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(Contents: Part 1, Pathways
of Unity Statement of Beliefs; Part 2, Pathways of Unity Vision & Mission Statement)
Pathways of Unity Statement
of Beliefs
We believe in one Omnipotent, Omniscient, and Omnipresent God, One
Supreme Power of Infinite Intelligence -- called by many names -- who impersonally and without prejudice manifests
Itself in diverse ways in and through Mankind and in and through all of Creation.
We recognize that Humankind holds diverse ideas of the nature and
form of God. Some refer to God as Father, some as Mother or Goddess. To some God is male; to some female; and for some, God
has no gender. Some see God as having a body like man; some recognize God as Spirit or Mind; some regard God simply as "Being"
or "Is-ness." There are as many perceptions, in truth, of who or what God is, as there are minds to perceive It. We respect
these different perspectives in the realization that God, the Omnipotent One, is capable of being all things to all people.
We believe that this Divine Intelligence, or Spirit of God, is Love
and Life, leaving no room in Its Real Universe for strife, competition, anger, hatred, hell, or the eternal death or damnation
of any soul. It is the false mind adopted by Mankind that has created all negative thought. The True Mind of Mankind is God
Mind. (The Psalmist stated, and Jesus repeated, "I said, ye are gods.")
We believe that True Mind, or God Mind, is Love and operates as Love.
The false mind of Mankind is the mind that believes the lies of separation and fear. It is the cause of all the seeming woes
of humanity. If there is a devil by any name, it is the body of such negative thoughts and not an entity in and of itself.
The only power "it" can have over us is in the credence we give to its falsities. Master Jesus said, "Satan is a lie, and
the father of it." In other words, the lie is the father of the lie.
We believe that all of Creation has emanated first as thought from
the Mind of God. We, Humankind, are created in the image of the Divine, that is, as beings or entities that create. We, too,
create our own seeming realities with our minds. We can create false worlds and universes or we can gently pull aside the
veil and realize Conscious Unity with the Real Universe (God). We do create our own "realities." "As a man thinketh in his
heart, so is he."
We believe that the Savior, whether known as the Christ, Atman, Buddha,
or the Divine (God) Within, is seeded within each uniquely created individual that occupies a human body. This Savior is the
Life and Mind of God indwelling man that makes all Mankind one with It. Jesus the Christ, Gautama Buddha, Krishna, and many
other awakened souls of have attained full consciousness of union with God, our Inner Divinity, also sometimes called All
That Is or I Am That I Am, or Brahman.
We believe that Life, which is an attribute of God, is always
eternal. The life of Man exists before the individual's bodily incarnation, and extends far beyond that incarnation into infinity.
Each human being is an individuated manifestation of Divine Mind and therefore the Life of each human being is Eternal, existing
as Spirit and Soul both before and after experiencing life (or lives?) in a dense physical body. The physical body is temporal
only, and will pass away, though for now it is the Temple of God.
We believe that since the ONE GOD, by whatever name, is Life, is Love,
is Omniscient, Omnipotent, and Omnipresent, and indwells us, that these same qualities exist, though often seeming to be dormant,
within the Divine Center of each human soul.
We believe that as we awaken to who we really are, we become enlightened,
fully conscious of our Unity with God and with all humanity, regardless of religious beliefs.
We believe that life on earth is a series of lessons in a course we
are taking while matriculated in a Heaven-mandated "Earth School of Learning Perfect Love," and that we collectively and individually
have contracted with the Higher Power (i.e., God) to go through certain life experiences in order to attain our Higher Good
and our individual spiritual and planetary evolution. To that end, we endeavor to "put aside all malice and envy and strife"
while endeavoring to practice the art of loving our neighbor as if he were our very self, for we believe that our neighbor
is but an aspect of our True Self
We believe that all paths must ultimately lead to God, and so Pathways
of Unity avoids proselytizing for "converts," as we believe each soul has its own path to follow into awakening to its Conscious
Union with God. It is our loving privilege merely to assist one another in this process.
We believe that it is the Spirit that gives life, and that the letter
of the law, of Mankind's traditions and doctrines, tends to quench the Spirit in man. So Pathways of Unity seeks to avoid
the expounding of religious dogma or the formation of a traditional religious church structure, building, or hierarchy.
We believe in total religious tolerance, as religion itself is but
a sign and symptom of man's reaching upward toward Conscious Unity with God. Religions and denominations themselves may not
always be correct in their various perspectives of what is Truth, but each religion is an expression of the yearning of Mankind
to find Divine Unity, and as such each religion and its adherents are to be respected and tolerated in Wisdom and in Love.
We believe that what most religions call "sin" are merely mistaken
acts and thoughts that can be easily and gently corrected when the light of God's Truth and Love are brought to bear. "God
is Good, and His mercy endures forever."
We believe it has never been God's will for there to be many separate
religions, operating according to the rules and traditions of men, but rather it has always been the Divine Will of "All That
Is (God)" that Mankind find Unity with the Godhead within a marvelous diversity of culture, religion, race, nationality, and
creed.
We believe that the scriptures of the various religions, though often
Divinely inspired, are not perfect as they are written. Much wisdom can be gleaned from scripture and books, wisdom that points
us to the Divine Teacher within, but the written word in itself, of whatever religion or creed, is not infallible.
We believe that each human being is his brother's keeper and that
true and pure religion consists of this: To feed the hungry and thirsty (in spirit and in body), to see to the mental, spiritual,
and physical needs of all who are brought into our Circle of Blessing, to minister to the sick and imprisoned (in spirit and
in body), and to love one another as God loves us--with Infinite Love.
We believe that church does not refer to a building or institution,
but to the entire body of humanity that is upward bound in its quest to love and understand--and to care for--one another.
Pathways of Unity Vision Statement
The Vision of Pathways of Unity may be summed up in this quotation
from Joel Goldsmiths book, The Art of Meditation, Chapter XVIII, "A Circle of Christhood," keeping in mind that Christhood,
according to the teachings of Joel Goldsmith and the beliefs of Pathways of Unity, is not limited to the Master Jesus or to
the definition ascribed to it by mainstream or orthodox Christianity. Parenthetical phrases are added by Pathways of Light
by way of clarification.
"The day will come when there will be a band, a circle of spiritual
wisdom around the entire globe. The fabric of this circle will be formed throughout the world by the realized Christ-Consciousness
(Inner Divinity or God-Consciousness) of teachers and students (each human being is both teacher and student). When this circle
has been developed sufficiently, then everybody who seeks spiritual light will be able to reach out and touch the realized
Christ-consciousness (Consciousness of Inner Divinity) of anyone in this band of illumined Souls. Then the world will be uplifted,
not one by one, but by the millions. When this consciousness is released through individual realization in meditation and
in communion (the spiritual connectedness of all souls in God-Consciousness), it can no longer be localized in either time
or space, and anyone in the world who touches it can attain it in some measure. "*
Pathways of Unity's vision is that through the above process of progressively
learning to perfect ourselves in love and tolerance--and in doing good without expectation of reward--the schisms of religion
will be dissolved, and conscious unity with God will eventually be attained in global measure through the process of remembering
who we really are--that we are Love. Thus shall the "New Heaven and New Earth" be realized and Eden regained. This
is our vision.
Mission Statement: The Realization of This Vision IS Our MISSION
It is our mission to help humanity realize the vision we hold,
that of loving God and loving one another in the full understanding and realization that our human brothers and sisters are
but aspects and mirrors of ourselves and that we ALL, despite appearances, are good at our core--and despite appearances,
are Divine Beings by nature.
Our mission as an alternative to traditional church and as
Avatars (individuations) of God is, first, to fully awaken to our intrinsic Divinity, and second, to assist in the awakening
of our human brothers and sisters (avatars all!). We believe that the path to this awakening is hedged around with God's protective
love and that the outcome is assured by Love.
In pursuit of our vision, it is our mission to encourage individuals
to spend a certain portion of their time in quiet meditation and/or contemplation in order to contact the Divinity Within
that is also without and in Whom/Which we live and move and have our being.
In pursuit of our vision, our mission is also to ordain non-traditional
clergy from among those who feel called and are in concert with our vision and mission, so that the non-churched that come
within our circle of love and blessing can participate in certain spiritual ceremonies that mark life's rites of passage,
but are permitted to do so according to their individually held beliefs rather than to the proscribed rites of a traditional
church or denomination.
It is also a facet of our mission that ordained "Ministers
of the Path of Unity" will serve as mirrors and guides, by example and precept, for those who wish to live spiritually while
on earth, but who do not wish to conform to the hitherto known religious traditions of men. In keeping with this mission,
our ministers will offer spiritual counseling and guidance that will encourage--and hopefully enable--seekers of Truth to
find and connect powerfully with the Divine Nature that resides within their own souls.
Within the parameters of our Statement of Beliefs, we shall
endeavor to encourage human beings to follow the course of voluntary caring and giving, as we believe the Universe supplies
an abundance from which all can give abundantly. ("Be it unto you according to your faith.") We propose discourage the kind
of good-doing that occurs mainly through church institutions or social bureaucracies, for it behooves us to connect spiritually
and personally with each person we serve on the Path of Unity. We encourage all to let their good deeds be performed anonymously
and confidentially, without hope of recompense in any material or monetary way (e.g., tax deductions in return for charitable
contributions or the charging by ministers for spiritual guidance and teaching). To paraphrase scripture: When you give alms,
do not let the left hand know what the right hand is doing, and heaven itself will reward you.
*with the exception of parenthetical additions, this passage
is quoted from The Art of Meditation, page 154, paragraph 2, Copyright © 1956 by Joel Goldsmith, published by Harper
Collins Publishers, NY, NY., Harper & Row paperback edition, published in 1990.
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