FREEDOM FROM BONDAGE: THE FIVE STAGES OF TRUE GROWTH

All of us are in bondage to something or someone, some of us more so than others. Some of us are in bondage to alcohol or other drugs. Others of us are in bondage to other sorts of addictions including being addicted to work and other people. (Oh, how we crave the useless attention and approval of others! But why?) Still others of us are in bondage to mental obsessions and physical compulsions, things that make even our moment-to-moment existence misery. What can we do about all this?

When we get right down to the bottom line all bondage is addiction to self. Yes, addiction to self. Self-obsession, self-absorption, self-centeredness, selfishness. Yes, there may be mental illness as well as physical illness involved as well, but deep down all forms of bondage are bondage to self, that is, to a sense of self that is illusory. We are not a ‘self,’ or those many, many ‘selves’ which are nothing other than mental images. They are not the real person each one of us is. So, what is the answer? We need to—wake up! We need to experience self-release, which is the ending of illusion. Once we see the false as false—and self is the ultimate illusion—a whole new world opens up for us.

George S Arundale

Many years ago I read a little booklet penned by George Arundale. I can’t remember the title of the booklet—it was more of a pamphlet—but I do remember something of immense value in it, something has that helped me greatly in my own life, something that I want to share with you now. Of all the bits and tidbits of advice and wisdom I’ve read over many decades, this gem of spiritual wisdom from Arundale is perhaps the best and most useful of them all.

George Arundale wrote of the five stages of true growth—true spiritual growth, that is. The five stages are as follows: discontent, search, escape, discovery, and freedom. Let’s deal with them in turn.

First, discontent. This is the beginning of freedom. You know, there is a phrase ‘divine discontent,’ because discontent can be a most wonderful thing. Without a certain amount of discontent in our lives we would never seek to grow, learn, understand, or escape bondage. The Indian spiritual philosopher J. Krishnamurti had this to say about discontent: 

Only a mind that is in despair can find reality. A mind that is completely discontented can jump into reality, not a mind that is content, not a mind that is respectable, hedged about by beliefs. ... Though painful, it is a marvellous thing to be discontented ... .

Arundale calls discontent, which is the knowledge and recognition of bondage and limitation, an ‘angel-messenger of Light in the midst of all darkness.’ Take the alcoholic, for example. Alcoholics are never really happy. In fact, they live in misery, as do all addicts. Every alcoholic—and the same goes for any addict—seeks to escape an unwanted self. 

Actually, that is a very necessary thing to do, for we all must learn to escape our unwanted selves, that is, all those false and illusory images we have of ourselves that prevent us from seeing things as they really are. The problem with alcoholism and all other forms of addiction and bondage is that drugs and the like are never the answer. Indeed, they increasingly become the problem, and more and more of a problem, until the sufferer either dies or goes mad. That’s true. Don’t doubt it, even for a moment.

The second stage of true growth is search. Discontent, after varying periods of time, results in a search for a way out. A thought comes to mind— ‘There must be a way out!’ There is—always. So, we look for a way out. That may take a long time, although in most cases we make it longer than it need be. We may seek the views of others. We may join a new religion. We may read self-help books galore. I did all of those things in my own search for freedom. None of them really helped me to break free from bondage, but for some glorious reason I never gave up hope. But eventually I gave in—that is, surrendered, let go. Only then was it that a power-not-myself—for self can never change self, as self is forever the problem and never the solution—led me to freedom. Sadly, many people never get to this second stage. They die—discontented.

Discontent alone is not enough. Insight alone never changes us. We must want change—I mean, really want it above all other things—and we must be prepared to go to any length to get it. As Williams James used to say, we will always do whatever is our strongest desire. Search begins with desire. The stronger the desire for escape, the more likely the search will not be in vain.

George S Arundale

The third stage is escape. We exit the prison. We enter into a new world. Arundale called it a ‘garden.’ Lovely imagery. Then, we make a great discovery.

Discovery is the fourth stage. We take possession of our new world and we discover. We learn. We understand. Gone are the old beliefs that only helped to keep us in bondage. Once, we believed. Now, we know and understand. There is a whole world of difference!

The fifth stage of true growth is freedom. Arundale wrote that we need to be very careful here. Sometimes, if we are not ever-vigilant, we will find that we have entered a larger prison. True spiritual growth, he wrote, is often a case of freedom succeeding freedom as we draw nearer to Eternity—‘at least to an Eternity,’ wrote Arundale.

Discontent … search … escape … discovery … freedom. That’s it! In many ways these five words are all you need to know to be able to live a long, happy, and satisfying life. Arundale wrote that these five steps encapsulate a certain spiritual or metaphysical law—the ‘Law of Universal Growth,’ he called it. He also wrote that this law of growth is ‘God’s gift of Time.’ Perhaps, but for many people time is running out. We must act … now!

‘Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation (2 Cor 6:2), says the New Testament. Yes, right now! Salvation is all about wholeness and health of mind, body and spirit … and freedom from bondage and limitation of all kinds—in this life. Salvation is all about—waking up! It's about self-release. It's about freedom from bondage.

Yes, there is a power-not-oneself that can make all things new. That power, as Norman Vincent Peale has written, is 'a spiritual giant within you, which is always struggling to burst its way out of the prison you have made for it.’ The power can restore you to health and vitality, release you from all bondage, and make your life worth living. The power is your 'real self'—that is, the life in you manifesting itself as you ... your very ground of being ... the source and essence of your life, health, strength, and vitality.

May you come to know this power today ... indeed, right now!

SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS—OR HOW TO BE RELIEVED OF THE BONDAGE OF SELF

‘Relieve me of the bondage of self …’ — from Chapter 5

of the book Alcoholics Anonymous (the ‘Big Book’ of AA).

There’s nothing like fairy tales for telling it like it really is. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is one of the best. It depicts just how terrible it is to be in bondage to self.

An old queen sits sewing at an open window during a winter snowfall. She pricks her finger with her needle. Three drops of blood fall onto the snow on the ebony window frame. The queen admires the beauty of the red on white. ‘Oh, how I wish that I had a daughter that is as white as snow, lips as red as blood, and hair as black as that wood of the window frame,’ she says to herself. Shortly thereafter, the queen indeed gives birth to a baby girl as white as snow, lips as red as blood, and with hair as black as ebony. Snow White is her name. Then the old queen dies. A new era begins.

A year later, the king marries again. His new wife—the new queen—is beautiful but also wicked and terribly vain. As in other fairy tales such as Cinderella and Hansel and Gretel we have the familiar appearance of an evil stepmother. It makes you wonder if there are any nice stepmothers out there! Of course, there are plenty of them—nice ones, that is—but never, it seems, in fairy tales. The new queen has a magic mirror. Every morning she turns to the mirror and asks, ‘Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who’s the fairest in the land?’ The mirror always replies, ‘You, my Queen, are the fairest in the land.’ This new queen is very much involved with herself. Indeed, she is in total bondage to herself. Far too many of us are like her. It’s a terrible predicament to be in, for there is no joy being in bondage to self.

Time passes. Snow White is now aged seven. She is very beautiful and much more beautiful than her stepmother, the new queen. So, when the stepmother queen asks her magic mirror, it responds, ‘My Queen, you are the fairest here so true. But Snow White is a thousand times more beautiful than you.’ This comes as a great shock to the queen, to put it mildly. Funny, isn’t it? We only like to hear what we want to hear. The stepmother queen becomes yellow and then green with envy. Her heart turns against Snow White. Indeed, with every following day she hates Snow White more and more. So, the stepmother queen orders a huntsman to take Snow White into the deepest woods and kill her. She orders the huntsman to return with Snow White’s lungs and liver. That way, she will know for sure that Snow White is finally dead. The huntsman takes Snow White into the forest but is unable to kill her. He leaves her behind alive. ‘She will be eaten by some wild animal,’ he says to himself. Instead, he brings the stepmother queen the lungs and liver of a young boar, which is prepared by the cook and eaten by the queen. (This is an unsuccessful attempt on the queen’s part to relieve herself of her bondage to self.

Snow White wanders through the forest for some time. Eventually, she discovers a tiny cottage which belongs to a group of seven dwarfs. (In sacred numerology—that is, in myths, fairy tales, sacred literature and so on—the number ‘seven’ represents such things as fullness, individual completeness (the number ‘twelve’ representing corporate completeness), the perfection of the human soul and grace. It is considered to be the divine number and thus the most spiritual of all numbers. Read the Bible and the sacred texts and you will see that I am right on that.

No one is at home in the dwarfs’ cottage. So, Snow White decides to eat something, drink some wine and then test all the beds. Finally, the last bed is comfortable enough for her and she falls asleep. In due course, the seven dwarfs return home and discover Snow White asleep. (Life is very much trial and error. We experiment and we experience.) The dwarfs come home and find Show White there. She wakes up and explains to them what happened. The dwarfs take pity on her, saying: ‘If you will keep house for us, and cook, make beds, wash, sew, and knit, and keep everything clean and orderly, then you can stay with us, and you shall have everything that you want.’ (A bit old-fashioned, that. Where are the feminists?) The dwarfs warn Snow White to be careful when alone at home and not to let anyone in when they are away in the mountains during the day.

Meanwhile, the stepmother queen asks her mirror once again: ‘Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who’s the fairest in the land?’ The mirror replies, ‘My Queen, you are the fairest here so true. But Snow White beyond the mountains at the seven dwarfs is a thousand times more beautiful than you.’ The queen is livid. She realises she was betrayed by the huntsman. Worse still, Snow White is still alive. All the stepmother queen can think of is how to get rid of Snow White. So, she disguises herself as an old peddler, walks to the cottage of the dwarfs, and offers Snow White colourful, silky laced bodices. She convinces Snow White to take the most beautiful bodice as a present, then she laces it so tight that Snow White faints. The queen leaves her for dead. However, the dwarfs return just in time and Snow White revives when the dwarfs loosen the laces.

Next morning, the stepmother queen consults her mirror again. Shock, horror! She is told that Snow White is still alive. The queen is incensed. She is aflame with rage and hatred. She decides to dress up as a comb seller and pays Snow White a visit. She manages to convince Snow White to take a pretty comb as a present and proceeds to brush Snow White's hair with the comb. Unfortunately, the comb is poisoned. Snow White faints again but is revived by the dwarfs. The next morning the mirror tells the queen that Snow White is still 'a thousand times more beautiful' than the queen. The queen is now apoplectic with rage. She makes a poisoned apple and, in the disguise of a farmer's wife, she offers it to Snow White, who is at first hesitant to accept it, so the queen cuts the apple in half, eats the white harmless part, and gives the red poisoned part to Snow White. (I am a bit like Snow White. I can resist anything except temptation.) Snow White takes a bite of the apple—the poisoned part—and falls into a state of suspended animation. This time the dwarfs are unable to revive the girl because they can't find the source of Snow White's poor health and, assuming that she is dead, they place her in a glass coffin.

A prince travelling through the land sees Snow White. He strides to her coffin and, enchanted by her beauty, instantly falls in love with her. The dwarfs succumb to his entreaties to let him have the coffin, and as his servants carry the coffin away, they stumble on some roots. The tremor caused by the stumbling causes the piece of poisoned apple to dislodge from Snow White's throat, awakening her. The prince then declares his love for her, and soon a wedding is planned. The couple invites every queen and king to come to the wedding party, including Snow White's stepmother. Meanwhile, the queen, still believing that Snow White is dead, again asks her magic mirror who is the fairest in the land. The mirror says: ‘You, my Queen, are fair so true. But the young queen is a thousand times fairer than you.’

The stepmother queen reluctantly accepts the invitation to attend the wedding. Why? Well, call it fate, karma or destiny. We cannot escape our destiny. A pair of glowing-hot iron shoes are brought forth with tongs and are placed before the queen. She is forced to step into the burning shoes and to dance until she drops dead.

Well, what are we to make of all this? I have already given you a few clues above. Remember, this is my take on the fairy tale.

The story begins with the old queen who has a vision of a beautiful, joyous human being. Such a person will have overcome their bondage to self. He or she is enlightened, so to speak. Of course, we don’t become such a person overnight, and the path to becoming a fully functioning human being is fraught with difficulties. Inside each of us are hundreds of little, false selves in the form of our many likes, dislikes, opinions, beliefs, attachments and aversions. The process of dis-identifying with self is never easy. The new queen appears. Unfortunately, she is very vain and proud, and she seeks to use selfish powers and wisdom for her own entirely selfish purposes. As I see it, the new queen represents any one or more of our false selves which we mistakenly believe are the person that we are. The seven dwarfs symbolise different aspects or facets of the person each of us is. For example, among others there’s Happy, and Sleepy, and Bashful, and Dopey. The latter is especially me! Anyhow, take your pick. One thing to remember. These ‘dwarfs’ are very important and they can help you and me. They are all facets of the spiritually developing person.

The spiritually developing person Snow White, like you and me, is attacked in various ways. Of course, our worst enemy is ourselves—that is, our ‘selves’. The task for each one of us is to overcome the bondage of self. Ultimately, as I’ve said over and over again, we need a power-not-ourselves (that is, a power-not-our-false-selves’) to be relieved of the bondage to self. In the fairy story of Snow White and the seven Dwarfs that power comes in the form of the prince.

The stepmother queen is a graphic representation of all our inner demons—our unruly passions, hates, aversions and attachments. Our ego-self, if you like. It is a paradox of immense proportions that, for something which has no separate, independent existential reality of its own, the ego-self causes us so much damn trouble? Why? Because we let it.

The ego-self has to be thrown off-centre, and if we wish to be truly happy we must give up all things that stand in the way of our spiritual development—things like bad habits, obsessions, addictions, hatreds and resentments. In fact, all forms of self-obsession. Norman Vincent Peale (pictured left), who for 32 years was the senior minister of Marble Collegiate Church in New York City, wrote in his book Sin, Sex and Self-Control (Doubleday, 1966) that each of us must experience ‘a shift in emphasis from self to non-self’. However, there’s a problem. Self cannot overcome the problem of self. The ‘self that tries to overcome self’ is just one more self, having no power in and of itself. In my many blogs and other writings I have quoted often these immortal words of William Temple, a former Archbishop of Canterbury: ‘For the trouble is that we are self-centred, and no effort of the self can remove the self from the centre of its own endeavour.’ What this means is that each of us needs to find a power-not-our-false-selves to overcome the problem of self and bondage to self. In one of his memorable so-called ‘Zen sayings’ Jesus said that we must lose our ‘selves’ in order to find ourselves (cf Mk 8:35). So true.

Snow White—the real person each one of us is—wanders from the path that leads to being a fully functioning human being. The illusory power of our false selves can and does cause that to happen. Eventually, she comes to see the false as false and the real as real. The prince opens her eyes to what is real. Experience, and trial and error, can do that. So, can mindfulness, that is, living with choiceless awareness of what is.

When we practise mindfulness, we learn, bit by bit, to dis-identify with our false selves. It may be our angry self, our resentful self or our frightened self. We learn to give those selves no power. They are not the person that we are. They are images in our mind which we have created over time. Yes, they are quite persistent and, if we allow them to dominate and take over, they can almost come to define the person that we are. However, they are never, never, never in truth the person that we are. You and I are persons among persons. Live as such. Overcome the bondage to self. No effort of the self can do that, but you, the person that you are, is power-other-than-self. Only the latter is real.

I will finish with these words from G K Chesterton. In his book Orthodoxy, in the chapter titled ‘The Maniac’, Chesterton wrote, ‘How much larger your life would be if your self could become smaller in it … .' Indeed.

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A NEW YEAR BEGINS

A New Year begins. It’s a time for taking charge of one’s life and for giving up the old and embracing the new.

It is said that we are born free. Well, never entirely free. You see, part of the price we pay for Spirit (pure Be-ing) descending into matter, for the Word becoming flesh, so to speak, is that we invariably find ourselves caught up, indeed trapped, in a time-bound, self-centred prison which is not entirely of our own making but which becomes more and more escape-proof as we choose, hundreds and thousands of times, to identify with our false sense of ‘self’ in the form of our innumerable likes, dislikes, views, opinions, beliefs, attachments and aversions.

Yet, as Norman Vincent Peale once wrote, ‘There is a spiritual giant within us, which is always struggling to burst its way out of the prison we have made for it.’ How I love those words! The words are themselves bursting with life-changing power. Even if what Peale said were not the case, I think those words of his are nevertheless so powerful that they still could move mountains---perhaps even literally!

Deep down inside ourselves, we know that we were not meant to live as spiritual and emotional cripples. I love these oft-cited words from P D Ouspensky (In Search of the Miraculous) as he quotes George Gurdjieff (pictured right):

Freedom, liberation, this must be the aim of man. To become free, to be liberated from slavery: this is what a man ought to strive for when he becomes even a little conscious of his position. There is nothing else for him, and nothing else is possible so long as he remains a slave both inwardly and outwardly. But he cannot cease to be a slave outwardly while he remains a slave inwardly. Therefore in order to become free, man must gain inner freedom.

The first reason for man's inner slavery is his ignorance, and above all, his ignorance of himself. Without self-knowledge, without understanding the working and functions of his machine, man cannot be free, he cannot govern himself and he will always remain a slave, and the plaything of the forces acting upon him.

This is why in all ancient teachings the first demand at the beginning of the way to liberation was: ‘Know thyself.’

Know thyself. That has always been the message of the great teachers, mystics, saints and holy ones. In the words of Dr Peale, 'Self-knowledge leads to a cure. Self-knowledge is the beginning of self-correction. The first step toward being what you can be is to know what you are.' Yes, until we know we are in bondage -- and until we acknowledge that fact -- there is really no hope for us. However, as soon as we admit to ourselves that we are in bondage, that there is something seriously 'wrong' with and in us, there is hope for us. Further, when we say to ourselves, ‘I want to be free, more than anything else in the world,’ then our walk to freedom begins, but we must be prepared to go to any length to get it.

Do you really want to be free? Well, then, ask yourself this question, ‘Who has bound me?’ No voice answers back -- except perhaps your own -- and if you are in touch with the reality of your being you will come to realize that, in truth, you, the person that you are, have always been free and unlimited.

True, you may have attached your ‘self’ to all kinds of things and persons -- for it is a fact that the 'self' always wants opportunities for gratification of various kinds -- but once you lose the illusion of self your mental states will no longer revert to negativity. Know this: you are not a 'self,' but a person among persons in the All-in-All of Life. If you have trouble accepting the fact that there is no 'self,' I suspect the reason for that is this---your attachment to 'self' is very strong. If so, get rid of your 'self.' Drop it---now! You don't need it, and it only gets in the way of your true Be-ing.

Yes, the person that you are is part of life’s self-expression, and the life of you is always free and unlimited. Life, which is forever engaged in a timeless renewal of itself from one moment to the next, is never in bondage or slavery, but we can and so often do make a veritable prison for ourselves out of our ‘selves’. Never forget that. But we can still assert our innate spiritual freedom---at any time!

Vernon Howard (pictured left) wrote, 'To change what we get we must change who we are.' We need to start living from and in that centre of life-consciousness which is the very ground of your being---the very livingness of your life---right now! You see, this ground of your being is nothing less than the individualised, personalised, condensed totality of Be-ing itself, and this ‘energy-base’ is closer to you than breathing and nearer than hands and feet.  

Yes, Be-ing indwells, infuses, animates and expresses all persons and all material creation – indeed, all life! Nothing, absolutely nothing, exists which is outside the orbit and presence of pure Be-ing, and you are at all times immersed, indeed saturated, in that Be-ing -- that All-in-All -- as It forever lives out Its livingness in and as you, the person that you are. Once you fully awaken to that fact, and start living that fact, you are free. Yes, really!

Those who are free are those who are not in trouble with themselves. They no longer react mechanically, that is, from conditioned thought. They live in awareness. They are not obsessed with the need to be happy. They do not care how others should treat them or behave toward them. They know that the answer to every problem lies within themselves. Further, they know that, for each of us, the only real problem is---ourself, that is, our 'self.'

Do you want to be free? Really? How greatly do you want to be free? Are you prepared to go to any length to be free? 

Happy New Year!

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YOU ARE THE PONTIFF OF YOUR UNIVERSE

‘Man is good, and tells the secret of his goodness in the language of thought.’ Who said that? Well, it was Venerable Fulton J Sheen [pictured], now on the way to Catholic sainthood.

There will be many today, even in the Catholic world, who have never heard of Fulton J Sheen. That is sad, because he towered over the Catholic world in the West for a fair bit of last century. Yes, he shone like a blazing comet, and he was without doubt the greatest Catholic evangelist of last century. Possessing an unforgettable voice, and a gifted wordsmith, he made Catholics proud to be Catholics. Oh, how the Catholic Church needs a Fulton Sheen today! But there never will be another Fulton Sheen. He was a divine original.

Sheen, who was at the helm of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith for some 16 years, wrote dozens of books---many still in print---and was a master communicator. For years he broadcast his message on radio and TV. He even won an Emmy Award. In fact, he won two of them, for ‘Most Outstanding Television Personality.’ He jokingly called himself ‘Uncle Fultie’ in an affectionate nod to his very good friend comedian Milton Berle who was sometimes known as ‘Uncle Miltie.’ Millions wouldn’t be familiar with Milton Berle either. Oh, dear. Anyway, it happened like this. When Sheen won an Emmy, Berle quipped, ‘He's got better writers---Matthew, Mark, Luke and John!’ Shortly thereafter Sheen opened his program by saying ‘Good evening, this is Uncle Fultie.’ Sheen was good at self-deprecation. His sense of humour, though corny at times, was always endearing.

Above: Fulton Sheen ... with his good friend Milton Berle

Below left: Sheen at his Holy Hour of adoration

However, Sheen’s perennial attacks on both communism and psychiatry reveal that he was a reactionary. As respects psychiatry, he saw it as a real threat to the church. Not so his erstwhile Protestant friend Norman Vincent Peale who saw Christianity and psychiatry as very compatible. Peale embraced psychiatry. Sheen shunned it. In that respect Dr Peale was much more ahead of his times even though he too was a reactionary in many ways. Yes, it always seemed to me that Sheen was forever fighting for a rear guard action against change and by the time of his death in 1979 he had become in many ways irrelevant. He became an increasingly nostalgic figure, associated with a bygone era when the Catholic Church, and the United States, were at their strongest.

Sheen’s cause for canonization for sainthood was officially opened in 2002. In June 2012 Pope Benedict XVI officially recognized a decree from the Congregation for the Causes of Saints stating that he lived a life of ‘heroic virtue’---a major step towards beatification---so he is now referred to as ‘Venerable.’ More recently (March 2014), a team of medical experts convened by the Vatican reported there was no natural explanation for the survival of a child delivered stillborn and whose heart did not start beating until 61 minutes after his birth. The survival of the child, James Fulton Engstrom, now three years old and developing normally, was credited by his parents to a miracle attributable to the intercession of the long-dead Archbishop Sheen. The child’s mother and father prayed to Sheen to heal their son.

The case will now move on to a select number of cardinals and bishops, and then finally to Pope Francis who will have to decide whether or not to affirm that God performed a miracle through the intercession of the late archbishop. An amazing story. Ever the skeptic, but ever with an open mind unlike many skeptics, I simply don’t know what to make of all this. We live in a fascinating world, and there is so much we don’t know and can’t explain. Life is a mystery---and, in the words of Fulton Sheen, life is worth living. For the uninitiated, that was the name of Sheen's TV program as well as the title of a series of his more well-known books. Here is a clip from a 1966 episode of his TV program, this one being on the subject of 'The Death of God':

Sheen was very knowledgeable in theology and philosophy, and was very well qualified academically. His theology reveals a great debt to Platonism and Neoplatonism. Sheen would refer to Plato’s question, ‘If there is only one God, what does He think about, for if He is an intelligent being He must think of something?’ He gave this as an answer in his book The Divine Romance:

God does not think one thought, or one word, one minute and another the next. Thoughts are not born to die, and do not die to be reborn, in the mind of God. All present to Him at once. In Him there is only one Word. He has no need of another. That Thought or Word is infinite and equal to Himself, hence a Person unique and absolute, first-born of the spirit of God; a Word which tells what God is, a Word from which all human words have been derived, and of which created things are but merely the broken syllables or letters; a Word which is the source of all the wisdom in the world.

Then there are these gems:

God has two pictures of us: one is what we are, and the other is what we ought to be.

Everything that exists is the realization and concretion of an idea existing in the Mind of God from all eternity.

All art is an imitation of the Divine Artist who, from all eternity, possessed in His Divine Mind the archetypal ideas according to which He made the world in time.

Every bird, every flower, every tree, has been made according to an idea existing in the Mind of God from all eternity.

God has one Idea, and that Idea is the totality of all Truth. Thoughts are not born to die to be reborn in the Mind of God.

God the father is related to God the Son as the Eternal Thinker is related to His Eternal Thought.

I have often read that Sheen’s writings reveal the influence of New Thought, and many New Thoughters claim Sheen as one of their own. True, any of the gems set out above could have been written by a New Thought writer, but the link is more indirect. Sheen was not a New Thoughter although there are certainly some similarities in language and thought-form. Just as Sheen’s theology discloses a debt to Neoplatonism so does New Thought. New Thought is in many ways a revival of Neoplatonism. So was Sheen’s theology---at least in some respects. They both drank from the same fountain, but Sheen was forever the Catholic traditionalist. (It seemed even more so, as the years rolled on.) However, strange though it may seem, perhaps the best way of describing Sheen is to say that he was a Catholic evangelical---perhaps the very first one. Yes, there is such a thing---and Sheen was the greatest one of them all. Dr Billy Graham [pictured left, with Sheen] approved of him, and loved him dearly. He described Sheen as ‘a man whose love for Christ continued to grow until the end of his life.’

I still love listening to Fulton Sheen. I still read his books. When my life was its lowest ebb---some 20 years ago---his writings gave me hope. Almost totally destroyed by years of alcoholism, I these words of Sheen, and they gave me hope that I could get better:

Man is the pontiff of the universe, the ‘bridge builder’ between matter and spirit, suspended between one foundation on earth and the other in heaven.

Man has his feet in the mud of the earth, his wings in the skies.

There are two ways of knowing how good God is. One is never to lose Him; the other is to lose Him and find Him again.

I found Him again. And, as Sheen himself said, ‘Divinity is always where one least expects to find it.’ In my darkest hours, broken in body and spirit, separated from my family because of my drinking, and not knowing whether I would ever be able to continue in my chosen profession, these words of Sheen meant the most to me, and I read them over and over again:

The cross reveals that unless there is a Good Friday in our lives, there will never be an Easter Sunday. Unless there is a crown of thorns, there will never be the halo of light. Unless there is the scourged body, there will never be a glorified one. Death to the lower self is the condition of resurrection to the higher self. The world says to us, as it said to Him on the cross: ‘Come down, and we will believe!’ But if He came down, He never would have saved us. It is human to come down; it is divine to hang there.

‘Death to the lower self is the condition of resurrection to the higher self.’ That is the only thing I write about on this blog of mine. It is the only thing (I think) we need to know and understand … and most of all experience. It is the real miracle---to die to your lower, false self and to be resurrected into newness of life so as to become the living embodiment of that other ‘picture’ of you which the Eternal Thinker has in His Mind … namely, the person you ought to be and in Truth really are.

I will finish with Sheen’s traditional sign-off. God love you.

AUSTRALIA’S FIRST POSITIVE THINKER

‘The positive thinker repels disease:
the negative thinker invites infection.’ 

Who wrote that? Please read on.

On a recent trip to Tasmania I made a pilgrimage of sorts to Bruny Island, an island off the south-eastern coast of Tasmania, where, in a little cemetery at Lunawanna, are the mortal remains of a fascinating and highly eccentric woman who was a pioneer and veritable giant of New Thought in Australia. The name of this woman? The ‘Reverend Sister’ Veni Cooper-Mathieson (also known as Mrs Amanda Malvina Thorley-Gibson) [pictured left].

Sister Veni was born in Maitland, New South Wales, Australia, in 1867, and was initially engaged in newspaper work before embracing New Thought, spending three years (1906-09) in Great Britain and USA studying metaphysics. She died on Bruny Island, Tasmania, Australia, in 1943, aged 75. During her lifetime she founded several New Thought centres in various states of Australia, her pioneer work commencing in 1903. Sadly, she came to grief in Tasmania, the last Australia state in which she settled, when in May 1934 she was fined in the Hobart Police Court for 'practising as a physician.' She was a metaphysical healer, and many such healers ran afoul of the law in those days. After the rather nasty incident in court, Sr Veni appears to have kept a fairly quiet profile.

The twice-married Sr Veni was the archetypal New Thought leader of the day---itinerant speaker, teacher and writer, prolific self-publisher, self-proclaimed ‘healer’, and self-promoter extraordinaire. She taught that Australia was the ‘land of the dawning’ and advocated female emancipation (albeit in some rather odd ways---read on). 

Sr Veni cofounded the Australian New Thought Alliance (conferences held in 1916 and 1928), and also founded many other religious organizations including The Women’s White Cross Moral Reform Crusade (a society to promote celibacy among young women, there being a companion group for young men---not surprisingly not-so-successful), The Universal Truth Healing Fellowship, The Esoteric College and Home of Truth, The Bethany Healing Centre, The Church of Truth Universal (and Metaphysical College), The Truth-Seeker Publishing Company, The Universal Truth Publishing Co (of Australasia), and The Order of the Prince of Peace. 

I should also mention that for a few years during the 1920s, and (it seems) also around 1931, Sr Veni operated a home for unmarried mothers and their babies in Mount Victoria, New South Wales, for a time at the historic home of Closeburn House [pictured below].

Needless to say, all of the various entities and organizations founded by Sr Veni are long gone---although New Thought is still alive and well in numerous new incarnations. 

Some of Sr Veni's books include A Marriage of Souls: A Metaphysical Novel (1914), The Soul’s Immaculate Conception (1923), and The Universal HealthRestorer (1929). She also published and edited the Australian New Thought journals The Truth Seeker, The Healer, and The Revealer. All in all, she was a very busy woman—and she was no doubt sincere in her beliefs whatever others (and the law) may have thought of her.

Sr Veni had an interest in Rosicrucianism---often lecturing and writing on the subject---and she supported the English-born Australian occultist Frank Bennett in his attempt to found a lodge of the OrdoTempli Orientis in Sydney New South Wales, in 1915. (For better or for worse---the latter in my opinion---Aleister Crowley was the best-known member of the order.)

Consistent with New Thought teaching Sr Veni emphasized the innate divinity of every human being. ‘We are all Sparks of the One Eternal Flame, the Great Life Principle, which men call God.’ And what of Jesus? Well, he is ‘the revelator and demonstrator of Good or God in man … our Great Exemplar.’ She wrote that ‘if you are not prepared to go through the entire process [of spiritual transformation and psychological mutation] within your own souls, then the crucifixion of Jesus and the resurrection of Christ has no real meaning for you.’ She also wrote, ‘Mankind has worshipped the personal Jesus, and rejected the Universal Christ, which was individualized and so manifested in and through Jesus.’ I couldn’t agree more. The ‘Christ’ is not a person but a power, a potentiality, and a presence for good---in each of us. The sooner we stop worshipping the Jesus of the Churches, and start worshipping each other---well, the Good in each one of us---the sooner our world will improve for the better. Sr Veni expressed it well in her book A Marriage of Souls:

'Then, of course, all things are possible to us if we will but believe it. We shall have dominion and power over all things; indeed, the power is now latent within us, just as the full-grown man is lying hidden within the babe, only waiting to be developed and hence revealed. When we come to this stage of consciousness we naturally are able to do the works of a Son of God, just as His first-begotten, or eldest son, Jesus, did. He said we were His brethren, and that His Father was our Father, and that Truth is for all eternity and for all Humanity: not only for one people or one age; for God is no respecter of generations or nations any more than He is of persons, He is God of all the earth. This was so … for it came from the Source of all truth, the Spirit within every man that giveth understanding. …'

On the subject of sin, Sr Veni wrote, ‘Sin means “missing the mark” [IEJ: indeed it does] or falling short of the higher ideals of life which you have set up for yourself, and know to be your soul’s true goal. To do or be, less than you are able or capable of doing or being, is sin.’ That, too, sits very well with my Unitarianism. Sr Veni preached a ‘Fourfold Way to Life Eternal’---right feeling, right thinking, right speaking, and right acting. (Does that sound familiar?) Like all New Thoughters, she taught that ‘every thought is a living force.’ ‘When you think a thought, you give life to a created idea. You have used the essence that brings forth a Word; then the Word becomes flesh in the earth of your being. It must produce according to tis quality and character.’

In 1929 Sr Veni wrote and published The Universal Health Restorer. That book, written almost a quarter of a century before the publication of Norman Vincent Peale’s classic book The Power of Positive Thinking was published, contains the following piece of New Thought wisdom---‘The positive thinker repels disease: the negative thinker invites infection.’ 

There you have it---the power of positive thinking (well, the principle, if not that exact phrase which appears to be Dr Peale’s alone).

Rest in peace, Sister Veni. You were one of a kind.

Note. The November-December 2013 issue of New Dawn magazine features an interesting article by Walter Mason on Sister Veni Cooper-Mathieson. You can download a digital version of that magazine issue as well as other back issues of the magazine at the New Dawn website.