Today we are examining the topic of problems and how changing the way we think can solve them.
Any problem can be resolved with a spiritual solution. One of the most intriguing passages in A Course in Miracles suggests that you don’t have a problem; you only think you do. The opening lines of the Torah, as well as Genesis in the Bible, state, “God created Heaven and Earth,” and later, “And all that God created was good.” If you interpret those words literally, it’s quite clear that problems are impossible. If God created everything and all that God created was good, bad does not exist. “But,” you say, “disease, disharmony, despair, and so on all appear to exist and run rampant in our world.”
When we feel separated from our sacred center, it’s easy to believe so strongly in the separation that we explain any unpleasantness as a problem. In the world of Spirit, or God, problems simply don’t exist and aren’t real. When your spiritual connection is weak, you move away from the world of Spirit, and problems come from your belief in separation. Your mind creates the illusion of separateness, and your body, influenced by your ego thoughts, takes on diseases. Our societies are the creation of our collective thoughts. They take on the same separation-sickness, and then we have what we call social problems. All of the so-called problems, however, represent a spiritual deficit that can be remedied with spiritual solutions. Think of it this way: If you change your mind, you will solve your problem. (I’ve written an entire book on this subject called There Is a Spiritual Solution to Every Problem [Harper Collins, 2001]).
Can you accept the idea that it’s your belief in your separation from God that creates the attitude that you label a problem? Can you explore this idea that what you’re calling problems are all simply illusions, or mistakes of your intellect? If God is everywhere, there is no place that God is not; therefore, you have God with you at all times. You may believe otherwise. It is this belief system that creates your so-called problems. If you can bring truth to the presence of these illusions, they will dissolve—just as you know that three plus three equals six is true, and that three plus three equals ten is untrue. By bringing truth to the presence of this arithmetic error, it simply dissolves.
So too will all of your beliefs that create “problems” in your mind dissolve when you bring the higher energy of truth to them. St. Francis of Assisi, in his famous prayer, beseeches us to change our mind to this thought: “Where there is hatred let me sow love.” Light always dissolves darkness. Love always nullifies hate. Spirit always cancels problems. Problems exist as beliefs of your ego mind, which is unable to conceptualize an awareness of your spiritual mind, just as dark has no concept of light.
By actually rewriting your agreement with reality, you can change your mind and send away any perceived problem. Change your attitude toward yourself, and resolve to believe in your connectedness to the higher energy of God, even in the direst of circumstances. Turn anything that seems problematic over to your higher self, trusting that the “problem” is not what it seems to be. Rewrite your agreement about who you are and what you’re capable of achieving.
Your thoughts are the source of virtually everything in your life. Every relationship that you’re in is something that you carry around with you. If your relationship is lousy, it’s because you think of it that way. The person you’re in a relationship with isn’t with you in this moment, or when you’re at work, or when you’re in the bathroom, but your thoughts about that person are always with you. The only way you can experience another person is in your thoughts.
You can’t get behind their eyeballs and be them. You can only process them with your thoughts. If you look for what’s wrong about them and store that negative image in your mind, then that’s where your relationship exists. If you change your thoughts to what you love rather than to what you label as wrong, you’ve just changed your entire relationship. It went from lousy to great by your changing your mind!
Try to always remember that you carry every relationship around with you in your head. Robert Frost reminded us, “You love the things you love for what they are.” When you forget this and process other people on the basis of what you think they should be, or what they used to be, or how they compare to what you are, then you’ve sent love away, and in your mind, the relationship has soured. You experience every thing and every one in your thoughts. Change your thoughts, and you change what you carry around in your head as problems.
The world is just the way it is. The economy is just as it should be. The people who are behaving “badly” in the world are doing what they’re supposed to be doing. You can process it in any way that you choose. If you’re filled with anger about all of those “problems,” you are one more person who contributes to the pollution of anger.
Your desire to do something about the lowest energies will motivate you to be more loving, more feeling, and more peaceful. And in so doing, you may influence those who are the farthest removed from God to return to their source. This new agreement with yourself to always stay connected to Spirit even when it seems to be the most difficult thing to do will allow whatever degree of perfect harmony that your body was designed for to proliferate. Turn “diseases” over to God, and treat your body to regular exercise, healthy food, large amounts of pure water, and plenty of rest to allow it to function as a container for Spirit to flow through.
Your new agreement with reality in which you’ve blended your physical self and your personality with your spiritual God-connected self will begin to radiate a higher energy of love and light. Wherever you go, others will experience the glow of your God consciousness, and disharmony and disorder and all manner of problems simply will not flourish in your presence. Become “an instrument of Thy peace,” as St. Francis desires in the first line of his famous prayer. Move up the ladder of human awareness from the lowest to the highest. Become a mystical being by simply changing your mind from one that created and experienced problems, to one that resolves them.