Audio version read by Rev. Steven Lane Taylor, B.Msc.
“Establishing New Patterns of Thought”

When a person begins to feel that life is a negative rut, then indeed there is a need for change. Change must come, or life evolves into endless days of inner turmoil, where one seems stuck in quicksand, spinning one’s mental and physical wheels. A person feels unable to move one’s life out of the quagmire in which one finds oneself. It is as if one’s life does not seem to be able to advance beyond a certain point and that point is far from what one needs or wants in order to feel that life is worth living.

In this state of mind, a person may find it difficult to know what to do, because it is one’s very state of mind that can be likened unto a jailer who has imprisoned his thinking into such a pattern, that he cannot comprehend the proverbial forest from the trees.

In this state of mind, individuals may feel almost helpless to help themselves, having tried patterns that already exist in their mind to change things, but failing through the use of those very thinking patterns. Nothing will ever change in people’s lives until they themselves make a change. The change must begin within themselves, and the change must begin in the way they think; to change from negative thought patterns that are producing nothing, to positive thought patterns capable of breaking the chains of mental slavery that prevent people’s lives from improving.

Negative: A person decides that anything goes, or that they will do anything necessary (even if unscrupulous or harmful to others) to get what they want. In effect, they will be giving their soul away for what they feel they can obtain, i.e., giving away the beauty of God’s Peace and Love, which is the most precious of life’s gifts.

Positive: A person decides to turn all frustrations over to God, really turn them over, not just pretend to do so, whether to oneself or to others, which is the case in most people who claim to turn over their lives to God. In so doing, a person realizes that the changes which must take place in the mental patterns of their mind are changes that are of the nature of God, i.e., being loving, understanding, compassionate, giving; motivated by wisdom or the Mind of God.

A person must stop clinging to what seems safe and secure in the existing patterns of their thinking. It must be seen that it has gained them nothing but frustration, so why cling to pain? It is clear that what a person clings to is not of God, or they would not feel so miserable. Misery is of human origin, and only God’s Presence within a human being can bring about improvement.

The mortal, or human part of the mind, is miserable because it lives illusions, not seeing, or refusing to see, the reality of what can be done to make a change. It clings to its own patterns of illusions, in which life seems like an endless negative maze of experiences from which there is no escape. The reality is that through GOD, one outgrows the maze in consciousness, and steps out of it into a new positive pattern of living conducive to productivity and fulfillment.

If a person turns their life over to the Presence of God, life then becomes a series of upward steps. A person ascends a stairway to the Presence of God, the Kingdom of Heaven, or Higher Self-Awareness of Universal Life and their place within it, as it relates to this present physical lifetime.

All of life’s outer experiences are outward displays of steps in the ascension of consciousness simultaneously taking place within an individual. All physical experiences are viewed as valuable, since all are part of learning and refining process for the mind and soul.

Although valuable, no one experience or series of experiences of human life must be allowed to create a permanent pattern of thinking and living. Instead, each valuable experience must be comprehended to be another upward step in the ascension; to be appreciated, but not to be clung to or to become a permanent goal of life.

God patterns life to be constantly moving to perfection, or the “word made flesh”, or God’s manifestation in human form. While this may be far from being perfected in one who is aspiring in this life, the goal still remains, as does the nobility of its purpose.

What is being shared here is identical to what Christ shared 2000 years ago when he said, “He who hath put his hand to the plow, let him not look back.”

Related to what is being stated, the parallel is one of having made a choice to travel God’s pathway. Do not look back or attempt to cling to old patterns of thought, but instead be committed to God and committed to allowing God to change your thinking, or, as stated Biblically, “Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

Of course any change brought about by God will be for a person’s improvement and growth, but it must also be realized that it will not fit into the same pattern of thinking. Thus, the goals of one’s life that were in the old pattern may not be retained.

When a person chooses to follow God’s Path through this life, especially in using this power to break away from old patterns, there must be a willingness (love) to share one’s good fortune with others.

Only in this way is the mystical truth of Universal Oneness, or God’s Love, demonstrated. When good brought about by God is shared, then God continues to provide because the mystical contact between God’s Love or Presence and the human part of the mind continue, and in this way God can persist in intuitively guiding a person to still further good.

Dr. Paul Leon Masters

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