Relationship-all relationships-have habitually been thought of as two. As a concept within the paradox world, believed to be real, relationships are dualistic and problematic. Separated from the Reality that is its reason for existing, relatedness is one of humanity's greatest areas of difficulty. Human beings assume roles in their daily lives contrary to the oneness of Being that gives them existence. Believing they are one among many, beings try to guide, fix, change and mold their "others" --individuals within their experience -- to fit their own concept of the way things should be.
Infinity, the fact of one-whole, shows up in the language of the paradox world as many. Being, an all-inclusive oneness, gives rise to the identifying language that is uniquely appropriate for each individual. Human beings believe someone can be nice to them or love them, says Mrs.Laird.. That belief demands the failure of their concepts of niceness and of love. No one can be nice to you or love you. Your own niceness is the niceness you experience in daily living. Your own Love, is the love you see as loving you. One eternal Being, infinitely present and self-expressing, constitutes and constructs every experience called "other" or "world" as the fullness of its own individual self-expression. Being, relating to itself as itself, appears in language as "where one or two are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst." to paraphrase a familiar Bible quote.
Relate literally means "to bind together." One-All is the fact. Lived individually, each one is responsibly related to all the phenomenal world he walks through. The relatedness is not personal. It is integral, ie. of the same stuff. Substance, continuity and intelligence are Mind-action existing in/as me and mine
every instant.
Jobs, communities, religions, institutions of various kinds and all categories of human activity are social relationships. All are concepts, or Reality, the way we see it. Distinctions between these social constructs are distinctions without a difference since, in the words of Margaret Laird, "the inter-relatedness of all humankind is the expression of the divine. Without the divine, there is no humanity." All expressions of Reality constitute the language of Self-discovering for you and me as the divine becomes our view. The full representation of Mind best explains the presence of all that is or seems to be.
Said yet another way, all human appearances are actually the discernible form for the moment of one infinite Being in all it's variety of expression. One perfect, complete, whole, fulfilled and self-expressed presencing shows up in/as language understandable at the present belief level of each individual. What looks like many is the infinity of one the way we see it. And that one is Being, being itself being, individualized as the language you and I see, feel, hear, taste and touch right now. One-All, Being itself, gives rise to the language called relationship identifying its own self-knowledge forever expressing the infinite, eternal One.
In the mirror of relationship, we see ourselves. There is no other outside of our Mind. Mrs. Eddy taught that every individual is alone with his own being and the Reality of everything appearing in/as his world. "We are the world we walk through." (Laird)
In the context of Science, in the discernment of the facts of one Being wherein I am the world I walk through, the word relationship implies a binding together of the ideas pictured as my entire world of experience, into one self-communicating whole. Every single event and experience has value for me. It is my self-expressed identity the way I am currently seeing and living my divinity. When I experience myself as displeased, frustrated, unhappy or unwell my focus has lost sight of oneness, and a belief in more than one, duality, is the picture confronting me which threatens my joy. Blindness to present perfection has us persist in efforts to manage, change and fix the difficulty, whereas Science teaches us to forsake that view. Inharmonious views of Reality -- since every view must be of what is real-can be dispelled by turning to the facts of Science. Whenever the facts of divine Being are acknowledged and embraced as the substance and fact of the seen, heard and felt, regardless of their appearance, perception shifts revealing the ever-new current language of a more harmonious experience of living.
A young woman who attended the recent La Jolla Seminar telephoned to report her immediate experience of practicing ideas presented in the seminar. She had awakened in the morning having difficulty swallowing. Immediately her previous actions in response to those symptoms came to mind, but she also remembered ideas from the Seminar that showed that it was essential to leave that basis of belief (the belief of existence separate from Mind) in place of trying to fix it. The next step was to acknowledge Mind/Being, present perfection, as the source of all that is or seems to be. She had been packing for a trip, so she completed her packing and went to the airport. While standing in line at the airport, she realized she was completely free of all symptoms of a sore throat. She called to let me know the effectiveness of her "practice exercise."
As we live the inspired meaning of relationship, or of any term implying duality, and are aware that everything that is, is one Being happening right where we are -- there is no victim.. Existence is never "out there." All that is, is present here, now. The word "nothing" in the context of Science is obsolete. Everything is! Something cannot be nothing. So everything is the presence of something, the presence of Reality the way I can see it at the moment. As focus sharpens, as clearer views arise, that which was unsettling and unacceptable fades or dissolves into the eternally evolving present. Human views are temporary and transitory. They appear, disappear, and a new "what" appears in nanoseconds -- faster than the eye can perceive. Humanly the illusion of continuity has us believe in the reality of a "past," but that belief is merely a view of the uninterrupted relatedness of Being and its identity.
A relatedness of One gives rise to all relationships. Being, presencing itself as humanity, is a view of the Self's infinite capacity to be all. Living as the one of all and the all of one, is a self-responsible acknowledgement of wholeness and completeness. It is a committed willingness to "Love my neighbor as myself" not as a neighbor to be loved, but as the presence that is Love itself the way I am living it. My own acknowledgement has my world behave exactly the way it is behaving. It's purpose is to awaken me to the conscious infinitude of Good that best identifies my Self. All is infinite Mind, infinitely manifest, regardless of the human evidence.
The world of today, involving terrorism -- man's inhumanity to man -- is a view that denies all universal relatedness, denies the one-All. Such a view demands that we live ourselves divinely or perish. Living divinely, embracing my humanity (every view, every circumstance, every incident of daily life) with the facts of Being, is to live consciously aware that wholeness is my present reflected of Reality.
Actively practicing Metaphysical Science requires on-going discernment of the facts of Spirit, Principle, divine Love, and demands adherence to whatever that discernment reveals. In and as the presence of divine Love, there is nothing to heal, change, fix, manage, restore or influence to be other than it already is. Perfection is the presence seen heard and felt exactly as my conscious or unconscious acknowledgement of the facts of Being occurs. Denial of whatever confronts us, has that confrontation persist and leaves us in the human dilemma of dissatisfaction, poor health, insufficiency, depression, frustration, and the like. When we allow what we observe sensorily to tell us what's real, we cannot avoid the human dilemma. Whenever we leave the paradox basis of belief by recognizing that the human is human because it is divine, we set aside any penalty or victim role and unite with the source of peace and joy and power. This divine acknowledgement annuls the belief that being, doing and having are human traits to be modified in order to experience Good, and establishes all action as Mind-action inter-related and expressed as the immediate presence of perfection.
Mrs. Eddy wrote, "Thou shalt have no other Gods before me"-the me is Spirit, I, the only I there is. She goes on, "One infinite God" [Mind, Principle, Consciousness] "good, unifies men and nations." Mrs. Laird explained the positive need for the synonyms since the word God implies you here and God somewhere else. The divinity of humanity demands oneness, with nothing separate from the Being being you.
Distinguishing the ephemeral nature of the language world, allows the individual to recognize Being as All-One which constitutes the "brotherhood of man, unifies men and nations; ends wars; and leaves nothing that can sin, suffer, be punished or destroyed." One Mind, presencing itself, "leaves nothing that can sin, suffer, be punished or destroyed."
Truth present is the chemicalizing action that brings to view the Good and disposes of the human sense of Good. Are we worshipping other Gods, i.e. appearances.
