Being
Smart and Having All the Answers
06-17-01
Readings:
"Real
freedom means that we are created in the image of perfection and let alone and
allowed to make the discovery for ourselves. The understanding of Truth -
Infinite Principle - is the emancipator. As we realize our Oneness with Creative
Mind, we are released from the bondage of false thinking."
"When
we use our creative imagination in strong faith it will create for us, whatever
we have formed in thought."
Ernest
Holmes
Being
Smart and Having the Answers
Today our topic is “Being
Smart and Having the Answers.” It
is meant to continue on from last week when we discussed the nature of trying to
do something. Last week I suggested
that “trying,” as we usually mean it, really is a form of lying. Trying
usually begins with underestimating who each of us truly is at heart.
Trying says essentially that we cannot do what it is that we said we
would do, and then, after some effort, it gives this excuse of “trying” as a
substitute for demonstrating the power of our word.
This excuse is an attempt to avoid responsibility for, and the truth
about the nature of what we have done. The
big problem with this deceit is that it gets all mixed up with our ability to
fulfill a promise and we become blind to what we are doing.
Understanding how it works and what to do about it is an exercise in
recovering ones effectiveness and integrity, both things that we all have good
use for! And even most importantly,
through distinguishing these principles one has a method for regaining a direct
relationship with the value and power of ones word.
Every
one of us has at some time made a promise that we were unable to fulfill.
If we didn’t make promises about things that we didn’t know how to
do, nothing new or grand would ever be done.
So we have to say, first off, that making a promise can be an act of
courage and of faith. It is a
demonstration in some ways of ones faith that metaphysical law actually does
work. I mean that in the particular sense that what one says
actually takes form and is realized, that we demonstrate an actual connection
between our word and our experience. Often,
when we make a promise we carelessly rely upon things that already exist, what
we already know, allowing ourselves to feel falsely confident because we possess
the answer to a question that has not been asked.
Having the answers is something that is often thought of as being
prepared, but perhaps it really isn’t. Perhaps
it is simply a way of not being present to what is, right here in the moment.
If the question has not yet been asked, what good is a list of answers?
Perhaps, rather than giving us an answer, these answers are a list of
limitations.
One
of the things I learned very clearly in law school is that no matter how many
facts that you cram into what we think of as our brain, life will present you
with questions that have nothing to do with any of that already learned
information, and creativity will be called for on a regular basis.
Real confidence comes from being able to respond to life the way it is in
the moment. Having the answers has more in common with a kit of hardware
containing wingnuts, washers, screws, and bolts of various sizes.
Sure they may come in handy sometime, but most of them really don’t fit
anything that you need and you still end up going to the hardware store!
I am not saying that knowing a lot isn’t helpful, what I am saying is
that the ability to be present is far more important than we commonly realize.
Here is a funny little story another minister sent to me that illustrates
what I mean:
About
a century or two ago, the Pope decided that all the Jews had to leave Rome.
Naturally there was a big uproar from the Jewish community.
So the Pope made a deal. He
would have a religious debate with a member of the Jewish community. If the
Jew won, the Jews could stay. If
the Pope won, the Jews would leave.
The
Jews realized that they had no choice. So
they picked a middle aged man named Moishe to represent them. Moishe asked for one addition to the debate.
To make it more interesting, neither side would be allowed to talk.
The Pope agreed.
The
day of the great debate came. Moishe
and the Pope sat opposite each other for a full minute before the Pope raised
his hand and showed three fingers.
Moishe
looked back at him and raised one finger.
The
Pope waved his fingers in a circle around his head.
Moishe
pointed to the ground where he sat.
The
Pope pulled out a wafer and a glass of wine.
Moishe
pulled out an apple. The Pope
stood up and said, "I give up. This man is too good. The Jews can
stay."
An
hour later, the cardinals were all around the Pope asking him what had
happened. The Pope said,
"First I held up three fingers to represent the Trinity.
He responded by holding up one finger to remind me that there was still
one God common to both our religions. Then
I waved my finger around me to show him that God was all around us.
He responded by pointing to the ground and showing that God was also
right here with us. I pulled out
the wine and wafer to show that God absolves us from our sins.
He pulled out an apple to remind me of original sin.
He had an answer for everything. What
could I do?"
Meanwhile,
the Jewish community had crowded around Moishe.
"What
happened?" they asked.
"Well,"
said Moishe, "First he said to me that the Jews had three days to get out
of here. I told him that not one
of us was leaving. Then he told
me that this whole city would be cleared of Jews.
I let him know that we were staying right here.”
"Yes,
yes,.. and then???" asked the crowd.
"I
don't know," said Moishe, "He took out his lunch, and I took out
mine."
Truth
is three-dimensional: Spiritual, Mental, and Physical. So in what dimension was
the Pope and where was Moishe? At the Spiritual level the Truth Is. The Pope was
stating certain truths in this tale, but where was “he” located at the time?
I’d say he was in his head rather than being present! Where was Moishe?
He was at the Mental level where the Truth is experienced. Moishe was all about his experience at the time, and his
experience was shaped by his perspective, opinions, and ideas. The whole time, when they had agreed to this debate without
words, they were left with dealing with the whole thing as if it were merely
physical. At the Physical level the
Truth is expressed. We often
don’t know why the Truth is the way that it is anymore than the Pope or Moishe
did in this story. And truth gets
expressed clearly and without our complete understanding.
This is the real magic about the Truth.
The Truth is still true whether we get it or not! Ernest Holmes said
“We cannot demonstrate beyond our ability to mentally embody an idea.”
In this story, Moishe embodied for his people “We aren’t leaving.”
That was his whole statement. Whatever
the Pope might have said, that was all there was to it for Moishe.
And while the Pope may have heard something in terms of his own personal
perspective, the result was that Moishe demonstrated the Truth of his word. He
wasn’t leaving! "If it is
God's pleasure to give us the kingdom then it should be our privilege to accept
the gift."
If
there is anything we might wish to call the state of being smart, it is
the ability to think. So let’s
talk about thinking, and by that I mean the conscious use of the One Mind. Commonly it is assumed that having a vast store of facts is
being smart. Perhaps it is not.
Much has been written about thinking and few have written about it more
powerfully than Martin Heidegger. I
am going to read a quotation from Heidegger which I got long ago, and which has
shaped my understanding of thought:
People still hold the view that what is handed down to us
by tradition is what in reality lies
behind us - while in fact it comes toward us because we are its captives and
destined to it. The purely historical view of tradition and the course of
history is one of those vast self-deceptions in which we must remain entangled
as long as we are still not really thinking. That self-deception about history
prevents us from hearing the language of the thinkers. We do not hear it
rightly, because we take that language to be mere expression, setting forth
philosophers' view. But the thinkers' language tells what is. To hear it is in
no case easy. Hearing it presupposes that we meet a certain requirement, and we
do so only on rare occasions. We must acknowledge and respect it. To acknowledge
and respect consists in letting every thinker's thought come to us as something
in each case unique, never to be repeated, inexhaustible - and being shaken to
the depths by what is unthought in his thought. What is unthought in a thinker's
thought is not a lack inherent in his thought. What is un-thought is there in
each case only as the un-thought. The more original the thinking, the richer
will be what is unthought in it. The unthought is the greatest gift that
thinking can bestow. But to the commonplaces of sound common sense, what is
unthought in any thinking always remains merely the incomprehensible. And to the
common comprehension, the incomprehensible is never an occasion to stop and look
at its own powers of comprehension. "This silence is language; it may speak
more eloquently than any words...it is the primordial attunement of one
existence to another, out of which all language comes. It is only because man is
capable of such silence that he is capable of authentic speech. If he ceases to
be rooted in that silence all his talk becomes chatter."
By
Martin Heidegger
This is one of the
richest things I have ever read and I wish to share with you what I have gleaned
from it thus far. I think I could continue to consider what he has said for many
more years than I have.
·
Heidegger
articulates an important theory for why our present is not necessarily
determined by our past. Whatever
might have happened before, whatever ideas generated those experiences, have
already done their perfect work and they are really done.
We don’t have to allow those ideas to control the present and if we
would but focus on the present, we need not participate in a self-deception that
makes mindless sheep of us. Ernest Holmes
said that "No matter what
happened yesterday, today, in a split second, it may all be changed if we will
but let it be changed." We can
only be captives of an idea if we choose to be. Doing things the traditional way is only one of an infinite
sea of possibilities.
·
Second, thinking, really thinking
discusses what is and hearing the Truth is not something that we
are necessarily prepared to do through ordinary, everyday consciousness.
Hearing the Truth requires conscious presence.
Living our lives from the perspective of tradition can stifle our sense
of the possible. The truth can be declared right in front of us and we will not
hear it if we are living a life based only upon our past experiences. Living
this way shows up disguised as what we already know or having the answers.
We all know such a know-it-all, and we may have been that know-it-all.
Because we are free, we can choose, at great cost, to go ahead and live
stifled, predictable lives based upon this kind of knowledge rather than what
is. Ernest Holmes taught
that: "The Truth points to freedom, under Law. Thus the inherent
nature of man is forever seeking to express itself in terms of freedom. We do
well to listen to this Inner Voice, for it tells us of a life wonderful in its
scope; of a love beyond our fondest dreams; of a freedom which the soul
craves." We have this
potential to hear the Truth at all times and through our conscious thought, we
do experience such a life!
Heidegger
is telling us that we must acknowledge and respect the language of thinkers,
allowing it to arrive in consciousness untainted and fresh.
How can we do this when we are jam-packed full of our own answers and
ideas? This is what Ernest Holmes
meant when he suggested that we remain “open at the top.” No matter how
great the ideas that we have already absorbed might be, remaining open allows
for the possibility in consciousness of even greater ones to come to us, adding
to the wonder and majesty of a life of spiritual freedom.
Remaining open allows us to mine what lies in the unthought and the
unsaid. Unexpressed potential is
what the future is all about. When
there is something still left to think, to experience we are in the presence of
what makes living a truly vibrant experience.
If all was said and done, what would there be left to do, to think, to
experience? It truly isn’t an
inherent lack, rather, it is the presence of the possibility of life that all is
not yet said and done. Heidegger,
in saying that “The more original the thinking, the richer will be what is
unthought in it. The unthought is the greatest gift that thinking can bestow.”
This gives us the keys to the kingdom of thought, he says that there is a part
of it left to us, and that it is a very rich part!
This part leaves that which has not yet been thought in the silence where
we can find it if we would but go within and listen.
The fact that we sometimes do not yet understand an idea is not a
problem, it is the entry point into the mystery of all life.
Just as the still point between our breaths is the gateway to God, that
which is left in the unsaid is a part of that same stillness.
What is still unthought is the potential for the delight of God.
It is the place where we begin to know Spirit and our relationship to the
whole of life. It is the beginning of service to God. How do we start? Ernest
Holmes said what most spiritual masters have said, "The way to work is to
begin right where we are and, through constantly applying ourselves to the
Truth, we gradually increase in wisdom and understanding, for this way alone
will good results be obtained." In
fact, there is no other place that you can begin but with yourself.
Heidegger ends this amazing statement in the following way:
“It is only because man is capable of such silence that he is capable
of authentic speech. If he ceases to be rooted in that silence all his talk
becomes chatter." Ernest
Holmes wisely instructed us to "Seek to make your work a prayer, your
believing an act, your living an art. It is then that the object of your faith
will be made visible to you."
I promised that I would tell
you this week what to do when you realize that you cannot keep a promise.
It is very simple, acknowledge what has transpired thus far to whomever
it is appropriate to give such an acknowledgement, then, make a new promise that
you firmly believe that you will keep. I
believe that all thinking, all speech is a kind of prayer.
That the way that we live our lives is a prayer.
That there is no time that we are not speaking with God and no time when
God is not listening. The Science
of Mind teaches that “There is no such thing as your mind, my mind and God’s
mind. There is only God’s mind.”
Thomas Hora, MD, a great psychiatrist said the following about
prayer:
When
we pray, we are not trying to reach God with our prayers. What are we trying to
achieve? We are trying to realize that we are emanating from God and therefore
we are partaking in all the qualities of God. . .If a wave were praying, it
wouldn't try to reach the ocean; the wave would try to realize that it is
inseparable from the ocean. That is a tremendous difference which helps us gain
a more perfect understanding of the principle of God and man. We don't really
have a relationship to God or with God, we have an at-one-ment with God.
Compassion for all of life, including ourselves is called
for here. We do not learn these
things overnight, and as Holmes said, "The
mind which condemns, understands not the truth of being, and the heart which
would shut the door of its bosom to one who is mistaken, strangles its own life,
closing its eyes to a greater vision." And from elsewhere in the Science of Mind: "God, the
Self-Existent Cause, speaks and it is done.”
Thank
you for being here today!
Emerson
Center for
