2  "What Did Jesus Want From Us Or For Us?"

3 "Judgments And Appearances"

4 "There Are No Victims"

5 "Causes, Effects, And Wars: Good Doesn't Take Sides"

6 "Spiritual Healings"

7 "The Science Of Belief"

8 "Being True to Oneself."

9 "Forgiveness And Innocence"

Radio - First Program

This is Dr. Royal Satterlee. The theme of the Science of Spirituality today is

"The Laws of Attraction regarding relationships."

Hello friends, Ernest Holmes opened his weekly radio programs back in the 1940s with these words: "There is a Power for Good in the Universe and you can use it." Indeed you can use it to attract all the Good in your life that you desire including wonderful and lasting relationships, because the most fundamental Laws of Attraction lie within this Power.

Two components of this show are called "Tips about Affirmative Prayers" and "S.O.S." The "Tips" come midway and the "S.O.S." is near the end.

This program draws upon the laws of spirituality, philosophy, science, psychology and metaphysics. Also, the awarenesses of history, customs, and cultures are considered throughout all that is spoken. Out of the whole of this have come these teachings, but they are not simply the raw summations of these fields of inquiry. They are the result of opening up to what lies within and behind all these facts. The real Truth about Life is not detected in what appears, but in the patterns of thoughts that have given rise to them and to what could have been. To discover that "Hidden Truth" we must look within every fact and every riddle or we play "the fool." How do we look deeply into them? We have to believe that through authentic prayer, the Truth will be revealed. These broadcasts are about how to pray so as to know the Truth of Reality.

You may have seen the new movie "The Law of Attraction," or maybe you will soon see it. It is definitely entertaining, yet the Laws of Attraction about which I speak today - go way beyond its theme. Romance and chemistry attract particular kinds of friendships. Fortunately, there is something more than romance, some other considerations, which can be used with great resourcefulness to attract others or a special other into your life.

Many people talk about the chemistry that people sometimes have for each other and often claim that romantic interests or the other most satisfying relationships stem from that chemistry. The interest here however is not about physical considerations, but is about those that are spiritual. To me the most essential basis for achieving the most desirable attractions comes through the understanding of the nature of Mind or Consciousness. Now, we capitalize this word Mind, because as you will come to know, It is central to all we believe and teach. Many persons sincerely believe that attractions come through the stars or the relationships of different kinds of personalities, or the controls people use to manipulate their circumstances, all which may be involved. However, if we turn our interest in the direction of what would be the best way to employ a skill for bringing about ideal relationships, the consciousness of Mind is my choice. Something of the way the Mind works is the primary cause, and can override all of those other considerations. Until we grasp this, the conception about fate figures in and we have to consciously rise above it so as to also dismiss its being a factor.

Consider then, how is it that you function? There is something greater than you are, call it God or just the way Life is, and go on from there. That is, if you will begin with God or an awareness of how Life functions as you, and believe that you have great potential, you will, however gradually, become aware of Life’s greater empowerments. That is, you can become conscious of Life’s opportunities, Its greater privileges. I desire this for you, but you cannot recognize what it is that I am saying, what your greater experiences of Life can be - until you deeply desire to know Life vastly better than you probably have so far. This means that you have got to care about what is happening with you. You are to care so much that you will give greater thought to attracting the persons who are right for you. For me, I gave up the idea when I was a teenager that I could attract the right person to marry. I turned over my considerations to God. A short time later a lady came into my Life who has been my wife for 54 years, and I have grown and gained from her by doing this, and from the continuous joy that has come from knowing I went about this in a right way.

I would never have selected the right lady companion if romance, chemistry, the stars, expectations of fate or the use of manipulation had been my only procedures. For one reason, she is very different from me. I have not only found the right companion through using the principles latent in the Mind’s Power for Good, but many other wonderful relationships have happened over the time it has taken to deepen my awareness that I need Divine Guidance to attract people who are right for me. I desire to share with you how it has become clearer and clearer, more and more effective...because I know you too can achieve this.

So, come along with me and allow yourself to consciously think in the direction of what really makes for happiness and success in all your relationships and in everything you do! Change your thinking and you change your life. Old habits fall away. New, wonderful friends come your way. Through this method you can naturally attract the most wonderful relationships you can imagine. What then is this method? It is to adjust your idea about the nature of God. It includes that God is best known as the Mind behind and within all there is of the Universes.

God has given all of us the freedom to determine our own destinies. However, to claim and determine in the here and now our destinies requires us first to know that we are free. We are to believe that we are closer to God who has made us to be free than to other persons who try to influence our courses of action. Fortunately, God is "closer than hands and feet." As we listen to the inner guidance like Moses did, and surrender to the teachings of Jesus who told us that we need to discover what Truth really is, we can become free of the fetters we have borrowed from friends and instilled upon ourselves. We think that we are fighting to free ourselves while all the time we are variously habituated to alcohol, foods, cigarettes, gossip, prejudices, and to living our lives from what others have told us. When we listen well to God’s wisdom, surrender to it, and express it, that is when freedom begins. That is, we can be made free!

No matter what mistakes you have made, if you believe that your Life is restored to wholeness, it is! What you believe has to rule your life. However the belief that frees you is not experienced without surrendering yourself to the highest spiritual principles. Freedom only comes about as you raise your consciousness to transcend your ideas that Life is limited. Amazingly, this is what the Bible teaches. In its conclusion (its original last words), it reads: "...and let him who is thirsty come, let him who desires take the water of life without price." Another translation says: "...whoever will, let him take the water of life freely." The water of life is the symbol for living without limitations. This is accomplished through having a higher understanding of Truth. It is then that you can use prayer very effectively. When your own belief is similar to persons like Jesus, you will begin to free yourself. The answer to this is not that you have to go to a particular kind of church, nor believe the same as others about how you interpret the Bible, nor explain the nature of Jesus in some particular way, nor serve God according to the requirements of a revered minister, nor even live by some moral code, although all of these considerations have some importance. But, the central consideration is simply that you have to learn how to pray in a way that will gain the results that you desire. This means that you need to personally understand the real nature of God. To accomplish this, you need to change much of your thinking about God, religion, and the nature of guilt. The consciousness that is like the contemplations of God will do it.

How do you change your thinking to bring this about? Always you are experiencing the natural results of that about which you are conscious. What you may not have known is that there is only One Mind in all the Universes: It is the Mind of God. That Mind has caused and created everything. Inasmuch as we were "made in Its Image," everything that happens in our lives has also been created by the One Mind. We are made to experience the ideas that our conscious minds think about. When our thoughts are mistakes, because we were made free, we have to experience the effects of them. We have to learn how to function responsibly. To the extent that we allow God’s wisdom to permeate our thoughts our lives are blessed. The One Mind is Unconditionally Loving, and therefore, it never accuses you or me for our mistakes, but is always ready to teach us how to think and act in accordance with the wisdom which corrects mistakes. You are wise as you present yourself as both a trusting and ready channel through which God can express you more wonderfully, and grow you spiritually into a better son or daughter.

My first discovery of the reality of God and God’s unlimited resourcefulness that could deliver me from mistakes occurred when I was sixteen. Up until then, when I had prayed nothing happened for me and I questioned that God existed. I went to Church regularly. I lived by very high morals. I recognized that Jesus had undoubtedly been as great a person as had ever lived, yet for me, prayers seemed not to work. And then, I stumbled onto the greatest secret, much as a scientist usually invents something that benefits us by stumbling onto it; as scientists put it, quite by accident.

The greatest secret was in two parts. One was not to believe any longer upon what others told me unless deep within myself I felt God telling me that something of what others told me was the Truth. Secondly, it was for me to believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that God was real, was there for me, and to cast out all other thoughts about God, religion, and the thought that anything else mattered. I did not learn this from anyone else. It came to me from a very deep place in my thoughts because I had totally given up that any other solution could help me. After my initial awareness, others who knew of this also helped me to increase my sense of this principle for greater living. Until I knew this, I tried everything else I could think of, and then it was that my life was a miserable failure.

One night, I felt extremely disappointed with my life. Right then, I began to consider that God might exist, but that even if I were to persuade myself that God was real, it would do me no Good unless God could empower me to live effectively. Like a scientist I wanted to demonstrate something wonderful; in my case, it had to be that my Life would function well. My reasoning brought me to think that God could not assist me unless I were to surrender my whole Life to God and trust Him for everything. Such a surrender could not have come unless I was willing to admit that nothing else would work well for me.

I dared approach God with the idea that God could empower my Life to work well - simply by admitting that I did not know how to do that myself, and that if God existed I was willing for God to fully express all my thoughts, feelings, and actions, as me. For hours, I said this over and over while I cried so much that I could not understand how long tears could keep flowing. Then, in the middle of the night, suddenly I became filled with Unconditional Love, something I had never conceived could be. The peace that passes all understanding filled my mind, my soul, and my body.

The confidence that my life was changing right then moved me to an affirmative set of thoughts which I had never known before. Most days since then I have spent one hour repeating similar thoughts to what I first declared, and the Presence of God has never left me.

Now is time for the TIPS about Affirmative Prayer. The tip for today is that Affirmative Prayer works better when we speak our words to God with expectancy and confidence. Too often people function meekly when asking God for healing. It is true that "The meek will inherit the earth," but only after our times have become past times. Right now, to have prayers answered with powerful solutions, we are wise to speak boldly, confidently, with all the expectancy that we would have with our own parents if they were loving and we were yet children.

Coming back to the theme for today, you may be asking, "How can my understanding that there is One Mind help me?" There is an answer which is practical and immediately available for you. You have been given two tools to achieve your wonderful dreams for greater living. One is that your conscious mind (one of the tools) can learn wisdom from the Spirit of God. The other is that the subconscious (the other tool) receives everything about which you think and as you allow God-Wisdom to guide your life, your experiences are gradually changed for the better.

To use these tools effectively, first, you have to know that undoubtedly you have used them incorrectly. To understand this, compare them to two physical tools. If you had a hammer and saw, and you tried to cut something by pounding on it with the hammer or tried to drive nails into some boards by hitting them with a saw - you would function ineffectively. If you then allowed someone to explain how those tools could be used effectively, you would achieve your ends quite well. Suppose then that you have been thinking consciously (one of the tools) in a way that invites trouble. You would manifest trouble. Know that as you deepen your spiritual interests, through using your conscious mind to talk with God, then you acquire wisdom. Then the subconscious (the other tool) which keeps a record of your decisions, what you believe, will make you do the better actions, those which you have then chosen. The basic spiritual Laws of Attraction then - are the right use of your conscious thought and the consequent subconscious action which attracts to you whatever you have placed in Mind.

Unless you open yourself up to the wisdom of God and change your thinking to positive ideas, the subconscious will continue to make you experience old beliefs which are stored up from your earlier thoughts, those that originated at a time when you did not know that it was so important to think wisely, and before you knew that your wisest thoughts come from God. Why does the subconscious make your mistakes happen in your Life? It is because that is the only way that God could have really created you free.

Learning to turn to God and to allow God to assist you in forming better thoughts is both your only sensible and responsible recourse. Unless your thinking is considerate of all other people who in some way touch upon your life, any experiences which hurt others will come back upon you, and hurt you. But, as you come into this higher understanding of Spirit, neither you nor they have to experience further harm.

Now, let us consider examples.

To either spend a lot of time with a person who has some offensive actions or to marry such a one - and particularly if you think that you can change such a person - is a mistake. You cannot change another! But considering that you are free to resist God’s wisdom, suppose you temporarily coerce another person to change. The result means that both you and the other will experience problems.

For instance, suppose you actually get a person to stop drinking or stop smoking or stop lying to you or stop having relations with another friend of your gender. Even though you may think it was Something Good that you forced upon another, you molested the other person’s right to function freely. That person will likely hold a grudge (probably silently) because he or she felt he or she had to conform. Either a divorce or an act of vengeance will ordinarily follow for your having this power over him or her. There is always a solution from wisdom, but coercion is not a wise move. Suppose you experience a marriage in which a strong dependency rules. The dependency may be what you think you want, but greater happiness will then be impossible for either of you. "Why," you may ask? If you are in charge, you may satisfy a sadistic desire, but sadism is not a state of happiness. Happiness does not come from being a power, it comes from using the Universal Power for Good. To feel desirous of being in the position of power is the result of someone’s giving up that he or she can be happy, and substituting the satisfaction of being in control for the happiness that has not been found. If you think that you desire to be controlled by the other, you have a masochistic desire. Whether you want to control or be controlled, there is something about yourself that needs to be changed. And no one is truly happy unless both persons can care for themselves. Now, it is your time to ask any questions about relationships.

It is time for S.O.S. - For many people it has meant "Save Our Ship." Our interest in Spirit here leads us to mean "See Only Solutions." If you have a friend who is ill or you are not well yourself, no matter how serious the circumstances seem to be, do not sympathize with the condition which is being experienced. Love the person by not feeling sorry for him or her or yourself. The reason for this is that whenever God heals through our prayers, we become sympathetic, but not with the condition, rather with the solution. For instance, if you sympathize through feeling sorry for a person’s cancerous condition, you are not helping, but you are assisting the condition to remain or get worse. Only sympathize with thoughts of a perfect recovery. I have experienced many healings; some of them were instantaneous, and always my mind was on the recovery, never on the problem. See Only Solutions.

Next week, my subject will be "What Did Jesus Want From Us Or For Us?" I will show how Jesus desired that we turn our thoughts toward the potential for greater living which God has implanted in every person. He taught us the techniques of effective prayer, both by example and through explaining its principles.

May your week be a happy one. This is Dr. Royal Satterlee saying Goodbye for now, and believe me when I say: no matter what you have done, God Loves you just as you are, and your Life is getting better and better as you believe this.

Radio - Second Program

This is Dr. Royal Satterlee. The theme of the Science of Spirituality today is:

"What Did Jesus Want From Us Or For Us?"

Hello friends, Ernest Holmes opened his weekly radio programs back in the 1940s with these words: "There is a Power for Good in the Universe and you can use it." This is a statement which can be well applied to how it is that Jesus functioned. Rather than being caught up in the sacrifices that were claimed as necessary by the High Priests, Jesus discovered God as the Presence of Love, Life, and guidance deep within his own self. Through this discovery, he found a Power for Good which he used to help people overcome the obstacles that they were experiencing in their individual lives. Additionally, at age thirty, he attracted disciples to whom he taught his method for living Life abundantly. They discovered how to use the Power for Good and how to share it with people who were hurting.

Jesus’ message for us today also is for us to use this Power for Good. We can adopt his method through observing his manner of expressing Life. Today, many persons are enthused about the idea that this thing called Life is the Presence and Power of God within us. Last week we examined how to upgrade the relationships that we have with others; this week we are examining the relationship that we have with Life or God. We have not understood that God and Life are one and the same. Jesus felt that his mission on earth included his making it clear that God and Life are the same thing. This was a redirection of spiritual understanding from what the Priests of his time were indicating. Jesus did not teach that we need to sacrifice so as to please God. He taught that God is forever pleased with us, and is guiding us so that we can live even better lives. No judgment comes from God - rather guidance comes, and God is infinitely patient with us while we experience fear of God rather than simple trust.

Jesus was the spiritual genius for all ages. This includes that in his establishing new connections with God and those within ourselves, sacrifices were abolished. The very idea that Jesus sacrificed his Life is a misconception. He gave his Life to the cause of our finding that God is to be known as the Life that is forever flowing through us. He was clearly rebellious to his environmental influences. Of course, there were many of them that he accepted and practiced, yet he transcended the general practices of his contemporaries. Only as we become rebels ourselves do we discover the real Jesus.

Many people think of Jesus as the great servant of the people. He was a great servant, but his service was to the expression of living abundantly. This is because - to him God was Life, all the Life there is, and he felt that he was here "that we might have Life, and have it more abundantly."

In his experience of Life, he enjoyed himself to the hilt. He proclaimed himself "a winebibber and a glutton." He partied many a night, all of which is recorded in the scriptures. How could one man function that way and still serve the people with Unconditional Love and High Wisdom? It had to be because God truly is Life, and that Life was maximally flowing through Jesus.

Two components of this show are called "Tips about Affirmative Prayers" and "S.O.S." The "Tips" come midway and the "S.O.S." is near the end.

This program draws upon the laws of spirituality, philosophy, science, psychology and metaphysics. Also, the awarenesses of history, customs, and cultures are considered throughout all that is spoken. Out of the whole of this have come these teachings, but they are not simply the raw summations of these fields of inquiry. They are the result of opening up to what lies within and behind all these facts. The real Truth about Life is not detected in what appears, but in the patterns of thoughts that have given rise to them and to what could have been. To discover that "Hidden Truth" we must look within every fact and every riddle or we play "the fool." How do we look deeply into them? We have to believe that through authentic prayer, the Truth will be revealed. These broadcasts are about how to pray so as to know the Truth of Reality.

The greatness of Jesus, first and foremost, was that he developed the empowerment of effective prayer. There are four steps that he masterfully walked from his early childhood until he was thirty. The first step was to reconceptualize the nature of God in his childhood. How he did that remains a mystery, but that he did so is clear and easy to detect. The reason that it remains mysterious is because he surely was a human being just as we are, and to reconceptualize anything is considered impossible until a person is about twelve, the age when logical thought becomes each person’s capacity. Before that time, people are at first influenced largely through parents or guardians in their environment. After seven years of age, the influence is to some extent transferred from parents or guardians alone to peers of the child.

It is probably true that Jesus’ mother and father, Mary and Joseph, were spiritually advanced beyond most people around them. The more important consideration about Jesus in relationship to his father is not whether there was a virgin birth, but that Jesus got the idea that his real Father was God. He may have been taught that from the beginning. Certainly the idea of Mary’s believing she was impregnated by the Holy Spirit could well have been the case even if she was physically impregnated otherwise. Many mothers believe that God has in someway been the initial cause of their being able to bear a child or children. A mother could pass on that belief to a child, and a child could thereby believe that he or she is divine. We are all God’s children, but the more we are convinced of it, then the more we are likely to commune with God deep within our own selves. This brings us to the second step. It was that Jesus obviously established a pattern for relating himself to God. And it was an internal experience.

Everything that happens in our lives comes from ideas planted in our consciousness which we established in last week’s broadcast. Although Jesus must have placed such a pattern in his mind before he reached the age that he might have logically determined that he could do so, the belief that he was God’s Son which he could have felt from the influence of his parents could have been the pattern. By the way, we could do the same thing. The fact that most of us did not do this in childhood does not rule out that we can do it now. Many of us think of ourselves as children of God. To see ourselves as a Son or Daughter of God, with the capacity to express as much Good as we desire is possible to do right now, because it is always "done unto us as we believe," as we again remind ourselves from last week’s broadcast.

The third step that Jesus took was to think of what he did as being something anyone else could do. In other words, it seemed to him to be a natural act to specify that God was within him and that this is the place for all people to discover what is true by communing with a Presence inside them, the same Presence that Jesus knew for himself. He provided this description throughout his ministry, that God was alive or the very Life of him, at his center. He therefore believed that guidance was not based so much on what mom and dad said or other people indicated, but what was said deep inside, from an obviously Higher Source.

Now is time for the TIPS about Affirmative Prayer. The tip for today is for us to notice that Jesus was teaching people that the thoughts that they had were the cause for their actions. When the thoughts of prayer are to believe that something Good can happen for us on a regular basis, and every seeming problem is seen as an opportunity for something Good to come out of it, the effect is exactly that. Consider that he was the first scientist to teach cause and effect. When you really believe in positive outcomes, they have to happen. It is a Spiritual Law. You have set causes into motion, and their effects are always forthcoming.

Coming back to the theme for today, the fourth step that Jesus took was to develop a basis for all that would happen in his ministry. The biblical basis is explained as the experience of facing himself and how he would express his adult life through his going out into the wilderness and examining several considerations that had entered his mind. Those considerations were not coming to him from "deep inside." They were coming from worldly influences which had him wondering about how he would use the empowerment from the inner resourcefulness. The scriptures peg them as being temptations from the devil. Here it is important that we get clear on what that experience was all about, because he immediately told his disciples as quickly as he invited them to follow him, that the experience of the temptations was a crossing over from not having yet begun his lifework to the experience of commencing with its actions. To understand this, we are wise to notice that in his many studies, not only were they pursued with the intent to appreciate and relate to the rendition of the books that many of us think of as the Old Testament, but also, through the scriptures and ideas of other religions and cultures. Likely the most influential among them was a teacher of enormous influence from Persia, a man variously named Zoroaster or Zarathustra.

Jesus’ interest in Zoroaster was first stimulated by his knowing that many Jews were familiar with that prophet’s teaching. In the exile of the Jews of Judah to Babylon, occurring in 597 b.c.e. and 586 b.c.e., they had familiarized themselves with Zoroastrianism. The harsh life they experienced at first in Babylon was eventually changed into a kinder captivity through the Persian’s conquering the Babylonians in 538 b.c.e. Then, many Jews had been given somewhat equal opportunities to the Persians, and consequently, they became studious of the faith that was accepted by their new neighbors.

Those Persians believed that two gods existed temporarily. One was called Ahura Mazda, a god representing Light, and the other Angra Mainyu, a god representing darkness. Zoroaster had taught them that those two gods were simply the two possibilities of how Life could be experienced by people. If people were to identify themselves more with the God of Light, the other would be dissolved. He taught people to think "Good thoughts," speak "Good Words," and do "Good Deeds." This procedure provided people with the privilege to freely choose what they desired to be their destiny, but were encouraged to choose a positive Life experience.

Jesus was greatly influenced by these concepts. Zoroaster had labeled "Ahura Mazda" as the Truth and Angra Mainyu as "The Lie" or the devil. In the Gospel of John, Jesus identified his contemporaries as believing in "The Lie," but he accepted the "Father Within" as all the Truth there is. In Matthew and Luke, Jesus spoke of "The Lie" as the devil and told how he had dismissed from his Life that false advisor.

In Matthew, Jesus also retold Zoroaster’s story of "people’s crossing the bridge between this Life and the next Life." Everything is the same as it was in this famous story except that Jesus substituted "people’s being gathered before the throne of God." In the story, some people expressed Love and others withheld It. Those who Loved experienced heaven, and those that didn’t experienced hell. Both Jesus and Zoroaster thought of those states as experiences of consciousness. Both stories included that this would be an everlasting consequence.

Because the people who heard the story from Jesus already knew of it from Zoroaster, it is obvious that what one prophet believed the other also believed. After telling the story, Zoroaster made it very clear that he really meant that the unfortunate consequences simply would have lasted for a very long, long time, and not really forever. Jesus knew his audience was very familiar with Zoroaster’s interpretation so that a correct understanding is that the consequence was not meant as being forever. A careful reading of Jesus’ explanations about spirituality also makes it clear that the consciousness has to do with both this life and our after life.

We are wise therefore to turn away from all conceptions that Jesus meant to frighten us into doing Good. Rather, we are to express an openness to the principles for right living that he taught. It is only possible to experience healing of our many issues as we know that the "Father Within" is unconditionally loving and is not intending harm to anyone beyond what we bring upon ourselves. Heaven and hell to Jesus were words that meant what Life would be like for us in our experiences of Life here and after according to our thoughts, words, and deeds. He did not mean that God is angry with us for our mistakes, but rather that the way Life functions is to give us the effects of how we think, speak, and act. God is above expressing anger and any of our other emotions that arise from human feelings.

Jesus even goes so far as to tell us that God or the "Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son." Of course, if you do not think you are a Son of God, but that only Jesus was, your conclusion could be that God makes no judgments, that only Jesus makes judgments. However, you are a Son or Daughter of God, and you are a judgmental type being; all humans are. If the capital S in the word Son in the Gospel of John precludes for you that only Jesus is the Son of God, then ask yourself, what kind of persons are we? If you were a Prince or Princess, you would be of the same royal vintage as the King and Queen. In the same way God does not make junk. The difference between Jesus and ourselves is that Jesus knew who he was and therefore he expressed his potentiality in a way that moves us to think highly of him. However, you too have the same capacity; you simply may be ignorant of that so far. Jesus was not the exception, but he was the great example of what Life can be.

There are no bad persons. There are Good Persons in every case, who in numerous instances do not yet know who they are, and have acted out bad schemes. But, even Jesus bade us to consider all persons as Good. He says to us in John 7:24 "Do not judge by appearances, but judge by righteous judgment." That obviously means that a person may function with poor behavior, but the right judgment of them is that at the core such a one is Good, and it is yet to be discovered by those who are making serious mistakes. We are expected to Love everyone and know that God Loves all of us, and that no one is excepted.

If we are not loving everyone as our equal we have missed the nature of Jesus and the Life possibility that we have been given. At the center of each one of us is the Christ principle. Ernest Holmes has taught us, "...the Christ means...the Second person of the Trinity...each one ‘puts on the Christ’ to the degree that he surrenders a limited sense of Life to the Divine Realization of wholeness and unity with Good, Spirit, God." That Jesus succeeded in doing this is obvious. But, we too can live by the Christ principle, and that is what Jesus chose to prove. To say that Jesus’ mission was to divide us into two groups and that we are in one group or the other depending on whether we believe in him or not, is to ignore that he spent most of his time with sinners, that is, with the people who were making mistakes. His parables such as that of the "Prodigal Son," is to show that the boy judged himself severely, but upon returning home was greeted by the Father who had no judgment against him, none whatsoever. Read the story again if you think otherwise. Observe that the Father loved the boy without judgment, but that both Sons in that story judged themselves.

Jesus’ message contains many wonderful ideas about us and our lives, but nowhere does he judge anyone as bad. Paul, in the scriptures, has a different idea about this. Although Paul wrote many marvelous ideas, he was too influenced by his past malicious behavior to fully understand that Jesus only saw the Good in everyone. There is still much more that we know about Jesus today. In this program, we have barely announced what is increasingly known from the recent find of early manuscripts near Nag Hammadi, Egypt. For instance, "The Gospel of Thomas" was probably written earlier than Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. It is increasingly considered by many biblical scholars of note that some of Thomas’ writings carry a greater legitimacy than anything else from the mouth of Jesus. Consider the consciousness that Jesus had and was trying to impart to us from this passage: "Jesus says, ‘Whoever will drink from my mouth will become like me. I myself will become he and what is hidden will be reveled to him.’ "

Jesus wanted us to know ourselves. To know oneself was to him the route to knowing the "Father Within." To understand what this means, consider this one from the Nag Hammadi’ find: "When you come to know yourselves, then you will be known, and you will realize that you are the children of the living Father. But if you do not come to know yourselves, then you exist in poverty and you are that poverty."

One more of those fantastic quotes is this one, which shows that Jesus was the first psychologist: "Jesus said, ‘If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.’ "

What then did Jesus want from us and for us? Ask yourself, what is it that you would want for someone whom you Love? Wouldn’t it be that something you do especially well and gives you joy be what you would want for someone else? He wanted every one of us to think that God is inside us and that we are inseparable from God. We can all be guided through being true to who we are. This was his means of empowerment and it was his mission to teach us that we can express this empowerment too. The consciousness that he had can be ours too as we believe.

It is time for S.O.S. - For many people it has meant "Save Our Ship." Our interest in Spirit here leads us to mean "See Only Solutions." It may seem impossible to always expect perfect solutions to come about from your problems. However, only as you expect this, can it happen. Every time that you think the problems will remain or will get more serious, they will continue until you have punished yourself enough. Think of it as being the feeling that you do not like yourself enough, but what something awful has to keep happening. There are people who always overcome their problems. They are not necessarily wealthy. They do not always have the best set of genes. They do not always know other people who "will bail them out" of difficulties. Rather, they believe they are not only Good at the core, but that guidance from the Presence within them is always there. You can know this too. Simply change your thinking today, and allow yourself to be represented by your Good Nature, and always remember that you are in partnership with God for your Good. See Only Solutions.

Next week, my subject will be "JUDGMENTS AND APPEARANCES" I will show how your thinking judgmentally is the result of living according to what your five senses tell you. There is much more to Life than the appearances. They are superficial. Deeper within everything lies the cause and potentiality for joy, wonder, wholeness, and deep satisfactions.

  May your week be a happy one. This is Dr. Royal Satterlee saying Goodbye for now, and believe me when I say: no matter what you have done, God Loves you just as you are, and your Life is getting better and better as you believe this.

RADIO - THE THIRD PROGRAM: ON MAY 15, 2004

This is Dr. Royal Satterlee. The theme of the Science of Spirituality today is "JUDGMENTS AND APPEARANCES"

Hello friends, Ernest Holmes opened his weekly radio programs back in the 1940s with these words: "There is a Power for Good in the Universe and you can use it." This is a statement about how we can turn our experiences of Life around from reacting to people and situations that seem wrong to discovering that something is right about every person and every experience and thereby watch truly Good experiences to be in our lives wherever we go.

Two components of this show are called "Tips about Affirmative Prayers" and "S.O.S." The "Tips" come midway and the "S.O.S." is near the end.

This program draws upon the laws of spirituality, philosophy, science, psychology and metaphysics. Also, the awarenesses of history, customs, and cultures are considered throughout all that is spoken. Out of the whole of this have come these teachings, but they are not simply the raw summations of these fields of inquiry. They are the result of opening up to what lies within and behind all these facts. The real Truth about Life is not detected in what appears, but in the patterns of thoughts that have given rise to them and to what could have been. To discover that "Hidden Truth" we must look within every fact and every riddle or we play "the fool." How do we look deeply into them? We have to believe that through authentic prayer, the Truth will be revealed. These broadcasts are about how to pray so as to know the Truth of Reality.

The subject of how "Judgments and Appearances" are related was deeply rooted in the thoughts of Jesus. He spoke about this in John 7:24. In the King James version of the Bible he said it this way: "Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment."    In the interpretation of both the Revised Standard version and the New Revised Standard Version, it reads: "Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment." The "New International Version," reads this way: "Stop judging by mere appearances, and make a right judgment." No matter how it is turned, the meaning is clear. It means that the way that anything appears to be is not what it is. Its reality is hidden behind a screen. The screen is undoubtedly there because of the relationship that exists between that which is seen and that which is its observer. Otherwise, its reality would be as clear as crystal.

Another way to say this is that the observer does not have the ability to see anything as it is through the five senses alone. The observer who uses reason to logically discern what is viewed is nevertheless handicapped by past thoughts stored in the subconscious mind which compare what is being observed with similar appearances from that one's past. The examples of what I mean abound. Suppose that you are looking at a tree in springtime. You are noticing its leaves and blossoms. The leaves are a gorgeous green color and its floral display is awesome. However, some persons are moved by its beauty vastly more than you are. Some are not even interested to do more than glance at it and then move on. Why is there this difference?

Go into a great art gallery with many pictures from master artists. Take several friends with you. It is likely that some of these persons will desire to gaze upon certain pictures for a much longer time then yourself. Others will tire of them and sit somewhere for a long time simply waiting for you and the others to be ready to leave. Why is there this difference?

It happens because all persons are not created alike. Differences exist in the individualities created by God. There are differences in how they react to their individual God-given talents. Some like themselves just as they are.                                                Many struggle to be like someone else who they think expresses well fame or fortune. Some try to satisfy moms or dads. Some others marry another who they try to personally support in the role of Life that the spouse chooses to follow. Many live out their lives depressed and/or experience diseases which limit their ability to express heightened joy and peace of mind.

The result of most of the ways that people react to their Life experiences is that they do not see that Life is truly as pleasant as they would like it to be. Their thought atmosphere prevents their seeing opportunities, people, and privileges as wonderful as they are.

Contrarily anyone who feels especially Good about himself or herself will tend to see beauty in the objects of nature more readily. And, when they meet people who are troubled in any way, they will see a resourcefulness in them which these persons will not see in themselves.     .

As Jesus met the ill, the downcast, the condemned of society, or persons with deformed bodies or minds, he saw them as having a resourcefulness which was right then actively changing all of those unfortunate conditions. For instance, Jesus met a man with a withered right hand and saw it free of deformity. As Jesus spoke to the man, the man's hand changed on the spot. I met an eighty-four year old woman in Ohio who had two deformed hands. She had loved to write and desired to do so again but her writing was illegible. I prayed affirmative prayers for her on two occasions. After several months, she sent me letters in fine handwriting. When I saw her again, her hands looked normal. This

is an illustration of what is possible for us to do when looking at someone while discounting unsatisfactory appearances. I knew that I could not accept her condition as it appeared to be. I could not judge her as though she was stuck with a condition that could keep her from living a happy Life. The result was that her true condition reappeared.

In our individual lives, whatever experiences we may have of work, health, relationships, or supply for our interests, be they needs or desires that seem elusive, we can demonstrate reversals which meet the demands we would like Life to provide. The way this works is through our envisioning what we desire, and then, by turning to the inner wisdom which is God-given, listening and allowing It to care for us in accord with an unlimited expectancy for the Good that enables us to live well. Of course, we have to be open to the Divine Resourcefulness, knowing that It can guide us in the direction we need to go. We have to pledge our hands and feet, our tongues and hearts to act in accord with the Divine Ideas for our Good.

That method for seeing beyond appearances works best for those of us who not only see that Good can be ours, but who aspire to Love others enough to see that their needs are met too. Those who do best of all are the persons who Love others so much that they find ways to commit themselves to a career of serving other people in ways that lift up the welfare of many people around them. Actions alone are not enough! Actions are important though, and need be the results of people's having developed a mental atmosphere which is full of spontaneous Love for the people who are closest to them.

Now is time for the TIPS about Affirmative Prayer. -The tip for today is that Affirmative Prayer works especially well for us as we choose to be rays of sunshine to others. This is accomplished as we open our hearts to everyone we meet. In every conversation, we do well to think of other persons as being at ease, happy, peaceful, confident, and well expressed. It is within everyone to be these ways. Even within persons who seem impossibly mired in disappointments is another marvelous conception. This other viewpoint is that of the creator. We may not observe any of it in the way they appear. Therefore, we do best to imagine it about them. Our five senses may conclude that this is absurd. Our logic may not see any possibility that they are worth the time we take to think about them in this way. However, deep within us is the Divine Urge to know each other person as magnificent. This is the only way God ever sees them. We are wise to see with God, the Truth, the Higher Reality about each person. Nothing we ever think or do is of a more vital reality.

This takes time to cultivate. Taking time each day to quiet the pictures in our minds of people's being poor, sick, unhappy, and so on, opens up the ability to imagine them in a better way. We have to choose to do this. At first, we must discipline ourselves to do so regularly. Eventually we find it becomes spontaneous.

Seeing things as they truly are is something which we can only express well as we cultivate a better mental attitude of what Life is really about. But some persons may say, "Jesus taught us not to judge." From this passage we can see that they have misunderstood the Master Teacher.  They may say that we need to examine the opening words from Matthew in the seventh chapter. It reads: "Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? ...first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye." But, notice that even here Jesus did not say not to judge. What he said is "First take the log out of your own eye." Putting the rest into an explanation of the action that he encouraged, "Then, you will see clearly" how to help another who may have a problem.

The awareness we need to gain is that no one can avoid making judgments, because to judge is to think, and thinking is a natural action that will never cease for us. However, we can think that we are all God's children and that this means our real selves are better than they appear to be.

We may need to do a lot of affirmative praying, but gradually we will be able to see the Good that lies below the surface of another. We would be unwise to lash out with advice as we begin to see Good in another, but we can form a new idea of who they are. We can think of their attributes which occasionally have been expressed and laud them silently, but with expectancy that they will convey Good actions in their lives. This procedure will be the beginning of our being transformed. When others sense our heightened attitudes, some will open up to ask how we did it. Then, we can share a little (not too much) and they will make adjustments before our very eyes, not for us, but for themselves.

All this begins with an awareness of how we judge with critical thoughts. It ends with our developing a presence that attracts people to us who desire to change their lives similarly. Gradually we discover how to think about everything with the idea that inside of its appearance is something greater ready to emerge and be all that it can be. In addition to people, the experiences of nature, the art gallery, and anything whatsoever become vastly more beautiful. What changed? It was not the other things. It is our attitude. And it includes that we are loved and liked better than ever.

I have an affirmation which I have taught people to use which has provided many of them a resource that lifts them out of judging by appearances into looking for the Good and praising it. I developed it in the year 1980. Before I share it, I am going to tell you about how some specific persons were blessed by it.

I was teaching a class of eight persons. It happened that seven were whites and one was black. The latter was a young man, just thirty-two years old. He was the first of those persons to grasp what this affirmation could do for his many judgments about how Life was not working well for him. There were six classes; all met on the same weekday, in consecutive order. In the first one I laid the groundwork for understanding that God is so Good that God has no judgments against anyone. This idea was explained in such a manner that everyone was to think upon it with the belief that they would allow this God­Good presence to bless them. They were to know that God held nothing against them.

Their own ideas that something was wrong about them were to be struck out of their thinking. The idea was that if God had nothing against them, then they had no reason to judge themselves severely for anything that they had done that seemed wrong. Gradually we reduced the idea that not only was a severe judgment out of place, but any judgment that reviewed wrongdoing was. It had to be replaced with the idea that the persons who they really were were Good.

This is not out of line with Jesus' way of viewing people. Rather, it is seeing Jesus as the great example and emulating his actions. Just as he saw the man with the withered hand as having a perfect hand, we are developing the way that we can see that we are perfect persons, but covered over with false ideas about who we are. We are now seeing ourselves as God sees us. We do not have to view ourselves as guilty, as mean, as dishonest, or as sickly. We do not have to feel anxious that actions which we have condoned in ourselves and others have taken from us the Good of the persons who we have been made to be. We do not have to change our own behavior directly. We do have to have a direct connection with God as our partner in rebuilding our lives.

Near the end of that first three hour class, I said that I had formed an affirmation which I wanted them all to say at least six times everyday until the next class a week later. I encouraged them to allow the affirmation to affect their lives so that they lived it out in all that they did. The affirmation went like this:

"Everything in my Life is God. Everything in my Life is Good. I am opening myself to a greater sense of Good. My Word is Power."

At the conclusion of the last words, they were to say to themselves something about their lives that hadn't seemed very Good, and to declare that it was changed right then. Then they were to repeat the entire affirmation. Again they were to say to themselves that the first thing they had mentioned was being changed right then. Then they were to repeat the whole thing again and again about four to six times. The six times that they were to say it for the day was to include the four to six statements about it each time. That meant they would say it anywhere from twenty-four to thirty-six times in a day. It didn't take a lot of time to do, but I knew the benefits would be great.

As quickly as I specified the value of this, a lady who was very mature in all ways said that it would be a mistake. That to say everything is Good is not the case. Then the class started reacting, and it was time to close the class. I could have easily felt that the class was not functioning well and that my point was not well received. That was the appearance! I had to insist in my own thoughts that the appearance was not the greater reality, but was something that would fall away as I declared it to be so.

Despite my doing just that, declaring that the appearance of what happened was not defeating the kind of camaraderie that I was seeking to accomplish, the appearance seemed to remain - until the next class meeting. The big surprise was that the black man arrived early along with half of the other class members. He was so happy that the others jogged him - for why he could be that way. They indicated that they remembered his telling the class the week before that his Life was a mess. Nothing had been going well. This included that his wife was giving him a hard time, he had lost his job - which he didn't like anyway, his money problems were acute, and many other things seemed impossible to resolve. His new enthusiasm sparked tremendous interest. Within a few minutes all the class members were assembled, and we opened up to his telling what was going on. What he first said was, "Well, you remember that affirmation that Rev. Royal gave us?" They said "Yes," although it turned out that he was the only one who had used it that week. He went on to tell how he kept working with it, and item by item all of his calamities turned around. Everything was different. Of course, this included a new job which he loved and which paid him well. Far more than that, he and his wife had a relationship which exceeded everything he had ever known before with her, and every single problem was turned around for the Good. The class was so enthused that they all started writing down the affirmation, and in the remaining weeks, I experienced a transformed group.

But that was not the end. After I moved to the Midwest the mature lady wrote to me about two years later. She had had such remarkable results in assisting her son who had been in and out of institutions dealing with both drugs and alcohol, that her letter was full of an incredible joy. She had gotten both her son, about twenty-two years of age and her daughter who was then seventeen, to spend some family time with her, working with that affirmation. The son got his Life together and was working at a Good job. The daughter who had had much trouble with her high school studies had completed that schooling, doing enough better, that everything considered, the whole family was exceedingly happy.

The stories go on and on. I have seen many people transformed through this procedure. Its basic empowerment is that they got their minds off of the appearances and away from judging themselves and others, and were allowing God to be their Good.

It is time for S.O.S. - For many people it has meant "Save Our Ship." Our interest in Spirit here leads us to mean "See Only Solutions." You can see yourself and everyone in your Life in a new Light. Light means in its deepest sense your having the Intelligence and the awareness to do well in all you experience. You must first see the Light. As you believe that God Loves you Unconditionally, you begin to have a new idea about yourself. You are Good at the core, and that Good will permeate the whole of you as you believe. As you consider your so-called problems, open up only to see Solutions.

Next week, my subject will be "THERE ARE NO VICTIMS" I will explain that no one can make you a victim unless you allow it. Even if you already think of yourself that way, you can rise out of it.