Session # 6 - As You Believe

Lifestream

Your Flow of Creative Living

© 1996, Carolyn Odom Burleson, Ph.D.

Session VI

"As You Believe"

“This world is not so bad a world as some would like to make it: Though whether good, or whether bad Depends on how you take it.”

- Michael Wentworth Beck (1815-1843)

CONTENTS: (Click on any bar to return to contents.)

As We Believe

The concept of Faith is so important that I think it necessary to devote an entire chapter to its discussion. There is one phrase we see repeated over and over in the teachings of the Master Jesus: “ Be it done unto you as you believe." That little word "as" can help to explain this teaching.

The dictionary defines it thus:

Thus, whatever is manifesting in our life experience is the Stream of Life answering our call in direct proportion to our belief in it, following our directions which way it should go, according to the time we decide, in the character we design, to do the work that we assign it. This is the teaching of the Master Jesus, "Be it done unto you as you believe."

Scientists call this Lifestream the "ethers" charged with electro-magnetic energy which according to its vibratory rate condenses into a multiplicity of forms. The slower the rate of vibration of this energy, the denser the form it takes in materialization, all material originating from the same source. The Master Jesus calls this same “Ether" the "Kingdom of GOD" which is at once within us and surrounds us with Spirit substance from which all things come into being. He enjoins us to, "Seek ye first the Kingdom of GOD and His [right-use-ness] and all these things will be added unto you." If all things come from the Kingdom of God, how then do we appropriate our needs from this Kingdom? What shapes Spirit of the kingdom into form? What brings the energy of the ethers into dense matter?

The answer is Mind, the creative intelligence of the universe. A principle attribute of Mind is consciousness, and it is through consciousness that Mind is channeled into expression. The way to appropriate our needs from the Kingdom is to do as any child of a king would do; simply accept them as ours in the first place. We seek first the Kingdom and believe that all that comes with it is ours, that what we desire is already ours in Spirit. If we can believe it is ours in Spirit, our consciousness will allow us to accept it in form.

The Master Jesus is a perfect example of believing, accepting, knowing consciousness. He drew upon the abundant Kingdom to channel into expression wine for a wedding feast; bread and fish to feed five thousand followers; life for Lazarus; health for the infirmed; sight for the blind; even money to pay taxes from the mouth of a fish! And he taught us his secret, "All things are possible to him that believeth." "Whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer - Believing - ye shall receive. "If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed nothing shall be impossible unto you." “. ..great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt." "... as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee." "According to your faith be it done unto you." I think this teaching is reiterated more than any other concept that Jesus taught.

We too can cultivate this kind of consciousness by following the advice of the Master Jesus to seek first the Kingdom of GOD and believe, as he believed, that the Father works in and through us to provide for our every need. HE does so by sending us Divine Ideas that if accepted and acted upon will serve to restore our health, harmonize our relationships, care for our loved ones and lift our spirits.

How Faith Works

In the book of Hebrews faith is defined as the "substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen.” The fact that we can be conscious of and ideate the unseen gives evidence of its substantial existence. We can and do shape and form spiritual substance with our own mental images through our belief in them. Our faith recognizes the existence of spiritual substance and accepts the possibility of its manifest form. Each time we use our imagination we exercise our faith. The picture or belief that we hold in mind will generate our thoughts. As we reflect and reason upon these thoughts we literally slow down the rate of vibration of the energy of these thoughts to the level where we can apprehend them.

Our faith works for us no matter in which direction we choose to exercise it. Fear is an exercise of faith, but in the wrong direction. If we believe that we are separate from GOD, then we experience a feeling of separateness. If we believe in lack and limitation, illness and failure, then this is what we bring into our experience through the exercise of our faith in it. This is why it is so very necessary to redirect our thinking toward the Truth of our being, and only allow Images of plenty, wholeness, peace and harmony into our consciousness. It is within our power to pick and choose the thoughts we entertain in our minds. Let us use our power of choice wisely.

Our belief system is a composite of ideas which we accept as true or real. These ideas form a pattern of thinking to which our subconscious mind responds. As stated previously, ideas and beliefs to which we direct our attention consciously and repeatedly will eventually feed into our subconscious mind where they continue to work until we find ourselves acting out these ideas and beliefs unconsciously. This is how all habits are formed. If we focus our attention upon thoughts of Truth, abundance, health and wholeness, harmony and success, this will manifest in our affairs because we have formed the habit of "right-use-ness” of our thoughts. But if we form a habit of dwelling upon suffering, antagonism, lack of resources, limitation, failure, resentments and the like, we will have a very difficult time attracting anything positive into our experience until we have changed our thinking patterns.

I am reminded of a dear friend who often calls me for counsel. Over several years she experienced major difficulties with relationships which led her to believe that her life was subject to calamity, and so she must always be on guard. She believed that if she let down her guard people would move in to do her hurt or harm, that all sorts of calamities would befall her. The tension of constantly being "on guard" caused her to suffer with severe migraines and back aches, as well as fears and suspicions that haunted her.

Well, she started her search for Truth and discovered many wonderful things about herself and her world, and yet she was still afraid to let her guard down for fear her life would fall apart. As she began to discover her "Higher Power," as she called it, she became more and more dissatisfied with her life as she was urged from within to move up. She prayed and sought guidance from her Higher Power until she finally reached the point that she was ready to let go and turn her life and all its problems over to her Higher Power. She let down her guard and felt such a sense of relief that she wept for joy all through the night.

The very next day her self fulfilling prophecy fulfilled itself. There was a problem with her house, a problem with her credit card, a problem on her job, a problem with her boyfriend, and to top it all off she had an accident with her car and then discovered that the insurance company had no record of having received her insurance payment. With all of this she was so distraught; she felt she had been betrayed by God Himself. She called me ready to renounce all faith in God and give up on life. She could not understand why God would allow this to happen to her when she finally placed her faith in Him.

I did as I always do when someone calls me seeking counsel. While she was relating her sorrowful story, I turned inward to ask for the right words to say to her that would help her to understand the cause of her problems and serve to comfort her as well. Then I simply listened. Before long the answer came when she said, "I feel like I'm experiencing the sufferings of Job." She had hit the root of her problem, herself. Thinking back to the lessons of Job, I remembered the phrase he uttered, "Lo, the thing I feared the most has come upon me.” This, dear friends, is exactly what had happened to her. She had placed her faith in that fear for so long, that it had no other choice but to manifest itself the first opportunity it had. So as soon as she let her guard down, the thing she feared the most came upon her. It was done unto her as she believed.

Friends, we attract to ourselves our greatest desires, but also our greatest fears. 'Why? Because these are the things on which we concentrate our thoughts and give the most of our energy, thus establishing a pattern in our consciousness. Faith works the same no matter what the activity. The beliefs and ideas in which we place our faith become real for us; they take form through the very energy of our thoughts and convictions, resulting in an outpicturing in our affairs of life. We would be wise to examine our lives very closely to see how it has responded unto us as we believe. We may find that it is necessary to change our thinking patterns in order to establish some new habits that work for our good rather than against us.

How then do you establish within yourself a positive belief system that will serve to enhance your life? This is not such an easy process, especially if you have created a comfort zone of fear, self pity and resentment of others. It can be done, however, through a process of evaluating and challenging the beliefs you now hold. You must be willing to believe differently. You must have reached that point where you realize that your present belief system does not serve to take you where you wish to go.

I use a simple formula to help remember the process:

ADMIT - COMMIT - SUBMIT - REMIT

First you must admit. You must Acknowledge to yourself, that is, confess that you need help, that you cannot do it alone. There is absolutely nothing wrong with needing help. We all have times when we help others as well as times when we need help. As soon as you admit that you need help, you make room in your consciousness for the help to come to you. For you have become receptive to it by letting go of an attitude that blocked your good. Letting go can sometimes be a painful process, but in the end you will find it well worth your while.

There are a number of training process and support groups that can help you in this regard: The Life Training of the KAIROS Foundation; Clear Mind Training offered by the Living Love Center; a Quartus Foundation Workshop; A Course in Miracles study group; and my Lifestream Workshops.* All of these are very good sources of help.

I also recommend that you read such books as Og Mandino's The Greatest Miracle in the World - It will change your whole perspective of yourself. Handbook to Higher Consciousness, by Ken Keyes will help you change your perspective of others. The Planetary Commission, by John Randolph Price, will help you to bring in-to focus those aspects of your belief system that have not served for your good so that you may revamp them. Attend a Rosicrucian seminar You will learn much about tapping your inner source of direction, strength and power. Visit a UNITY Center in your town. There are many other sources of help that will come to your attention once you admit that you need it. You must understand that changing your belief system is a process that will take some time and concerted effort on your part. Be patient with yourself. Healing occurs from within. It sometimes forms an unsightly external scab which serves as protection for the wound while the healing is taking place on the inside. Surround yourself with positive thinking and loving people who can see beyond the external scab and know with you that your attitudes and beliefs are going through a healing process, and that your good is working out.

The next step in the process of establishing a new belief system is to commit yourself to a daily program with which you will work to uplift your consciousness. Set aside a special time for daily practice of prayer and meditation to commune with the Divinity within you, your Higher Power, the Master Within, The Christ of your Being. Before your begin, do the exercise given to you in chapter one. Daily practice of this exercise will help you to master the art of quieting the mind in order to hear the "Still Small Voice when it speaks to you. Through prayer we direct our consciousness toward God, and through meditation we listen and learn God's will for us.

Once you have admitted to yourself that you need help, and committed yourself to an activity that will bring you the help you need, the next step is to submit. You must submit your will to the Will of the Father as it is made known to you through meditation, i.e. get your personality out of the way, and allow the Inner Self to express freely. Through the practice of meditation you will become more attuned to the inner voice and more receptive to the messages from your Higher Self. But you must be willing to submit to the higher authority and heed the message. Follow your intuition, and it will prove to you its rightness. The more you see proof of its rightness, the more you will trust the God within and allow yourself to be guided by it.

The next step is to remit, meaning to pardon or forgive. Forgiveness is probably the single most important thing you can do to help yourself in your soul growth. When you forgive you are letting go of the belief that one deserves punishment for acting out of his own level of consciousness. When you forgive, you let go of the guilt you feel from holding on to erroneous beliefs, and you release others from guilt.

Forgiveness leads to a freeing up of consciousness. You become free of the beliefs that keep you bound to the mire of the earth as well as bound to those toward whom you hold resentment.

The Remission Process

#1. To begin your remission (forgiveness) process, make a list of every one you can think of for whom you have ever felt resentment. Be sure to include everyone in your family, as well as yourself.

#2. Do the exercise given in Chapter One for attunement with the Lifestream. Raise yourself up on the Lifestream to attune with your Christ Self.

#3. From that perspective send out the Lifestream with a beam of light, and one by one bring each person on your list before you.

#4. Say to each person, "I release any and all resentment I have ever held toward you. I forgive you completely, and I am forgiven." Repeat this three times to the person before you, and experience each word that you utter.

#5. Experience the freedom you feel as you cut the cord, that has kept you bound to that person, while saying, "I release you, and I release myself.

#6. Now, seek and find the Christ Light within the person standing before you. See the Light radiate outward from the person to ward yourself as the Light within you reaches out toward him until they meet and merge into one brilliant Light which encompasses you both. Then say, "The Light which had been concealed by resentment and ill will is now revealed to us both. The Light has cleansed us both and has transmuted those ill feelings into unconditional love. As we bathe in the One Light, our hearts and minds are unified in peace and love. I am you, and you are I, and we are One."

#7. Now rest as one in the Oneness of God's Unconditional Love. Simply allow the image to fade into Light.

New Beliefs

Admit that you need help; commit to daily prayer and meditation; submit your will to your Higher Self; and remit all those for whom you hold resentment, including yourself.

By following the four steps listed above, you will then transmit, by way of your emotions, a message to your subconscious mind and establish a new set of beliefs to replace the old ones. By admitting that you need help, you are accepting the new belief that you do not have to struggle through life alone. By committing yourself to the daily practice of prayer and meditation, you are accepting the belief that there is a Higher Power with whom you can commune and on whom you can rely for guidance. By submitting yourself to your Inner Guide, you are accepting and believing in its rightness, knowing that God is with you and provides all of the ideas, experiences, people and substance to meet your every need. And by remitting, i.e. forgiving yourself and all others, you are then accepting a belief in the Oneness of All in All.

The use of affirmations will serve you well in your efforts to refocus your attention toward the good in your life, the good that you want to see manifest in your life, and the good in others. If your repeat the idea that "All that God created is good, because God declared it so." and keep this thought in your consciousness, there will be no room in your thoughts for negative influences. You will begin to seek and find the good in everyone and in every situation. And it will be done unto you AS YOU BELIEVE.

Take some time to write your own affirmations about the various aspects of your life. The more you focus your mind upon the Truth in your life, the more you will see this Truth at work in your life.

My Affirmations

Summary

1. "Be it done unto you as you believe"

2. It is through consciousness that Mind in channeled into expression.

3. The Master Jesus is a perfect example of a believing, accepting knowing consciousness.

4. Faith works to shape and form spiritual substance with our own mental images.

5. Fear is an exercise of faith in the wrong direction.

6. Our subconscious mind responds to our beliefs.

7. Our dominant thoughts establish a pattern in our subconscious mind, resulting in an outpicturing in our affairs of life.

8. A change in our thinking patterns will result in a change in our affairs of life.

9. To establish a new belief system, use the formula:

10. Forgiveness is the single most important step in our soul growth.

11. Affirmations serve to refocus our thoughts toward the good in ourselves and in others.

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workshop

Workshop Session 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - Lifestream Meditation

© 1996 - Carolyn Odom Burleson, Ph.D.

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