|
|
Home > Books > The Ordered Approach to the One Being
The Ordered Approach to the One Being
|
Product Code: 0-942958-14-4
Manufacturer: Kappeler Institute Publishing
|
Booklet, 26 pages
Level:
SUBJECT(s):
Preparing Yourself to Study Science
The Ascending and Descending Way
RELATED RECORDINGS:
X-13, The Eight Ordered Steps to Finding our Oneness with Being (1 hour, audio)
SYNOPSIS: This book presents the 8 ordered steps to finding our oneness with Being. It shows how we evolve out of manifold beliefs of duality to the awareness that there is only God's consciousness of itself. It shows the steps that lead us away from a personal "I" to the consciousness of the "I AM THAT I AM" (Ex. 3:14), and how this I AM translates itself down to "our" thoughts and life experience. This is an important step in culturing "the spirit" of Christian Science.
CONTENTS:
Chapter 1: The important question
Chapter 2: The 8 steps to the oneness of Being
Chapter 3: The change of standpoint from metaphysics to the Science of Being
Chapter 4: The Science of divine Mind includes divine metaphysics
Chapter 5: The simultaneity of the ascending and descending way
Chapter 6: Perfection: An eternal process—not a final state
Chapter 7: Spiritual awareness
Chapter 8: The self-evolution of Science
Appendix: Faith-Cure (by Mary Baker Eddy)
EXCERPT:
From Max Kappeler, The Ordered Approach to the One Being, p. 1–3.
The central question is this: How can we exchange the personal I for the divine I? What does it really involve? Everyone has a different concept of reality, for it is, in any case, always only the mortal, human, and therefore erring consciousness that is forming the individual's concept of reality. Since we all look at the world from our own personal I, we each have a different reality of our own. In this way, the human consciousness becomes the creator of its own world. This, however, is not the picture that the divine Mind has of its creation; neither, therefore, can it be the true picture of divine reality, but merely a caricature of what is actually real. Since the consciousness of all the many human beings, viewing with their own personal I, is not formed by the divine I, not one of them knows divine reality as it really is. True reality is that actual being which God itself is aware of, as its own Being. Every other view is incapable of giving the true picture of reality. God alone is the true I, the only I, that I which remains forever the same I. In the Bible, God, which is the only I, is called "I AM THAT I AM" (Ex. 3:14). The human personal I and the divine I start from two completely opposite standpoints. Consequently the entire question depends on how we are looking at reality.
From the earliest times people had a longing to be in harmony with the divine nature and essence of the one Being. They sensed and believed that being on good terms and in the closest possible harmony with a higher power would give them mastery over their daily life. The methods whereby man tried to acquire his close relationship with God varied according to the different age and culture and the religious beliefs of the period. For example, we may point to the age of magic, or of religious rituals, or the mystical age in which "unio mystica" (mystical union with God) was the highest aim. With Greek philosophy, modem man touched the realm of the mental. Then, in place of magic, ritual, and mysticism, came logical thinking. In that age, Parmenides (5th century BC) declared: "For thinking and being is the same." From then on, reality had to be explored through correctly schooled, logical thought, and scientific thinking began to develop. Then there started a long progress towards differentiated, purely scientific thought, leading up to our own age, in which great transformations are once again taking place in the concept of science. The Textbook points to this fact on the first page of the Preface: "The time for thinkers has come" (S&H vii: 13). The way to oneness with the I AM is a scientific way—not a magical, emotional, ritualistic, or mystical way. The method of Christian Science, which offers a valid answer to the age-old longing of mankind for oneness with the divine Being, is founded on understanding.
So Christian Scientists asks themselves whether there is an ordered way of understanding, one which leads us on from the standpoint of the small, personal I to the great I AM. Such a way would have to enable us to separate ourselves from the personal, mortal I-awareness, and adopt the consciousness of the divine I AM, which perceives, from God's viewpoint, a true image of the divine—that is, the only true reality. Spiritual development shows that such a way exists. The change of standpoint involved, however, cannot be achieved all at once. For this development does not merely require a change in human thinking; it is, rather, an inner transformation that takes place which, as experience shows, usually only comes about gradually. In this change, the human mind must submit wholly to the divine Mind. This is significantly more than an act of human thinking. Christian Science is not a mind-science or "brain science," but a divine Mind-science.
The way from the small, personal I to the divine I AM is an ascending way in consciousness. Translated into the language of Christian Science, this means that consciousness is led scientifically through 4 levels (Christian Science, absolute Christian Science, divine Science, and Science itself) up to the I AM. Thus, we have a divinely ordered guide, and are therefore not in danger of losing our way. These lawfully ordered steps, leading consciousness along the path to divine awareness, form the subject of the present article. The starting point and the aim are given: The way leads out from a material to a spiritual worldview. As practical experience teaches, that involves the following eight steps.
|
|
|
|