SOM 202 - The Power of Decision (Thursdays)

Join Rev. David Barrett in this exciting class, designed to empower students to reach independent decisions which enhance the quality of their lives! 

Based on the powerful metaphysical classic, this course is valuable for both the new and experienced student.

Click here for poster and details.

Location: SLCA Offices 2801 Buford Hwy. NE; Suite T-30, Atlanta, GA 30329
Cost: $125/Individual, $200/Couple or $20 per class
Text:The Power of Decisionby Ernest Holmes ($12.95)

SOM 207 Week 8

Class Recording, Parts One and Two, click here:

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SOM 207

Class Recording, Parts One and Two, click here: 10010502

SOM 207 Week 7

Class Recording, Parts One and Two, click here:

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A Consciousness of Gratitude

What topic are you supposed to write about during the month of November other than gratitude? If you have been coming over the years to my mid-week services, or to classes, you have heard me time and time again mention that we should move the Thanksgiving step of Treatment to the very first step. For an attitude of Gratitude actually is recognition– recognition of the Power ALREADY in our lives. It was Cicero who said, “Gratitude is not only the greatest of all virtues, but the parent of all the others.” Gratitude surely sets the tone for whatever is to follow. What if we turned gratitude on its head and instead of giving thanks for what we have in the outer world of form, we had a consciousness of gratitude BEFORE, not after, we count our blessings?

Let us keep this in mind over the next month as we celebrate Thanksgiving many times over at work with co-workers, then again with our friends, and again with our families. Let us have a consciousness of gratitude BEFORE we show up at any celebration and we will see a changed circumstance unfold before our very eyes….. Co-workers will wonder what has come over you, your friends will see a different sparkle in your eyes, and your family will wonder if you have been “born again” by “that church” you go to.

So I head into November with a consciousness of Thanksgiving for all that is to come…. New relationships at work, new relationships with friends, new relationships with families! And a new relationship at my church…for Thanks is already given for ALL that the church offers with ongoing classes with Paul and myself, great mid-week services with Ken, uplifting Sunday services with Paul, and all the classes and personal enrichment hours offered throughout the week by the many Practitioners and Ministers …..Let’s not wait for all of that to happen and then give thanks…. Let’s give thanks right now! Yes, Thanksgiving is my first step of Treatment!

David Barrett

25% Emerson!

It has been said that the Science of Mind teaching is 25% from the teachings of Emerson, 25% from the teachings of Troward, and the rest is based on the golden thread of wisdom from teachings throughout the ages. So this semester in class I want to focus on the 25% Emerson, and the direct correlation to what Ernest Holmes has written in the Science of Mind text. The four essays by Emerson of “The Oversoul,” “Self Reliance,” “Spiritual Laws,” and “Compensation,” directly relate to the chapters in the Science of Mind text of “The Thing Itself,” “The Way It Works,” “What It Does,” and “How To Use It.”

“The Oversoul” speaks of that higher aspect of us that is present in everything that we do. It is that aspect of us that always has the right answer when we seem at a loss for words, that always knows how to Love when we see no place for Love, and is that aspect of us that always wants to say more in our conversations with each other, when we always block the words from coming. It is the One Presence, The Thing Itself.

“Self Reliance” is the aspect that says to ‘trust yourself’. You are an ‘original’ and this great Oversoul power resides in us, as us, through us, and there is no other greater avenue than we who know how to allow that Divine Splendor out. Yes, there is a greater power, but it is we who use it it, which is The Way It Works, through us.

“Spiritual Laws” examines the idea that the world wants to work easily, but we are the ones that make it difficult. If we work with spiritual laws the way they work, there will be less gnashing of teeth, if we just stop interfering with the optimism of nature. What It Does means the law is always making all things new.

“Compensation” states that the Law works if we work it. It is about balance, seeing the way the Universe actually works, and using the spiritual laws of the Oversoul. This is How To Use It.

So 25% of the teaching is based on Emerson, and we need to apply it to 100% of our lives. 100% understanding the greater aspect of us in every situation and conversation, 100% understanding our part in the unfolding of the Oversoul, 100% understanding that the Law ALWAYS works, and it is 100% up to us to use it in our everyday activity. For Spiritual Living is not something that just happens on Sundays when you go to Church, Spiritual Living is living FULLY 100% of the time.

“Ne te quaesiveris extra.”

I just don’t understand it when an author starts off a topic in Latin! I did not take Latin in high school or in college, so sometimes I am at a loss as to what the author is trying to say unless it is interpreted for me. And sometimes it is left uninterpreted and I have to figure it out myself….

Well, this is how Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay on Self Reliance starts. And I bring this to your attention because classes start in the Fall and I will be leading a required class for becoming a Practitioner within International Centers for Spiritual Living. For it was Ernest Holmes, in his younger years, who studied Emerson’s Essays, and began formulating his ideas about Religious Science.

The interpretation of the above quote is “Do not seek Truth outside” or “Do not seek outside yourself.” For Emerson, Holmes, and Barrett are saying…..what you have within is ENOUGH. The Truth of you is greater than you know. The Truth of you has more wisdom, more joy, more love, more abundance, more vitality than anything “OUT THERE”….”Out there” in the world….. We search “out there” for wisdom…we search “out there” for joy, we search “out there” for love, for abundance, for vitality. And yes, even though we can find these things “out there” sometimes, the truth of the matter is that it was WITHIN YOU ALL THE TIME. So start looking within, start relying on your self, your True Self, for all of those things “out there.” Come to class to open your Mind to a greater understanding of just how infinite you already are. You need not look any farther than yourself!

You Are The Power

It is mid-summer and we are in the middle of the Class entitled “The Summer I Changed My Life”, based on the book by Dr. Kennedy Shultz, You are The Power . At the midway point of the class, the students and I have realized just how powerful we are. There is a power for good in the Universe and we can use it! And we are actually using this power even if we don’t know that this power is at our disposal. In class, we have come to learn to harness this power and to use it in purposeful and productive ways. We have learned to direct the power of our minds in positive ways, and to stop directing it in negative ways, either through our own small thinking about ourselves, or by buying into the race conscious ideas about the negativity of life. We are powerful people right now…. not when we finish the class, or you may not even be taking the class, but you need to realize the power you are wielding this instant. It is huge, and your outward life depends on this power, and is supported by the way you are thinking this instant.

So this instant, we learn to think in powerful ways about the four pillars of our lives in the areas of health, wealth, love and work. We have learned that a healthy body is the result of a healthy consciousness, and we learned all that it takes to develop a healthy consciousness. We have learned that to have more love in our lives, we need to be more loving. We are so concerned about getting love, but learn that we are using the law in reverse. We must be willing to give love in order for our lives to be more loving. We learned that the real wealth that we produce in our lives is the direct result of what we have created in our minds. And finally, we learned to view our work as our power, rather than as our drain.

Yes, lives are being changed this Summer, by recognizing the Power that we are right now. Take time this Summer to sense that there is more to you than what meets the eye. There is more to you than getting by day by day…that there is an aspect of you that is rich beyond measure, healthier than you feel, more loving than you have ever experienced before, and more creative at work when you view your work as power. Sense this Power. Feel this Power. Then go out and act like a person of Power in all that you do for the remainder of Summer. Because it is wonderful, and so are you, and so it is!

…then we move to Fathers Day

As a continuation of my last article about Mother’s Day in May, we turn to Father’s Day in June. And once again, some people dread this day coming and look for a Father’s Day card that is very bland on the inside, something that doesn’t say “You have been there for me all the time,” or “I love you,” but look for a card that says “Happy Father’s Day” only. Others can’t wait for the day to arrive and celebrate whole heartedly with their father. Some fathers are deceased, and the day is celebrated in remembrance, but all in all, just the word alone of “father” evokes something within US. Again, as I said about the word “mother”, it is not so much about the word but our interpretation of it.

When I was in the Fourth grade, my parents announced to us kids that they were getting a divorce. It was a bitter divorce with a battle of custody. We ended up being with our mother, with her all along saying what a terrible father he was. So that was the definition I took. Finally, in my teens, I realized he was not a terrible father, that he was actually just a guy, doing the best with his life that he knew what to do at the time. With time, the gap between us has decreased and it wasn’t until I came to this teaching that I realized that I had a huge issue with the word “father.” When we started classes on the metaphysical interpretation of the Bible, we had to confront the word “father” and of course I opened up all my old meanings of what “father” meant. I sure did not come to “protector” or “Omnipotent Wisdom.” But through time, I have been able to redefine “father” in my own mind, and lead a better life, not because of what my father did or didn’t do, but because of my thinking about that word.

So on this Father’s Day, I celebrate in a better way because of MY better thinking. This year, I’ll even be able to buy a card that says, “I love you”. I know you can too. Have a great Father’s Day, but more importantly, know that there is a better definition of “father” within you that you never knew was there. Search for it, I know you have it in you.

Still Mothering Me

May is such a great month to celebrate spring and the grandest of celebrations…all the mothers of the world. Mother’s Day is May 10th, and it will be the 26th year that I celebrate this day by honoring my mother even after she has passed. I found it quite interesting that my Mind still celebrates the greatness of my mother even though she has been deceased longer than the years I had to celebrate Mother’s Day when she was alive….. 23 celebrations while she was alive, and 26 after she has passed. So how can it be that 26 years later, she still is leaving an impression on me, my Mind, and my Life? Well, it is actually the beautiful work of the subconscious mind. There, in my subconscious mind, I keep that file still running of what I call my mother and what I thought our relationship was. Twenty-six years later, I still feel her love and her support. This is the power that my mother has, and I am sure whether your mother is on this plane, or the next, you have a file running in your subconscious mind of what that relationship is or was. And the key to that last sentence is that IT IS YOUR FILE. It is not your mother’s file, even though you might put a lot of blame on her for how you were brought up, or not brought up, or how much she really did or didn’t do for you. It is YOUR THOUGHT, and if you do not like what you sense and feel when you open that file in mind, like when Mother’s Day rolls around, then it is up to you to change that thought. Mother does not need to change.

Raymond Charles Barker, in his book The Science of Successful Living, which we will be using in our next 100 series class that begins May 5, says, “When you resent an individual, you are really letting your impression of that person operate your mind and emotions. You have for the moment signed away your freedom. You are now in bondage to unpleasant feelings. The image of the person in your mind is twisting you around its mental fingers, so you cannot get it out of your mind. You are no longer standing on your own spiritual feet and affirming your control of life. The person or situation you resent runs you.”

Well, that stops this day! Resentment is our reaction to someone, not the person themselves, and we can heal ourselves of our reaction. We only need to deal with ourselves, and not argue with our mothers. So with this in mind, when Mother’s Day comes around and you catch yourself having a reaction to even the word ‘mother’, remember it is your mind that is doing the reacting, and not your mother who is doing the reacting. AND WE CAN CHANGE OUR MIND!… The same goes for Father’s day next month, even though it feels like a whole other story, it is actually the same Law working through our lives. So this Mother’s Day, I choose to remember the great love and support she had for her little darling David. And so it is.