We believe in the unity of all Life, and that the Highest God and the innermost God is one God.

We believe that God is personal to all who feel this indwelling presence.

We believe in the direct revelation of Truth through our intuitive and spiritual nature, and that anyone may become a revealer of Truth who lives in close contact with the indwelling God.

We believe that the Univeral Spirit, which is God, operates through a Universal Mind, which is the Law of God, and that we are surrounded by this Creative Mind which receives the direct impress of our thought, and acts upon it.

_________________________ __________ –from the Declaration of Principles, Oakland Center for Spiritual Living, Oakland California

Before Jesus left his disciples, he gave them a message, as a promise forever. It is a promise he made to all of us, and it has been kept for 2,000 years.

"And I will pray the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever, even the spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you, and shall be in you." –John 14: 16-17

"These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things..." –John 14: 25-27

I quote Jesus because he was a master teacher who said things so clearly and simply that I could personally understand. But when Spirit speaks, it's not exclusively from any one faith or denomination. We don't have to belong to any select group, or any group at all, to have full access to all of God's love and God's strength and God's protection and God's generosity. I haven't read all of the scriptures of the world's great religions, but there are many New Thought thinkers and writers who have studied them deeply for most of their lifetimes, and this is a basic tenet of New Thought - that Truth is not given to some and withheld from others – the Truth is available to all who sincerely ask and sincerely listen.

Even so, it took half a lifetime for me to "get it." Mostly because I was afraid to believe it could be true for me, that I would be one of the blessed ones. The news that we ALL are, seemed too good to be true I thought, and through my own disbelief, I closed myself off from allowing it to express in my life. When I finally had the courage to believe that God might actually love me - everything in my life began to change.

Our relationship with this voice of our innermost God is very personal, so personal and sacred that we rarely speak of it to anyone. We know that God speaks to each of us in the way that they personally can understand, and it will not be the same for everyone. It is so very important to our deepest faith and understanding of life, and our relationship with God, that we keep it protected from view, our personal secret.

Recently in human history, some of the "secret" Truths are being revealed by ordinary people. Truths that in past generations were only revealed by prophets and saints. This is a good thing, for all of us, but it still requires great courage. Our task and responsibility now is to "step out onto the water" and trust God more, including that part of God that is within us, and share it more, with each other.

There really are no "secrets." All the basic Truths of how to live a joyful and abundant life were told to us by Jesus in the simplest terms a long long time ago, but most of us didn't believe that it was meant for us, or that it could be that simple. Actually it is as simple as we make it, as simple as we personally need it to be. No one is excluded, not anyone. All that exists is available to everyone who asks and listens; it is revealed in words, insights, intuitions, experiences, events, and other unexpected ways. We are never abandoned, no matter how it seems in the physical world. There is more than the physical. Our life is much bigger than the limitations of the physical world, and now we are beginning to know this.

Take courage and take faith, whatever your path is now. You have infinite choices, and there is nothing in the physical world that cannot be changed by calling upon the universal God that lives within you and operates through you. Seek to hear. Seek to know. Go to your quiet place, empty your mind of all thoughts, and wait in silence for a while. Turn away from all those anxious thoughts and fears about whatever is going on in your life, Be still, and know that God is present. Then ask the questions that are troubling your heart, and hear the answers.

They will surprise you. They will not be what you expect.