Creating a world that works for everyone doesn’t work for everyone
BY HARV BISHOP
Creating a world that works for everyone doesn’t work for everyone in the world of New Thought
“If I show up at a [New Thought church] I am there for one reason and one reason only — the advancement of my personal awareness,” said a man on Facebook responding to an article on this blog. “If some minister lectures me about some politically correct utopian fantasy (you call it a world that works) I am gone.”
Rev. Chris Terry, of HeartSpace Spiritual Center, a Religious Science center near Dallas, Texas, holds a different perspective. “We can be taking a stand as an organization,” she says, “and giving folks a choice around what they choose to stand for within the arena of our activism efforts.”
Disagreement over whether New Thought should include social justice as part of its mission is also a disagreement over how New Thought adherents define their core teachings.
“New thought has a “mission”? I thought the whole idea was that each of us was responsible for and the creator of our own reality,” wrote the man on Facebook, responding to a post on Centers for Spiritual Living’s (CSL) support for gay rights and CSL’s mission of creating a world that works for everyone. CSL was founded by New Thought luminary Dr. Ernest Holmes and it teaches Science of Mind®, also referred to as Religious Science.
An alternate view was expressed by a New Thought minister: “Being truly grounded in New Thought principles is a grounding in love for all of life. The simple reasoning for this is that [if] we are all a unique divine expression of the One life, call it God, Universe, whatever; any ‘against’ energy I carry, is also against me. If I love myself, and I love life, I naturally have a love of others.”
Terry says, “I notice that many of the traditionalists don’t seem to realize that we can be for individual empowerment and collective transformation. I believe it’s about the ability to hold a both/and perspective, versus an either/or perspective.”
Holmes often said “there is a power for good in the universe and we can use it.” He advocated recognizing the Oneness of humanity and the respect due each person as a manifestation of the Divine. Holmes also championed global peace and a world that works for everyone:
“Our time should be devoted to knowing the truth that sets humanity free from the problems of ignorance; that truth which alone can bring enlightenment to the world that war should cease, that people should live together in harmony because they have recognized the divinity within each other.”
The man objecting on Facebook continued, “If sufficient numbers of us are awakened, an outcome may be that a world that works for everyone is created through collective mind. However, that is a bi-product of awakening, not a separate reality. To give [social justice] status equal to individual awakening implies that it can be achieved in some way other than mass individual awakening. I don’t even know what a world that works for everyone looks like and neither do you so I have no idea what I could do to make that mission successful. I am going to continue my work on finding my own personal spiritual magnificence and know that that is one step closer to a world that works for everyone.”
I don’t think we can plead ignorance on what a world that works for everyone looks like. One could suggest addressing climate change and discrimination as starters.
Nor can we say that social justice is a utopian ideal that can never be achieved. That argument could have been raised about representative democracy prior to the American Revolution or the nascent Civil Rights movement in the 1950s. I do agree that individual and collective awakening is critically important, but I also believe that raising consciousness and taking action are deeply interdependent. Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King used meditation and prayer to inform their actions. They did not sit and pray away oppression. Their actions raised collective consciousness.
Laws supporting equality are often needed until consciousness is raised and hearts and minds are changed, says Obadiah Harris, author of “The Simple Road,” in a forthcoming Science of Mind magazine article. Harris was a close associate of Holmes in the last years of Holmes’ life.
I believe Harris is correct. History shows the US Supreme Court’s historic Brown v. Board decision declaring racial segregation unconstitutional accelerated an upward shift in the numbers of Americans supporting desegregation.
American conservatives and liberals have a natural predisposition to embrace different parts of New Thought’s core teachings.
The idea that we are responsible for creating our reality dovetails with the conservative view that we make our own luck in life. If we are poor, that is our lack of initiative. This perspective also has roots in the Protestant work ethic that began as a religious belief that worldly success equals evidence of God’s favor and a place among the elect in heaven.
Where conservatives emphasize personal responsibility for creating our reality, liberals stress being empowered to express our true selves rather than conform to social norms. The recognition that we are each manifestations of Divinity and due the respect of a manifestation of the Divine, fits well with liberals’ radical tolerance, concerns for equality and addressing racism, poverty, homophobia and environmental degradation.
As Terry remarks, New Thought’s core teachings are both/and not either/or.
Absolutely both/and – I think we actually cannot align with our divine aspect and feel separate from the Whole. And as we raise in our own vibration, that awareness of inter-relatedness brings forth the desire and means to See that for others, and for Mother Earth.
Thank you Sara. We can’t transform without being whole!
There is something to be said for keeping a focus on individual personal spiritual development. But that does not have to be the sole focus any longer. It is important to be discerning in the kinds of social activism that a community or an organization engages in – when it has already been framed as a political issue and sides have been taken, disharmony can grow in the spiritual community. Issues must have a clear spiritual means of approach based on core principles of the teaching. It is not always a clear and easy pathway. What is called for is highly competent leadership in spiritual communities. Without well-developed emotional and spiritual intelligence, these issues can lead to conflict, which, while not a bad thing in and of itself, it does require a lot of energy in a spiritual community.
Before initiating a program of social activism, there should be a lot of conversation in the community and a lot of visioning so that a clarity of both purpose and direction can be developed.
Wonderful points about following through on a community level Dr. Jim.
I think what concerns me are certain individuals who don’t even want to have those conversations and want to keep the sole focus of the organization on personal empowerment as the gentleman quoted in this blog (anonymously to protect privacy).
I also want to point readers to Dr. Jim’s outstanding blog New Thought Evolutionary where he looks at leadership issues in New Thought through a holistic Integral lens.
https://newthoughtevolutionary.wordpress.com/
From the south of the south my perspective is different, I think “a world that works for everyone” is not an exclusive North American vision, or better, this is the problem, not only for our teaching but for all “american” point of view respect all other people and countries, Ana
Thank you for this important reminder Ana. The Association for Global New Thought does maintain just such an inclusive international collaboration that should be more widely spread.
It might be useful to think of this –less as a conflict within NT over our mission –and more as a result of the longstanding tensions within our culture of individualism. Analyzing America’s young democracy in 1835, Tocqueville wrote that individualism not only causes “each man to forget his forebears, but it makes it difficult for him to see his offspring and cuts him off from his contemporaries. Again and again it leads him back to himself and threatens ultimately to imprison him altogether in the loneliness of his own heart.” For Tocqueville, the answer is “self-interest properly understood,” whereby an individual sees his connection to the community (the whole) and understands that as he serves the community to improve general social conditions, the individual is thereby enriched. In other words, we all benefit from clean air, public order, and an enlightened, educated society.
Well said Maryjane. Enlightened self-interest is key here. And I do agree that the cleavages we see here in New Thought are more about our polarized US politics and the longstanding US embrace of individualism than New Thought’s core teachings. That’s what I wanted to get at in this blog by noting that US liberals and conservatives embrace different aspects of the core teachings. I think there are also different strains of individualism: one dealing with free thought, conscience and dissent from the herd (i.e. Thoreau) and the other an acquisitive me-first individualism which can in Tocqueville’s beautiful words “imprison” our hearts.
When we start and work from the premise that I create my own reality while remembering that we all create our own reality then the Power in and of itself spreads through the collective consciousness and all are lifted up. Let us never forget the awesome power of the great I AM. Never look at our neighbor as a poor unfortunates in need of our material assistance. The highest and best we can give is to know the truth about them.
I love this quote by Mother Teresa: “I used to pray that God would feed the hungry, or do this or that, but now I pray that he will guide me to do whatever I’m supposed to do, what I can do. I used to pray for answers, but now I’m praying for strength. I used to believe that prayer changes things, but now I know that prayer changes us and we change things.” Don’t know what a world that works for everyone looks like? Let’s start with the basics: food and shelter. In San Luis Valley, Colorado, 1 in 4 children live in poverty. I can affirm in prayer – referred to as spiritual mind treatment in Religious Science – that all children have access to healthy food, then I can do my part and contribute to the food program at my local elementary school. In Religious Science we call this “treat & move your feet.” I love that the church I attend provides opportunities to give back to the community throughout the year. We don’t get preached at about what we should do, but we are given opportunities to make a meaningful difference in ways that call to us.
I think that one of the problems people have in New Thought, especially those who are new to this way of thinking, is the idea of “right action”. Right Action is about the correct pathway for you to whatever it is you’re seeking and not about any kind judgment about motives or actions. Often people, without realizing it, bring their moralistic understanding to the term rather than an accurate on. This causes a struggle with the concept. That was certainly true for me in the begging of this journey.
I’m not sure if “creating your own reality” is accurate. And it’s in that statement that another set of problems are brought about. Creating a different reality seems more on the mark. I like Neville Goddard’s idea of “states”. The states themselves always exist to be occupied. Conscious or not, we will inhabit them to varying degrees (e.g. poverty, prosperity, loneliness, happiness, etc.). We are the operant power and with consciousness we can choose the state we wish to occupy.
Another problem enters into the mix when we start thinking things like, “the poor don’t need our help because they can create a better reality for themselves”. Faulting others for their beliefs instead of remembering that our own journey to this thinking involved a struggle with our own beliefs in order to get here. It can also be very hard for people to even see their own beliefs or to accept that such a thing even exist. It’s not initiative that anyone lacks. It’s the truth about how their own minds work and a conscious experience of that.
I came to New Thought after briefly exploring Taoism. Indeed, I still think of New Thought as sort of a Western form of Taoism. So it makes sense to me that you cannot know light without dark, good without evil, happy without sad, etc. Though I agree that evil itself is not so much an illusion as it is the idea of the One Power turned upside down. As Dr. Joseph Murphy wrote in his book, Telepsychics,
“Good and evil are in the mind of the individual; they are nowhere else. Think good and good follows. Think evil and evil follows.”
I think it is a simple and as difficult as that. Realizing that you are not your thoughts and that you can have some control over them is not something commonly understood much less taught broadly in our society. So I’m not sure if we can ever achieve a world that works for everyone in the truest sense of the word. Put another way, we already have a world that works for everyone and maybe our task is do what we can to make everyone aware of that? And social involvement is a great way to go about achieving that goal.
And, I believe, people who only want to work on getting “stuff” still have to work with the principle of One Power if they’re working on a goal from this path. A world where everyone is working with and from these principles is still a pretty place.
A world where everyone is working with and from these principles is still a pretty GOOD place.
Yes, there is much in Tasoist philosophy that is pure New Thoght (or vice versa). The same can be said of Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism, and yes, Christianity as well.
I think it is easy for many of us to forget that having time, energy and access to educational material is a privilege that is not shared by all. If I am a person living in poverty and struggling to simply feed my family while working 47 part time minimum wage jobs I don’t really have time to study personal transformation. And because our society tends to be so segmented by social class those struggling with poverty are not likely to be spending time with very many people who are focused on transformational spiritual study.
Which, for me, informs both/and. We must help to create a world that works from the “outside of self”(food, healthcare, housing-the basics) if we want to support and create a world that is transforming from the inside. Only when people experience a degree of freedom can they understand that freedom is theirs.
Great articles-thank you.
Bravo, Barbara — thank you so much. I believe in a metaphysics that meets the everyday person where he or she lives. If there is a “magic key” to self-change it comes down to wanting it — with complete passion. Without that nothing is possible, however deeply a person studies. And with it, anything can be an agent of change: the Beatitudes, or a little pamphlet like “It Works” (Feel free to contact me at MitchHorowitz.com and it’ll be my pleasure to send you a copy.) And, yes, the basics of life are absolutely essential as a starting point for any human possibility. I want a metaphysics of results — one that is practical and to the benefit of the working person. I wish and yours every good thing -Mitch
As a CSL practitioner, I’ve found the idea that this teaching is concerned solely with personal transformation — it’s all about me — to be commonplace. In fact, it’s rare that anyone seeks spiritual mind treatment around global or societal transformation. Almost without exception, we’re focused on what’s good for me — more money, more sex, more health. I don’t find this surprising given that New Thought is a distinctively American phenomenon that flourished and was shaped by capitalism and our myth of the rugged individualist. In America there is no greater sin than not being materially successful. People are drawn to New Thought centers because the teaching holds out the promise of personal transformation and rewards in the here and now. In most cases, they show up because there’s something missing in their lives and they want to find a way to get it. For some that becomes an expanded consciousness. For many others the material rewards are enough. In fact, New Thought — as John Haller and others have noted — tends to attract and reinforce conservative and Libertarian thinking. The worthy are rewarded in this world and those who aren’t get what they deserve. In that respect, New Thought becomes a facade to cover individual greed and prejudice. It also makes the idea “we are all one” rather hollow. How do you divorce the personal from the global — the good of the individual from the good of the whole? Many are able to do it quite neatly.
Hi Randy,
Thanks for these most thoughtful comments. You capture well the shadow side of New Thought. And it is inevitable it will be shaped to some degree by larger social/cultural trends such as capitalism and individualism. I do think there is another side to New Thought discussed in some of Mitch Horowitz’s posts here and also in the interview article with him that I wrote for SoM magazine. That is its radical tolerance and acceptance especially for women and the LGBTQ community. And also its embrace of progressive politics in the early 1900s. Then of course it became about attaining the capitalist definition of success. I would say that now, in part do some of the ministers and others featured on this blog, that there is a new evolutionary move afoot to move from me to me and we.
We don’t need to be involved n every politically correct social cause. Not as a movement. That is entirely an individual thing.
As has been discussed elsewhere in this blog, there is much in conservative/libertarian thought that resonates well with New Thought. There are places where Rand and other libertarian writers so fully intersect New Thought that you might think what they’re saying is from Ernest or some other New Thought writer.
The late libertarian-ish writer Dr. Leonard Read was published in the July 1975 issue of Science of Mind, which I have. (I knew Dr. Read a bit.) His essay “I. Pencil” and his book “Meditations on Freedom” resonate very well with a New Thought worldview.
There are many others, as well.
It’s amazing how our ideas are “mainstreamed”. The conservative radio host Sean Hannity is an unabashed fan of Eckhart Tolle. Rush Limbaugh does commercials for the “empowerment” teacher John Maxwell (who uses many New Thought ideas).
And I have heard Glenn Beck tell this story, which is well known and popular in New Thought circles:
A man tried to change the world. He was unsuccessful.
So he tried to change his country. He was unsuccessful.
so he tried to change his community. He was unsuccessful.
So he tried to change his street. Again, he was unsuccessful.
So he tried to change his family. Still, he was unsuccessful.
So he tried to change himself — and he was successful.
And that changed his family.
And his family changed the street.
And the street changed the community.
And the community changed the country.
And the country changed the world.
(A favorite of mine also.)
i came to new thought from the place of gangs, drugs and a very fast and hard life. i was rejected by eveyone in my past. now i’m part of a vibrant, loving and supportive community. is there forgiveness? yes! i am also buddhist and understand it very well in the arena of personal responsibility and experience. it,s easy for those who hurt to say that the truth isn’t for them. anger is our greatest weakness. love everyone.
I absolutely agree that the Unity perspective is and/both, nor either/or. However, this is a very difficult concept for most folks. I am currently facilitating a book discussion group, and we are studying the writings of Gregg Braden, who talks about re-defining our idea of Compassion. He alludes to the fact that this is a concept that cannot be understood until one is ready and spiritually hungry for a new perspective.
Thank you for your very timely article.
Rev. Eleanor Bentley
There was a former Congressman and presidential candidate (now no longer among us) who said that some people “define their compassion by how many people they’re helping. We define compassion by how many people no longer need our help.” That resonates with me. Our goal is to help people move into their magnificence so that they no longer need us to help them.
Until then, we have work to do.
Chris Terry is one of the bright younger lights of New Thought Spiritual Leadership. There is no doubt that the issue of whether to open to the outer or remain focused solely on individual spiritual development is controversial at this point in time. However, the direction of the movement is clear: it is toward greater engagement with the world. And while the concept of “A World that Works for Everyone” can be semantically challenging, it really just speaks to creating an environment where humans have the greatest opportunity to thrive. It means living and promoting the core qualities of Peace, Love, Joy, Wisdom, Light and Freedom. It guarantees no specific outcomes, but creates more space for potential to express fully.
The great Eric Butterworth once said, “The only sin is the frustration of potential.”
I see a world that work for everyone as a planet where the frustration of potential is minimized in every possible way.
New Thought is awakening to its own potential to be a greater force for good in the world.
“I see a world that work for everyone as a planet where the frustration of potential is minimized in every possible way.”
Beautifully articulated definition Dr. Jim!
A world that works for everyone, in my view, is a world where each individual is free to advance his or her personal awareness, prosperity, and self-expression with minimal interference.
One aspect of a world that works for everyone, it seems to me, is the right to live one’s beliefs. As members of a religious and philosophical minority, we New Thoughters ought to be staunch defenders of religious liberty.
Yet too many people in our movement seem not to be supportive of individual conscience and the ability to act upon it when it comes to beliefs and belief systems they reject.
Isn’t our movement universal? Isn’t it for all? Isn’t that what a world that works for everyone entails?