Metaphysical Bible Study at Unity of the Westside
The last session of the five session Metaphysical Bible Study at Unity of the Westside in Culver City is tomorrow, Wednesday April 17, 2024 at 5:30 pm. I have been to the first four sessions however I am doubting that I will attend the last one. The Unity belief system is one of my foundations but it is all so much busy work to me now. I will definitely be at the Unity A Course In Miracles class on Wednesday at 7:00 pm because ACIM is mysticism, even if it is a very wordy and dense. Mysticism gets right to the thing itself. Goldsmith would approve of ACIM.
My mystical meditation teacher Joel S. Goldsmith (1892-1964) cautions against metaphysical belief systems confusing and obstructing the mystical practitioner. Although Goldsmith started out in the metaphysical Christian Science religion, mysticism is a more advanced belief system. Mysticism is what I am after. I and the Father are One, not two. I am one with God.
Orthodox vs. Metaphysical vs. Mysticism
In orthodox Christianity the practitioner prays to the sky God. In orthodox religion you pray for example, “God please heal me of my cancer.” Then, if God decides you deserve it, God heals you of your cancer. In Metaphysical Christianity such as Unity of the Westside, you make the affirmative prayer, “God, I know that you have already healed me of my cancer.” However in a mystical belief system such as Goldsmith’s Infinite Way, you only meditate upon oneness with God. There is no asking God for anything because everything is God. There isn’t even any mention of your cancer. Cancer does not exist because only God exists. Hard to grasp, you bet!
Mysticism is Hard Work
In mysticism there is no Santa Claus God. Mysticism is more closely related to Zen, where there is no God. In Zen everything is One. Zen is the practice of non-duality. I have dabbled in Zen from age nineteen years to the present. Maybe this Sunday I will go to the Dharma Zen Center. It is located only a few miles from my apartment. It took me a lifetime of study, practice and meditation to get to the mysticism I now find myself practicing on a daily and nightly basis.
Orthodox, oriental and Metaphysics Are My Roots
My religious training began at Saturday catechism at the local Catholic Church when I was in grammar school. Those basics have stayed with me to this day. When I heard the story of Saul transforming into Paul, I knew that I wanted that to happen to me someday and it has. However when I became a teenager my ego decided that there was no God as taught by Catholicism. I can vividly remember being fourteen years old and closing the wooden door to the old Our Lady of Lourdes Church in Tujunga and ending my relationship with orthodox religion.
I am a joiner and so throughout the decades I visited several orthodox churches like Grace Community Church in Sun Valley. I even regularly attended the Harvester Mission in Highland Park and it’s seminary school for a few years. I got married at Sacred Family in Mexico City and went to mass with my wife but I was just doing orthodoxy halfheartedly.
THE INFINITE WAY
In 1992 my wife and I saw Religious Science Minister David J. Walker on his weekly public access cable TV program. My spiritual mind was opened in stunning fashion. This metaphysical teaching became my path. It led me to Agape International Spiritual Center in 2008.
Agape introduced me to the Infinite Way of Joel S. Goldsmith and I found what I was looking for. In the Infinite Way there are no ministers, no churches, no organization. I totally get the mystical “I and the Father are One” without the metaphysical theology of the Unity Metaphysical Bible Study.
