Print

Hearts at Work

A Column by James Tipton

“The Golden Key”

 

old-golden-keyMany memories, both old and new, both good and bad, have emotions connected with them, either positive or negative…emotions that can affect our lives this very day, this very minute. Roy Eugene Davis, director of the Center for Spiritual Awareness in Lakemont Georgia, writes that “Memories, impressions of perceptions, enable us to have a sense of our history and to think rationally. Memories which bring forth unfavorable mental or emotional reactions can be disarmed by knowing that, without our consent, they cannot unduly influence our mind, emotions, or behaviors.”

Without our consent, memories which disturb us can not unduly influence our mind, emotions, or behaviors. But how do we stop “giving consent” to those memories? Although Davis strongly encourages us to meditate regularly on our higher selves, to make Self Realization the purpose of our lives, he does recognize the need some of us have to neutralize feelings related to unpleasant or unwanted events.

One suggestion he offers is this: “use imagination to revise them by ‘seeing’ and feeling them as you wish they had occurred. Doing that will not alter memories of events but will neutralize the emotions related to memories. When remembering mistakes that were made, use imagination to revise the sequence of events as you wish they had occurred. View all memories as an objective observer.” Viewing as an objective observer means that we are viewing with emotional detachment.

Walking with a buddy on the Malecon this week, he told me about the Silva Mind Control methods he has put into use. When a disrupting, powerful, potentially destructive emotion rises up, usually in response to a recent (often very recent) or past memory, simply say—forcefully—“Cancel! Cancel!”

Another method is that of Emmet Fox, who lectured to thousands in the first half of the twentieth century about how to live the spiritual life. Direct and simple, Fox tells us that “Scientific prayer will enable you to get yourself or anyone else out of any difficulty.” He assures us that “Beginners often get startling results for the first time, for all that is essential is to have an open mind and sufficient faith to try the experiment.”

How does it work? Fox says “it is simplicity itself. All you have to do is this: Stop thinking about the difficulty, whatever it is, and think about God instead.” This is the “Golden Key”: You must stop thinking about the trouble, whatever it is, and think about God instead. “Your object is to drive the thought of the difficulty out of your consciousness, for a few moments at least, substituting for it the thought of God. This is the crux of the whole thing. If you can become so absorbed in this consideration of the spiritual world that you forget for a while about the difficulty, you will find that you are safely and comfortably out of your difficulty.”

“…by constantly repeating a statement of absolute Truth, such as: There is no power but God; I am the child of God, filled and surrounded by the perfect peace of God; God is guiding me now; or, perhaps best and simplest of all, God is with me—however mechanical or trite it may seem—you will soon find that the treatment has begun to ‘take.’ And that your mind is clearing. Do not struggle violently; be quiet, but insistent.”

These ideas have been useful to me, and perhaps will be useful to some of you as well.