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Oasis Rising Center 8125 West Sahara Avenue, Las Vegas, NV 89125

Enjoy another wonderful text by Rev. Phil Smedsted, minister Emeritus of Oasis Rising Center

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Phil Smedstad's texts are one of the ways Oasis Rising Center supports members.

A Positive Path for Spiritual Living

Oasis Rising Center Spiritual Center
Oasis Rising Center 8125 West Sahara Avenue
Las Vegas, NV 89125
(702) 804-8189
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“The Power of Spiritual Community” 

By Rev. Phillip Smedstad

This lesson was one of what I sometimes call an “advanced” lesson.

Here at Unity, we are building a healthy spiritual community, and this building is a continuing process.  This brings up the question:  Why even be a part of a spiritual community?  What can a spiritual community do for each of us?

My answer to that is to ask another question. 

Have you tried becoming enlightened by yourself, without support?  In my experience, the results of this are quite limited.  I’m in complete agreement with Marianne Williamson.  In her book A Return to Love, she says, “The secret to spiritual growth is other people.”

The Buddhists say that the purpose of life is to “cross a river.”  This trip takes us from “the shore of ordinary life” with its experiences of suffering and misery, to “the shore of Buddha consciousness” with its experience of joy and peace.

They say that in order to make this trip, what’s needed is a raft with three components, and they say it like this:

• As I cross the river, I take refuge in the Buddha.  (That is, one thing I need is an example of Buddha consciousness.)
• As I cross the river, I take refuge in the dharma.  (That is, another thing I need as a guide is a set of the Buddha’s teachings.)
• As I cross the river, I take refuge in the sangha.  (That is, another thing I need on my journey is a spiritual community.)

Here at Unity, we completely agree, and we’d say it like this:  The purpose of life is to know and to express our oneness with God and God’s qualities.  This is our inner journey from ego mind to Christ consciousness.  In order to attain Christ consciousness, three things are needed:

• We need the example of one who attained Christ consciousness, which is Jesus.
• We need the teachings of this one who attained Christ consciousness. 
• We need a spiritual community, a place where we can learn and practice spiritual principles.  (Once again, the secret to spiritual growth is other people.)

The purpose of all relationships is two-fold.  The first part of that purpose is to heal our sense of separation from God.  The second part is to empower us to become all we want to be.

In this lesson, I addressed a part of how this works.

In Unity, we teach that life is eternal, neither beginning with birth nor ending with death.  Most of us accept that “reincarnation is the most likely scenario” of how we continue to grow and develop.

When we enter this lifetime, we attract the family, the parents, and the body which will help us grow spiritually in all the ways we asked to grow this time around.  Our family of origin provides us with all the material we need (even when the lessons are no fun at all).

In childhood, things happened as early as birth, and we made decisions.  For example, my birth was pretty extreme.  My mom and I were in labor for five days.  (That wouldn’t happen in this day and age, but I was born in 1946.)

As a result, I made at least two decisions which were to run my life until I began to consciously undo them.  The first was that “life is a struggle.”  The second was “My presence hurts people.”  (My mom went directly into hemorrhoid surgery.)

Stewart Emery, one of the pioneers in the transformation movement, once said, “It isn’t what happened to us that made us crazy.  It’s the decisions we made about those events which made us crazy.”

By the time we’re adults, most of us are carrying some mistaken decisions.  (For example beliefs like, “I am not enough,” or “I’m stupid.)  It’s as if we are walking “jukeboxes.”  We each have a set of buttons on the front of our bodies, and we (unconsciously) ask people to push them.  Why?  Because we insist on bringing the mistaken decisions to the surface so we have the opportunity to change them.

Remember, one purpose of all relationships is to heal our sense of separation from God.  That is why we find certain people and situations attractive.  We think it’s their great looks or their scintillating personality.  It’s not.  All attraction has to do with the potential for healing.  We are, after all, spiritual beings having a human experience.

And, the more committed you are, the more healing is possible.  This is true in all relationships, including here at Unity.  The more committed you are, the more healing and empowerment you can experience.

With 40 years of experience in spiritual communities, my advice is:  “Don’t be a spiritual dabbler.”  Find a path to which you can commit, and go for it.

If Unity is a place where you feel you can make a commitment, here are some ways you can do that:

• Become a member.  (Six people did just that on Sunday.)
• Join one of our volunteer ministry teams.  The possible benefits to you in doing this are enormous.
• Attend Unity classes.  We here at Unity call ourselves “Unity students.”  We are constantly learning and growing.

On Sunday, I also shared with everyone some ways to recognize a healthy spiritual community.  In a healthy spiritual community:

• We all know we are divine, and when we forget, we count on someone here to remind us.
• We practice empowering each other, not saving each other.
• We see each other as our mirrors, and we use this knowledge to heal and empower ourselves.
• We talk TO each other, not ABOUT each other, and we communicate responsibly.
• We practice being authentic and real.  (We realize that “intimacy” really means “into-me-see.”)
• We are committed to service, both here and in the larger community.
• We practice having a sense of humor.

Commitment and relationships are powerful tools in spiritual growth.  So, if you live in our area, I encourage you to commit here.  If this isn’t a place at which you feel right making a commitment, I then encourage you to go somewhere else – a place where you feel good making a commitment.

Why?  Because eventually, life itself will bring you to an experience of oneness with God.  However, “eventually” can be a very, very long time, and “life itself” is not necessarily a gentle teacher.

The how-to today is to practice committing in relationships – here, and wherever else you can, because in your soul’s deep desire to experience oneness with God (and you can’t possibly fail in this desire), you deserve a path of ease and grace.