"God setteth the solitary in families:" (Psalm 68: 6 to : King James Version). "Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee; Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift." (Matthew 5: 23, 24 - King James Version) "For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind. But be ye glad and rejoice for ever in that which I create: for, behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy." (Isaiah 65: 17, 18; King James Version).
We are herd animals. Having companionship is vital to our sense of well-being. In our early youth, we seek others to play with and share our secrets. As we advance to adulthood, we seek not only best friends to share our lives with, but also a mate or marriage partner for long-term emotional security and affection. From childhood throughout our entire earthly lifetimes, finding the right companions (at the time we need them) oftentimes seems impossible. Relying upon our physical senses to reveal our right companions to us just doesn't work very well. When seeking our right companions strictly from a material point of view, we rarely find them because the physical senses are so limited. We can only see what's actually in front of us. We only hear what others tell us. So rarely are the physical senses very wide in their scope. Thus, we feel isolated in the confines of this material existence to know who is 'out there' for us in the great beyond. It could be someone right next door, and we don't know it! So, to become finders, (rather than endless seekers for any one or anything in creation) there is a spiritualization of thought which must occur. This spiritualization can begin with the realization that God, the infinite Creator of the universe, is our only Source. God's universe, however, is not the universe of matter. Where we see limited, physical identities, God, Spirit, sees the spiritual and everlasting children of Its own creation. In fact, as children of divine Spirit, we have never left our true home—the Kingdom of God. Material existence is the false sense of being which Christ Jesus came to reveal, and recall to our collective thought. His life's mission was to show that each one's individual, Christly identity and oneness with God, still resides dormant within the memory of us all, even as we go about this human experience, believing that we are cut off from God. God has said to our true identities, "…Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine." (Luke 15: 31). Since God is Spirit, and Spirit is omnipresent, we each have the quality of omnipresence in our true, spiritual identity (our Christly Selfhood). Our Christ Consciousness is actually cognizant of everyone in creation; no one is hidden. It is this divine consciousness within us that calls our human attention to the one who meets our need for companionship, or anything else. In the allness of God's creation, no one is left out. Now, we can fail to realize this fact, and we can go on living in this materially human way of living, relying only upon these limited physical senses, rather than seeking spiritual answers for our miseries; but the blessings we miss (by not knowing our spiritual selfhood) are enormous. Our divine circumstances are our only real circumstances. To know them and call upon them, even in a small degree, changes our situations from bad to good, so that our human situations more perfectly reflect our divine circumstances. In other words, discord becomes harmony, even in the realm of companionship. Over the years, and on different occasions, I have recognized four spiritual facts that relate to this important subject of having the right friends and partners in our lives. These I'm happy to share with you: 1. The real isolation that mentally afflicts us when we feel cut out from the herd has its basis in a false sense of ourselves as separated from our divine Source, God. We forget that, "For in Him, we live, and move, and have our being;" (Acts 17: 28). Within God, Spirit, we are closer to everyone than the physical senses report. Thus, it's our God-connection and companionship we first need to recognize and re-establish. 2. Having created all identities, the all-knowing, all-seeing, (omnipresent) Spirit of God, knows where everyone is, all the time. No one is ever hidden from the divine Intelligence, and we are at one with this divine, spiritual Mentality. No one is really hidden from us, since no one can really be separated from God; and we have God at the core of our very own conscious being. 3. Since Spirit is our Source of ALL good (in and out of this human experience) this all-knowing, all-seeing Intelligence knows who is right for us, at any given time. When we're ready to turn away from our own limited ability to do anything on our own, we are always free to turn to the universal Christ Consciousness within, our very link to God's infinite presence and power, to find the spiritual, rather than physical truth of our circumstances. Turning to the perception capabilities of our innate spiritual sense, we can then wait upon the divine Intelligence within to reveal who we need and who needs us. But we must let go of our own opinion in the matter, about how it should work, and who it should be. (Sometimes we even find a best friend in a past enemy.) 4. (This one should be highlighted in thought, although it's the least one we like to admit.) Humanly speaking, there is a connection between fault-finding, criticizing, and judging others, and the endless search for close friends or partners. People slip through our fingers when we criticize and judge them. Spiritually speaking, all the people in the world are really our divine brothers and sisters, all are our good and true companions. Our true, higher self loves every one of them, and they love us right back. If we hold a habit of judging, criticizing and fault-finding in the people we meet, however, we inadvertently have rejected them as valuable to us as companions. (This includes accepting family members as friends.) Many people have already been brought into our experience, and we've rejected them through faulty, human judgment. Therefore, we must cease to judge people, or hold anything against them. Instead, by realizing their true identity and viewing them from a spiritual standpoint, we find our real brethren, despite anything they do. It's wise to know their real loving and sinless selves, even if they don't seem to know themselves. I've found that it's a very good idea to let go and reconcile with any and all people we've held something against. Eliminate any 'enemy' list. I come by this last fact (#4) honestly. I was in high school when I realized how many times I had broken this rule. Here's my story on this: I've mentioned before in my writings that my family moved around a lot when I was a child. Every two years, I attended another school. It seemed like I was always the 'new kid'. I had to strive to belong. I attended two high schools—one for my freshman and sophomore years, another for my junior and senior years. By this time, I was tired of being the new kid. I didn't want the attention, good or bad. Usually, at every school, some classmates were very accepting of me; but there were always, just a few, who felt threatened by new classmates. They often gave me grief in some form. At one of the high schools, things were particularly negative. I received notes shoved into my locker saying, "Why don't you just go back to where you came from?" One or two individuals would bump me in the hall, or say unkind things to me as they passed by. I had no idea why there was so much of this, at this particular school. I decided that there were just a lot of really mean people at this location; I would probably not find close friends here. But I have also felt the invisible presence of God with me, most of my life. This 'other' sense always made me feel safe and loved, even with people who didn't like me. So, after several weeks of bad treatment, I prayed about it. I asked God to reveal to me a way of making all this negative behavior disappear. As I recall, that 'still, small voice' within (1st Kings: 19, 12 - King James Version) began to speak softly to my thought. It told me that unhappy, hostile people try to make others feel the pain of what they are feeling about themselves. Misery does like company. These unhappy one (the thoughts told me) do not feel the love of God as anything real or present. Therefore, LOVE them, no matter how they are behaving toward you. Forget yourself in this. Love is what they really need. Say kind words back to their anger and threats. Whenever possible, bless each one by making them feel important and good about themselves. Find something good about them to compliment. And under no circumstances, criticize them or see them as having bad faults, even in your own thinking. Do not label them. Labeling with human faults breaks the commandment of 'bearing false witness'; for they aren't mortal creatures. They are really the joyous, and loving, children of God. SEE them correctly. The voice within also told me that, if I followed these rules, all would be well. I would find my new friends and companions. I was to realize that their real selves loved me, just as my true self really loved them. So, for several weeks, I did exactly as I was told—just like from a script; and, sure enough, all the bad treatment finally ceased. Not only that, but a couple of the girls became my close companions (they apologized for their ill-treatment of me; they explained that I was a Northerner, and they didn't like Northerners) and one of the boys tried to make it up to me, by doing nice things for me, like carry my books home after school. I wish I could say that I faithfully followed that advice from my Christ Consciousness all the rest of my life so far, but that would be a big falsehood. It seems that, periodically, I have to learn this lesson all over again. Oftentimes, I still react to unkindness by finding fault with the human personality of someone. I bear false witness and often mentally criticize them, when instead, I should be remembering their Christ identity, hiding within them—the identity made in the image and likeness of God. So, #4 above is the hard one to conquer and internalize. It is so easy to criticize. It's like an automatic reflex in humans. Yet, from that early episode in high school, I was shown that a loving spirit attracts others, when one stays in the more positive realm of spiritual thought and behavior toward others. People react to negative feedback and move away from it, just as they move away from the person delivering it. It only takes one, unkind, negative statement to lose their desire for companionship with us. I think of it in this way: as God is bringing our right companions and partners to us, we are to be laying the groundwork for their acceptance of us and their desire to have our companionship, by loving them all as we love ourselves. When we lay this important groundwork, universally, and make it a new habit, we really do find new companions and the right partners to share our lives with. When they find a loving spirit within us, they don't tend to leave us so easily.
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