Descartes said, “I think, therefore I am.” Or, I think, therefore I AM. What is the difference?
The first statement is true when we allow an undisciplined mind, pulled here and there by outer forces. The second is true when we are operating from high level decision-making, guided by our inner wisdom, our I AM.
Either way, it is all about me - or is it? As I am the one thinking my own thoughts; choosing to create my life from either an unconscious or conscious place; and in the knowing that my world of condition is an effect of my deepest beliefs, then yes, it is me.
However, if indeed I am not my thoughts, my words, my body, my experiences, or my dreams, but a spiritual entity expressing in form, in the truest sense, then how can it be ALL about me, when ‘me’ is ever-evolving and unable to be defined?
Therefore, what I experience must be a result of direct thought, giving rise to and attracting energetically the corresponding forms, experiences, and conditions I observe, but who is actually doing the thinking and the observing?
Confused? Good. For it is within the state of not knowing and not understanding (not grasping an idea and identifying with it) that infinite, malleable potential resides. This is precisely where our subconscious thought patterns can be released and shaped into the formation of new pathways. It is said that we can only start where we are. Where we are must include our spiritual truth.
The spiritual principle, ‘There is only One,’ is good to lean into and contemplate, especially when we are wrestling in the ‘mud’ with someone, and not having fun!
Let us get a grip on understanding this Spiritual Truth. When something joyful, painful, or fearful in our lives catches us off-guard, this is being both created and observed by the One Mind experiencing Itself in that moment through Itself, uniquely as the ‘me’ we purport to be. When we let go of who we believe ‘me’ to be and listen to the still small voice of wisdom, our capacity to use the Power for Good in this universe increases exponentially. Within this divine wisdom lies a spiritual Intelligence ready to reveal infinite possibility in any given moment.
Ernest Holmes states, “We are the thinker behind the thought.” What is your interpretation of this?
Here is what I think. If we know there is only One Mind and that we, as individualizations of that One Mind are using It to think, clearly, there is a thinking Mind thinking me. The ‘me’ that we describe, be it personality, soul or spirit, is still a limited description, based upon our knowledge and imagination.
All thoughts, since time immemorial, are in the One Mind. Nothing - no thought, no condition, no history, no future can live outside the One Mind. All is comprised within - even that which has not yet been realized, identified, named, and perceived, by the observer.
Our theme for this month is sacred relationships and appreciating this concept of One Mind is critical. We are often faced with the need to become clear on the principle that there is only One. This need for understanding can often be initiated by the thought, ‘Wait a minute, this isn’t mine, it is your stuff!’; while the clarity in understanding this principle follows with this thought, ‘and (not but) I see what part of it is mine.’
My mind is a centre of Divine operation. The Divine operation is always for expansion and fuller expression, and this means the production of something beyond what has gone before, something entirely new, not included in past experience, though proceeding out of it by an orderly sequence of growth. Therefore, since the Divine cannot change its inherent nature, it must operate in the same manner in me; consequently in my own special world, of which I am the centre , it will move forward to produce new conditions, always in advance of any that have gone before. - Dr. Thomas Troward
It is all about Me, and It is not about Me, at all. When we can appreciate that these two contradictory statements can both be true. we look at our lives with a new perspective full of powerful potentiality!
Rev. Nadene Rogers