy of life, worthy of health, worthy of help in any situation. And the whole process of the universe is seeking to fill you with that fulfillment in every time in your life, every moment. Worth-ship. You're a worthy child of God.
You're going to be experiencing problems such as being laid off work. A lot of people are laid off these days. It's a challenge. It's a crisis. It's sad. The saddest part is that the average person doesn't know what to do about it. You tend to get caught up in the entropic force, that the world is running out of jobs, running out of money, running out of places for a person to be.
I like the idea that there's no way you can ever be fired from the universe. You may be fired from a job, but you can't be fired from the universe. You're a part of the universe always. When you understand that, you know that there's no experience in life that can be taken out of the whole process. If you're laid off a job, use that as an illustration, simply means that something of this universal force, the upward pull, the universe is calling, calling you to a higher experience or higher realm.
The crisis is in your reaction to that experience. It's important that you immediately establish the idea in consciousness. But the thing is a life without employment, without use by effective expression? If it seems that a job has been taken from you, in the same time as we're told before the call I will answer, there's an answer in infinite mind is another experience for you, another opportunity for you. Even before you've become unemployed is an activity leading you to new employment, new experience, new involvement.
Point is you get that consciousness. And the moment you experience the unemployment, remember, the universe is calling. Universe is saying, "Come up higher." Catch this in the highest perspective and know your oneness with the divine action. To the degree that you can accept that, become one and identify with it, you experience marvelous answers. All things are possible.
Anything can happen. The world is a reflection of universal consciousness and changes that take place, even such things as recessions and depressions, are all ghosts of the consciousness of man, come out of the consciousness of man and they can only be solved by the consciousness of man. It can't be solved by inflationary increasing of the monetary system, by changing the interest rates. All these things can only stir up activities try to prime the pump to make things happen, but recessions and depressions and economic fluctuations can only be corrected and reversing the process that made them in the first place. They come out of the consciousness of man. Sooner we know that, the sooner we correct these conditions in the world as a whole, but we can correct them for ourselves.
We know that we're a part of the process of universal activity. There can be no lack in our life. There can be no underemployment or unemployment. There can be no sickness. There can be no limitation. You have to say, "Accept it as attitudes in the mind of man." Know your oneness with the whole. Know that you're one with the one. In that oneness, there's activity for you.
If you can get centered in the realization oneness, hold that in consciousness, you'll find an activity will begin to flow forth through you. Your mind will become more confident, your hands will be more creative, your footsteps will direct you to places where there's an activity that's looking for you.
Same with health. You're experiencing a physical problem. The dynamic flow of health is always present within you. A lack of life or a lack of health or deterioration, simply a failure to respond to and keep in tune with the divine flow of oneness. Wholeness, you're always complete. You're never absent of life. There's no sickness in the divine process. Sickness is what one researcher called, "struggling health." The healing process is seeking to unfold itself in you and renew itself in you.
Universe is calling you to come up higher. And the answer to that is in prayer, not to do something, not to reach for something, not to make something happen or ask God to make something happen, but to be still. Be still and know your oneness. Just know your oneness.
True prayer is so easy that it's almost laughable. We complicate it. "I'm going to pray this time... I'm going to pray. I'm going to get an answer if it kills me. I'm going to pray for this and pray for that." Ego is involved. We love to say, "I prayed," and God answered my prayer. What a good boy am I." Prayer is not doing. Sit still, be still, know your oneness. Tune in upon the dynamic activity of God, which is always present, always at work. Know your oneness with it. It's all you have to do.
Of course, the conscious being what it is, we find ourselves caught up in the negativity of situations that we continue to repeat negative unconscious over and over and over again. And much of our prayer is trying to undo the limitations that replace as barriers in the prayer process.
If you can get out of the context of reaching for God, begging God, supplicating God. Erase that God, as Emerson says, destroy the God of your intellect. God may fire you with his presence. You may feel the presence, the wholeness, the oneness of God expressing as you. There's no separation. There's no one to contact, no one to talk to, no one to pray for, no one to worship. Just be still and know, "I am. I am the universe expressing as me."
The degree that I know that, to that degree, do I turn on this great process, the great power, this great thing for me? We call them miracles. They're not miracles at all, because a miracle is something out of the ego that says, "I tried to do it, I couldn't do it, so now ask God to do it. Maybe he'll do it for me." God doesn't do things for you. God can do more for you than he can do through you.
He needs to be still and get in tune and let the process unfold. Let it happen. Accept it. Rejoice in it. Say amen to itThis is probably a startling attitude about prayer. It may disturb you completely. You may find that at the present time it's unacceptable to you. You don't want to take God out of the sky. You don't have to say, "They've taken my Lord away." If you're interested in getting into the consciousness of the dynamics of the universe, coming into the now age that lies before us, it's important to begin to realize the wholeness of God and the each-ness of yourself. You're an each-ness within the oneness of God. You are an each-ness within the oneness of God. You're the oneness of God expressing at the point of view.
Just be still and know that. When you find yourself in need of guidance or protection or direction, just be still. Take deep breaths. Breathe in the breath of God. Get the feeling of the activity of God flowing through your mind, through your body. As Plotinus says, "Whole universe rushes and streams and poisons you from all sides while you just sit quiet." Remember the sitting quiet part. Be still, get still, relax. Turn away from the activities of the world that are so disturbing. Turn within yourself. Jesus says, "Enter the inner chamber and close the door." Close the door on the world outside. Just know your oneness. In that oneness you may feel led to speak words of truth. And you're a verbal creature, so the verbal expressions will go forth as a projection of power. It's a very effective use of prayer.
But prayer is not getting God to do something for you. It's you stirring up the activity of God within you and projecting it. If you're praying for the world, project the power of peace. Praying for a person, project the power of love. Praying for the sanctity of life, project the idea of wholeness.
In other words, you don't pray to God, you pray from God. If you didn't get that in your conscience, you don't pray to God. Praying out to someone, not here but praying from the consciousness of God. You say, "I know that I am God and I'm one with the whole. Today, I'm the consciousness of oneness. I'm in tune with the tremendous power." And project that power as you let your thoughts go forth to bless people, to bless situations, to bless the word with peace, protection for people. The projection of power goes over your conscience.
Your conscience can project tremendous power, but only when you're uncoupled, hands-off. Don't try to do it. You might say, "I tried to pray about this," but if you tried to pray, you didn't pray. Don't try, be. Most of the limitations of human consciousness come because we're trying. Try to get along with people, we try to do better in our work, we try to forgive people for what they've done wrong, we try to love certain people. We try to think of the world as peaceful. The more we try, the more we get caught up in ego. Let go. Don't try, be.
Next time you have a serious problem, don't try to pray and pray through it. Be still and know your oneness. Know that the intimate process of mind is aware of your need even before you express it. It is already fulfilling the need and bringing answers to you, even before you pray.
Your prayer is a response to the call of the universe. You might think of yourself as being very pious because you decided to pray about this. If you prayed it all, it's because you've responded to the universal call. The universe is calling you. Think about this prayer process. You'll have to work with it. You'll have to take time to be patient with yourself because you won't change overnight. It's very hard to eliminate this absence of God, contact God up here in the sky and God out there, God as someone to talk to. "Please God help me."
To get the conscious of allness, oneness, it's the most revealing and the most freeing thing you can do. It can change your life because the whole religious process will become simplified. Not a lot of words, not a lot of magic incantations, not a lot of formulas. All these things are helpful in helping the intellect to solve the problem oconsciousness.
There comes a time when the intellect is not satisfactory. We have to let it go. We don't want a definition of God. We want an experience of life. Let go of a tendency to understand God, understand the world. Let go and experience the essence of life and love and harmony in the heart of your being. This is the activity of God. Experience it. Give thanks for it. Say amen to it.
So, basically, when you pray about something, you simply try not to pray about it. Try not to get involved in a lot of words about it. So often, even in truth, we have a meditation, what we call treatment. Oftentimes the treatment is composed of a lot of words that we think will help if we can get them into consciousness, so we're trying to work out a prayer through treatment. So much treatment is trying. So much affirmation is trying. Don't try. Let go.
The ideas that you express in a treatment or in affirmation are good to dwell on. They're not something you're trying to make happen. Something that you want to realize is the truth about you. Know the truth and the truth will make you free. Know your oneness with God. Experience that oneness at the center of your being. When you get into that consciousness, prayer becomes so easy, prayer is such an effortless thing.
Prayer for protection is simply to be still. Know that the hands of the universe love me and sustain me. Prayer for Protection creativity is to get in tune with the creative process. Let it work in my mind. Let it put words in my mouth and direct my hands and drag my footsteps and the way I go. It's simple. Not easy, but it's simple. I want to get hold of that simplicity, get rid of the complexity of truth, the complexity of religion. Get the idea of the still small voice within you, the oneness of the activity of God expressing as you can.
Choosing to consider this and consider the idea of oneness, you can tune in on the energies of the universe to make your life one of peace and poise and power.
We've done several intonations in recent weeks. We're going to do another one today. It's a simple one. Simply getting into the consciousness of the oneness of all things, feeling the energy of oneness, dwelling on it, experiencing it. Here we're to intone the word one. Follow after me and sing this oneness. Project it out into conscious and feel yourself surrounded by the rhythm and energy of it. It'll create a tremendous pool of energy in this auditorium. Close your eyes and be still. Repeat with me.
[MUSIC:]
One, one, one, one, one. One, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one. One, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one. One, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one.
And just hum the oneness.
[MUSIC:]
One, one, one, one.
Keep it going. You're one in the one. Your life is enriched and blessed and strengthened and fulfilled in your awareness of this oneness. Remember your oneness wherever you are, wherever you go. It'll be your first reaction in any experience. If you still know your oneness, you're one, you're whole, you're complete. You experience the fulfillment of the creative process in you. The universe is calling. The universe is beckoning you, urging you onward. Universe is calling, and you're responding, "One."
[MUSIC:]
One, one, one, one, one, one. One, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one.
Just breath out in the distance.
[MUSIC:]
One, one, one, one, one, one, one.
And if you know the truth, the truth shall make you free. So be it.
