BEING POSITIVE!

ATTITUDES OF BEING

Based Upon

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT

a thematic approach

Background:

            Found in the Gospel according to Matthew, chapter 5, 6 & 7, the Sermon covers the essentials of Jesus’ teachings.
            The Beatitudes, verses 3-10 of chapter 5, are not only the introduction but the framework or essence around which the Sermon is developed.  The remaining verses discuss Jesus’ understanding of the “Blessed” state of the Beatitude, “Attitudes of Being”, but the order is reversed. 

UNIVERSAL TRUTH:          

            In the Beatitudes, Jesus parallels a universal theme found in all of the world’s religions.  Direct correlation is found in the Budha’s 8-fold path and the 8-limbs of Raja Yoga from the Hindu tradition.

Session 5: Being Positive – Affirmation: building a positive, growth consciousness.

Matthew 5:6 – “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.”

SM 31, “Righteousness means, in the Bible, not merely right conduct, but right thinking on all subjects, in every department of life.”

DPWY 64, “But, you must ‘hunger and thirst’ for health, want it to the exclusion of all else, want it enough to let go of your feelings of self-pity and the satisfaction that comes through the sympathy and attention of others.”

PC 53, “Healthy are those who turn their mouths to receive a new birth of universal stability; they shall be encircled by the birth of a new society.”

Matthew 6:1-18, “Beware of practising your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven… But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you… Pray then in this way:”

SM 87, “When you know the Truth of Being, you are, as a literal fact and not merely in a rhetorical sense, the absolute monarch of your own life.”

8-limbs: Pranayama (breath)

HTKG 167, “The object of pranayama is to rouse the kundalini and thereby control the prana, the vital energy, Prana… manifests itself primarily in the function of breathing.”

8-fold path: Right action

BP 119, “There are three Path factors which are the factors of good moral conduct: right speech, right action and right livelihood They have the function of abstaining from wrong speech, wrong action and wrong livelihood.”

SUGGESTED READING:

SM 30-35, 85-97.  DPWY 64-65, 105-114.  PC 56-58.  HTKG 162-170.  BP 119-120.

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT, Emmet Fox. (SM)

DISCOVER THE POWER WITHIN YOU, Eric Butterworth (DPWY)

PRAYERS OF THE COSMOS, Neil Douglas-Klotz (PC)

HOW TO KNOW GOD: The Yoga Aphorisms of Patanjali,   Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher Isherwood (HTKG)

THE BUDDHA’S PATH, Nina van Gorkom (BP)

Rev. Matthew E. Long – Peace Unity Network, Box 837, Clarkston, MI 48347 – (248) 891-4365

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