Metaphysical 5th Commandment and 5th Law of Prosperity

In case you missed the last few weeks, let me refresh your memory of the 1st four Commandments and the last 4 Laws of Prosperity. As a whole these 1st four Commandments of Moses and of Prosperity give us the rules for right action with God.

They are:

Metaphysical Commandments

1. “God and I are One”
2. “Worship no false idols or graven images, instead put God 1st”
3. “Worship no false idols or graven images, instead put God 1st”
4. “It is always the Sabbath Day. We honor it by consciously spending time with Spirit in thought and deed.”

Metaphysical Laws of Prosperity

1. ”Thou shalt look to no other source but God for thy Supply”
2. ”Thou shalt make no mental images of lack”
3. ”Thou shalt not speak the word of lack or limitation; thus taking the 'I Am' name of Spirit in vain.”
4. “Let Go and Let God Do It”

Today we move on to the 1st of the last 6 Commandments that give us practical instructions in living a happy, healthy life; right action with each other and with life in general. Before we begin the bulk of this lesson, I would like you to note that all the Commandments are really viewing one great truth from different angles. They dovetail one another; for example, to break the 5th Commandment “Honor your Father and your Mother, that your days may be long in the land, which your father has given you.” breaks others. For example, to break the 5th Commandment is to place your hopes on some power other than God. It is dishonoring your true power, which is Spirit. It is also breaking the 1st Commandment forgetting that “God and I are One”; as well, it is attempting to steal something from Spirit, that is to steal your love, your trust, your faith in God and so forth and so on.

On the simplistic level of course it is true that you should respect your parents for no other reason than that they are your parents. You chose to come into your personal allusion of life through them. Yes,it is much easier to honor them if they were loving, kind, and respectful to you. Still, you need to love your parents even if they had obvious faults and you, as their offspring, have a very good reason to know beyond a shadow of doubt what those faults were. “Little pitchers have big ears” so says the Proverb. Those little ears and eyes are listening and seeing day and night, not just when you are instructing them. In fact, that is the one time that they pay very little attention to you. Yet, they do pay attention at other times, especially when you have forgotten that they are around. They observe and learn quite young, far younger than you might think. So, you must honor your parents but that is just the surface of the law. There is a much deeper, far more profound level in this commandment, just as there is in all the others. When this commandment says “Honor thy Father and thy Mother”, it brings in the two poles, the male and female aspects of Spirit, and this polarity is needed to move in the Universe. God is One but if that One is undifferentiated, there would be no expression, no manifestation. To get any activity you must have at least two poles and these poles with their interaction produce a third. Thus, we have a Trinity. Old Fashioned Christianity speaks of it as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. More modern Christianity speaks of it as Creator, Christ, and Holy Spirit. We in Unity call it Mind, idea, and expression. When this commandment tells us to “Honor our Father and our Mother...”, it is telling us to recognize God as First Cause, the One Presence, the One Power; and, if we do this, our days shall be long and prosperous without troubles or difficulties.

When we give power to anything else but God or Spirit, we have trouble. Remember that I am using the words “God” and “Spirit” interchangeably. For example, if we give power to the calendar by saying “Well, of course, at my age, I couldn't do so and so” or “If I had only known this in my 20's and 30's”, I'd have been so much wiser getting so much more accomplished by now”, we are not honoring our Father and our Mother, our God, our Spirit. We are giving power instead to the belief that there is a perfect time; and, we all know that what we call “time” is an illusion. Sometimes we give power to matter by saying, “there are laws of nature”, you know, “ you cannot change the law of gravity. Believing in time or believing in the power of matter and decay , makes us old and ultimately kills us. Giving power to the law of nature limits us in every way. Yet who of us is strong enough to defy gravity? I know that I am not as yet but perhaps I will be one day. On a Spiritual Journey with a group of fellow seekers, I saw a man defy gravity. While meditating, he rose inches off the ground. St. Theresa of Avalon was known to have done the same thing. I would have loved to have been one of the nuns, pulling her back down. In any case, there are people who have done it, not me, but they are out there.

Giving our power over to other people, gets us in even more trouble. Perhaps someone says, “You can't do this, or you can't be that, because you are not good enough, you don't know the right people.” And worse yet, you believe them. This is acknowledging a “Second Cause” and a “Second Cause” is idolatry that breaks the 1st and 2nd Commandments as well and trouble follows. God is our Father and our Mother. Our human parents, as good or as bad as they may have been, are Foster Parents, the Channel for God, for Spirit. If you feel that you must give your child all the wisdom that you have gleaned in your 40 some years, you will feel overwhelmed. Instead think, “No, I am the Foster Parent, I am the Channel, that child is a Child of God; then, you will find it much easier to influence him or her simply with your prayers. Your child must one day learn to make his or her own decisions. Remember you are not alone and neither is your child. God is the One Cause and it is in these 10 Commandments that Moses reminds us over and over again that One Cause, 1st Principle, Spirit, is that which gets us out of the land of Egypt, the land of limitation, fear, and bondage.

Spirit works through our thoughts, our feelings, and our emotions. What you do is only a result of what you think. However, for thought to work it must have feeling behind it and belief to activate it. Remember that when you come into the Metaphysical Movement, it does not mean that you can check your hat at the door and your common sense with it. You must pray to Spirit Affirmatively for change to occur. Belief is the power behind your prayer. Father is thought, Mother is feeling, the offspring is manifestation. Manifestation could actually be in this world prosperity or healing or something else just as precious. You can learn truth, the result of thinking, the Father side, quite quickly; but, feeling, the Mother side, your heart, your gut, is what counts for change to occur. Get the thought right, fill it with feeling and manifestation will occur. We will Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother in this way and The Trinity will occur, Mind, idea, expression.

Thus the metaphysical 5th Commandment is recognize Spirit as the only Cause, 1st Principle, One Power in two polarities, thinking and feeling. When we have this recognition, our days will be long and blessed.

To understand this commandment and how it plays out in our lives goes like this: The first Circle of Life is our family. Then comes the circle of our friends, next our acquaintances, our town, our country, our world. If you do not respect your parents, you will have difficulties in all your human relationships. You see our ability to relate to each other begins in our first circle with parents and with siblings, that carries on to the next circle and so on. Until you deal with your first family, with your first circle of parents and family ethically with justice, honesty, and cooperation, even forgiveness you will have difficulty dealing openly with other people in your life. Remember even if they were hurtful, you must come to terms with it, forgive them, and move on. It is not going to be easy but it is necessary for trust to happen in other relationships later.

St Thomas Aquinas, the great mystic of the 13 century, says that if we are ungrateful for the physical life bestowed upon us by our parents, we are unable to be grateful for the Spiritual Life bestowed upon us by God.” As we look at our parents we can see behind them to the source of all life, our Father/Mother God.

The 5th Law of Prosperity is “Thou shalt deal honorably with Spirit and with all human manifestation, all human and animal instruments, through which ultimately “Good “ is manifested for you.” The truth of this keeps perfect balance in creation. Balance means giving and receiving in equal amounts. If our attitude is getting more than we are giving, we will have problems. Our subconscious mind will always try to balance our actions and will bring into our lives whatever people or experiences are necessary for that balance to occur. There is an old say. “there ain't no free lunch.”, you do not get something for nothing. Businesses that deliver inferior products, or have poor service, or operate with greed will fail. Four that come to my mind are the automobile industry, the timber industry, the banks, and the housing and or home loan industry. Many of these are in trouble today. The decision makers forgot ethics, they forgot to listen to their customers, and we are now all reaping the result. When we are in a state of mind of fear and have forgotten that the source of all things is what we call God or Spirit, we are in trouble. People are simply the instruments though which God or Spirit sends his blessings. We always live our life from the choice of love or from fear. When we are afraid, we do many strange and unkind things, We cheat, we force, we may become greedy, we try to possess more and more than we give. In all our actions we must strive to be honest, just, and cooperative with each other. One only tries to get more and more, when one thinks that there is not enough to go around.

Yes, we live our lives from love or from fear. When we live in fear, we forget that there is unlimited abundance and the key to it is sharing with each other. Often when we find our flow of prosperity slowing down, from fear we begin to clutch, to hold to whatever we have. This action creates more of the same, scarcity. Yet when our flow of prosperity seems to slow down, what we really need to do is to give more. It seems backwards to the human self; but the Spiritual self knows only the unlimited supply. Respect yourself, your parents, your fellow humans, respect your God. Always strive to give more than you receive in all your interactions. Deal honorably with others, with justice and honesty, and the flow of prosperity will increase.

Thus the 5th Law of Prosperity is “thou shalt deal honorably with God or Spirit, and with all human instruments through which Spirit is manifested for you.“

Namaste,

Barbara