OneSelfXpress

The end of an old year and the beginning of a new year are a Universal “marker.”  It is, generally, a time of reflection on the past year, a time for looking forward to the coming year, usually with hope and renewed commitment and energy.  While there are many such markers in our lives:  birthdays, anniversaries, holidays and holy days, the upcoming new year celebration is the one that is globally observed by all the cultures on our planet.

I have been going over the major events of the past year:  the Arab Spring; the protests in Puerta del Sol, Madrid and Madison, Wisconsin; the execution of Troy Davis; the Climate Change Summit in South Africa; the Occupy Wall Street movement; the student and workers uprising in Chile; the unprecedented political outcry in Russia; the endless squabbles and power plays in Washington – and these are just the events that caught my attention! The most obvious common thread to me is that of critical mass:  a critical mass of people standing up for themselves, standing in their own power, recognizing (at some level) that the “powers that be” are only “powers” if we recognize them as such. A critical mass of people engaging, understanding that there cannot be winners and losers, for when one person loses, we all lose, and when the common good is expressed correctly, there can be neither winners nor losers for there is no polarity in the common good.

One of the things that’s different about the current movements from other times in history is that this is the first time that such a disruption is taking place on a global level and is rooted in peaceful demonstration.  Every one of these demonstrations began in peaceful resistance.  Every one of these demonstrations recognizes that we are all one, an excellent illustration of Oneness on the physical plane.

The human experience is about the corporeal and physical:  There are things, events, feelings, sensations that we are not able to experience without a physical body.  So each one of us Perfect Expression of Self unfolding enters this plane to experience.  And when we do, we “forget” that what we see around us is the play, the drama and that Reality is where we came from.  In that “forgetting” we get so caught up in the drama, we think it’s real and then we must “do” something about what we see.  We believe we must heal, we believe we must right wrongs, we believe we must “do something!”

The reality, however, is that the only thing we must do is simply be and remember who we are.  I say “simply,” and it is simple.  It is not easy.

Since we chose to enter this plane of existence for the experience, it behooves us to experience on the physical level.  Just think, in our bodies we are able to experience laughter, tears, a wonderful meal, birth, death, hugs, kisses, sex (BIG favorite!), running a marathon, and the list goes on.  Within our contracted consciousness, we believe that these experiences comprise life.  When our individual expression of Consciousness awakens and expands, we realize that there is life and Life, and that Life is what we yearn for.

One way that awakening Consciousness is perceived on the human level is the pursuit of justice, the awareness of social responsibility, the understanding that what we see as differences – i.e. gender, skin color, nationality, sexual orientation – are just “cosmetic”.  As we remember Self more constantly, we begin to see these “differences” for the nothings that they, in fact, are.

While we are practicing remembrance, however, we must still navigate the currents of our human understanding, and so we feel compelled to “do something.”  So we become activists: political activists, social activists, advocates for all kinds of causes.  And while activism is a wonderful thing, we need to understand that this type of activity is only treating symptoms of a perceived malaise.  The cause of the “ailment” is our inclination to forget our true nature and Life:  We are each and every one of us the Perfect Expression of Self Unfolding Perfectly Unto Infinity and when we remember that, we can see that Harmony prevails.

In Chapter 10 of his “Realization of Oneness,” Goldsmith tells us:

“Nothing happens outside the activity of mind–not a thing…If it is the activity of the mind of God, you cannot change it, you cannot alter it, you cannot improve it, and it would be quite futile to attempt to do so…But on the other hand, anything that exists as an activity of the carnal mind can be nullified in proportion to the degree of your awareness of these [spiritual] principles.”

What we perceive in our surroundings as injustices, as injuries, or even as triumphs, are activities of the carnal mind.  It is the manifestation of the Universal hypnotism that a power other than the One exists.

Goldsmith further cautions us against becoming a blotting paper.  He says:

“On every side, you are witnessing sin, disease, death, lack, limitation, unemployment, disfigurement, alcoholism, drug addiction, poverty.  All these things confront you on the streets, in the press, and on the radio, and you cannot afford to be a blotting paper.”

Goldsmith instructs us to be “consciously alert” and remember that these are just images, pictures, nothings attempting to appear as somethings.

So while we progress on our journey of Awakening Consciousness, on our journey of Remembrance of our True Self, instead of being blotters, let’s start by being human agitators – Go into Science gently, Mrs. Eddy encourages us.  Gently, we transition on the temporal level from believing we are powerless to understanding that we can take action.

At first, while we are still practicing to remember Truth, we become the social, political, economic, scientific activists.  This is the equivalent of treating the symptoms of an ailment.  We can see this play out in the temporal play:  something bothers us, we make it go away temporarily so we believe we’ve solved the problem and we forget about it until the next time it makes itself felt.  We may continue to treat the symptoms until it gets so annoying that we are impelled to seek the cause of the annoyance and to find a way to treat that.

As Therapy of the Soul practitioners we know the cause of the annoyance:  the belief in two powers.  As Therapy of the Soul practitioners, we also know the “cure”:  remembering that God and I are One.

So let us be human agitators shaking our Consciousness awake AND Spiritual Activists, for it is in the activity of Mind, in the conscious remembrance of Truth, that Harmony reigns.

More of us around the globe are becoming human agitators as evidenced by the massive protests around the globe, and with all that agitating something greater is happening:  all that “shaking” is waking something up.  From where I stand, that something is Consciousness and it becomes clearer and clearer to me that we are all, indeed, One.