I am about to give a short workshop tonight at 6:30 HT on the 19th Century mystic and healer Phineas Quimby. He began as a simple inventor and clockmaker. It was his personality to prove everything. He never took anyone ‘s word for Truth unless he could prove it. So he went about his life with an open mind, listening to what was available, studying, and putting to test what he studied.

I am grateful to practice a philosophy – religion – if you want to call it that – that challenges me to experiment and prove its tenets. I am grateful that I do not, as one of my fellow philosophers said, “leave my brain outside the church doors.” I get to bring logic to the things that I am told and the things I read. I practice a “practical spirituality.”

Now, I understand that there is a thing that is called faith, but I have a different concept of faith. It is not blind. It is an understanding that comes from deep knowing. It comes from intuition and the acceptance that there is a Power greater than I am that works through me and all my affairs. It finally comes from taking that faith and using it. I believe that is why it is written, “Faith without works is dead.”

So many times, I meet people through my line of work, people who I have counseled, or who have heard my messages, read my writing; and they say that they have tried it all or that they do believe, but their life has not changed one bit. They are still suffering, poor and sick, or living in a world that they believe is against them.

I am sorry, but I do not believe that these people have tried for more than a moment to prove their Principle or Faith. If they had, they would have learned something that would have improved their lives in some way. It takes practice and experimenting to prove a truth if we want it to be lasting in our lives. We are all perfect just where we are; however, please do not unjustifiably negate something that others have proved. I have witnessed many who have come from the depths of despair to joy by taking these Principles and using them in their lives.

One thing I know is that Life is Good. There couldn’t possibly be a God that wants us to suffer or has given birth within us as suffering. I know this because I have taken the time to prove it to myself. When I speak, it is speaking from my own experience. I have seen how my mind works and how I can elevate myself or sabotage myself through my use of the Principle.

Life is to me as I am to it. God is what I can conceive It (Him or Her) to be. I can experience nothing or understand nothing that does not come through my own consciousness and is understood there.

This is a practical philosophy that is open at the top, always pouring new information through me as I come to understand what I have already embodied. I cannot go further than I can prove to myself, and yet I am always open to know and experience the more.

I love the New Thought Philosophy because it has given me a God that is One God, no matter how each of us experiences that God. God is to us as we are to It. I am grateful to have the opportunity to live my philosophy and to enjoy its fruits in my life. I continue to work on proving what is put before me by using it. My only mission is to live my life as an example of what is possible for all of us.

Love and Aloha,

Rev. Rita

PS By the way, our workshop on Phineas Quimby is being live-streamed at 6:30 HT, 8:30 PT. It will be recorded and you can catch it anytime at http://www.cslkauai.org by clicking on the livestream link or the archived video link or going to our page on YouTube.