What is Unity?
Unity is a positive, practical, progressive approach to Christianity based on the teachings of Jesus and the power of prayer. Unity honors the universal truths in all religions and respects each individual’s right to choose a spiritual path.
God
God is Spirit, the loving source of all that is. God is the one power, all good, everywhere present, all wisdom. God is divine energy, continually creating, expressing and sustaining all creation. In God, we live and move and have our being. In Unity, some other ways we speak of God are Life, Light, Love, Substance, Principle, Law and Universal Mind.
Jesus
We believe that Jesus expressed his divine potential and sought to show humankind how to express ours as well. We see Jesus as a master teacher of universal truths and as our Way Shower. In Unity, we use the term Christ to mean the divinity in humankind. Jesus is the great example of the Christ in expression.
The Nature of Humankind
We are each individual, eternal expressions of God. Our essential nature is divine and therefore inherently good. Our purpose is to express our divine potential as realized and demonstrated by Jesus and other master teachers. The more we awaken to our divine nature, the more fully God expresses in and through our lives.
The Bible
Unity co-founders Charles and Myrtle Fillmore studied the Bible as history and allegory and interpreted it as a metaphysical representation of humankind's evolutionary journey toward spiritual awakening. In addition, Unity recognizes that the Bible is a complex collection of writings compiled over many centuries. We honor the writings as reflecting the understanding and inspiration of the writers at the time they were written. The Bible continues to be a valuable spiritual resource for us.
Our Teachings
Unity teaches that each person is a unique expression of God created with sacred worth. Living from that awareness transforms our lives and the world.
Unity emphasizes the creative power of thought in our life experience. We refer to this as the Law of Mind Action. When we take personal responsibility to choose life-affirming thoughts, words and actions, we experience a more fulfilling and abundant life.
Unity emphasizes the importance of applying spiritual principles in our daily lives.
Unity teachings continue to evolve as we identify, embrace and apply spiritual insights and the spiritual implications of new discoveries.
Prayer and Meditation
Affirmative prayer is the highest form of creative thought. It includes the release of counterproductive, negative thoughts, as well as holding in mind statements of spiritual truth. Through meditation, we experience the presence of God. Prayer and meditation heighten our awareness and thereby transform our lives.
Myrtle Fillmore’s Healing Journey (from The Story of Unity by James Dillet Freeman)
“I have made what seems to me a discovery. I was fearfully sick; I had all the ills of mind and body that I could bear. Medicine and doctors ceased to give me relief, and I was in despair when I found practical Christianity. I took it up and I was healed.
"I was thinking about life. Life is everywhere. Intelligence as well as life is needed to make a body. Here is the key to my discovery. Life has to be guided by intelligence in making all forms. The same law works in my own body. Life is simply a form of energy and has to be guided and directed by man’s intelligence. How do we communicate intelligence? By thinking and talking, of course. Then it flashed upon me that I might talk to the life in every part of my body and have it do just what I wanted. I began to teach my body and got marvelous results.
"I told the life in my liver that it was not torpid or inert, but full of vigor and energy. I told the life in my stomach that it was not weak or inefficient, but energetic, strong and intelligent. I told the life in my abdomen that it was no longer infested with ignorant thoughts or disease, put there by myself or by doctors, but that it was athrill with the sweet, pure, wholesome energy of God. I told my limbs that they were active and strong. I told my eyes that they did not see of themselves but that they expressed the sight of Sprit and that they were drawing on an unlimited source. I told them that they were young eyes, clear, bright eyes, because the light of God shone right through them. I told my heart that the pure love of Jesus Christ flowed in and out through it beatings and that all the world felt its joyous pulsation. I went to all the life centers in my body and spoke words of Truth to them – words of strength and power.
"I asked their forgiveness for the foolish, ignorant course that I had pursued in the past when I had condemned them and called them weak, inefficient and diseased. I did not become discouraged at their being slow to wake up, but kept right on, both silently and aloud, declaring the words of Truth until the organs responded. And neither did I forget to tell them that they were free, unlimited Spirit. I told them that they were no longer in bondage to the carnal mind; that they were not corruptible flesh but centers of life and energy omnipresent.
"Then I asked forgiveness for taking God’s life into my organism and using it so meanly. I promised that I would never, never again retard the free flow of that life through my mind and body by any false word or thought, that I would always bless and encourage it with true thoughts and words in its wise work of building up my body temple; that I would use all diligence and wisdom in telling it just want I wanted it to do.
"I did not let any worried or anxious thoughts into my mind and I stopped speaking gossipy, frivolous, petulant, angry words. I let a little prayer go up every hour that Jesus Christ would be with me and help me to think and speak only kind, loving true words. I am sure that He is with me because I am so peaceful and happy now. I want everybody to know about this beautiful true law and to use it. It is not a new discovery, but when you use it you will get the fruits of health and harmony.”
Two years later, Myrtle Fillmore was no longer an invalid. Through her prayers and corrected ideas about health, she was made absolutely whole!