Traditionally, January is seen as the time of year we make resolutions, or declarations for how we wish to change. As the first month in the new calendar year, January epitomizes the idea of new beginnings. However, the human desire for new beginnings is continually active and ongoing in every moment of every day throughout the year. This begs the question: Why wait until the New Year, to declare a resolution for positive change in your life today?
Perhaps, we hold a belief that “new year’s resolutions” have a little extra resolve or power in them. Maybe we believe we are a little more willing at the New Year to demonstrate the discipline necessary to see our resolutions through to success. However, if this were true, we would likely be more successful in actually achieving this year’s resolutions. Then, we would be free to set new goals for success for the following year. Instead, we often find we are setting the same resolutions year after year.
You know, the kind where we resolve to improve our health by exercising regularly, eating better, stopping smoking, giving up gluten, going vegan, walking 20 miles a week, renouncing caffeine or sugar. These and many others like them are the kinds of resolutions we make year after year, some stick and most don’t. When we fail to do it perfectly, usually before the end of January, we too often give up, believing we have missed our window of opportunity. So we move through another year with the same behaviors and wait for the next January to try it all over again.
The actual resolutions themselves are variable from person to person. They may even change slightly from year to year, but the underlying idea beneath every single resolution is a desire to become more disciplined in some area or aspect of our lives! Even if the resolution is a creative one like writing a book, or taking up photography or learning to play a musical instrument, what we are actually resolving is to demonstrate more discipline towards accomplishing a desired goal over time. Whether the goal of our resolution is for positive change, improved health and fitness, creative growth or spiritual transformation, to succeed basically comes down to discipline.
So, what exactly is discipline?
As a word, discipline is a complex one with many different and nuanced meanings. Some of those meanings may bring up negative feelings for some of us. If so, it is helpful to look at these subtle differences, so we have a complete understanding of the word itself. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the word discipline has three primary meanings. The first of these is the one most likely to bring up fear and resistance.
The first meaning of discipline is “the practice of training people to obey rules or a code of behavior, using punishment to correct disobedience.” Some of the synonyms for discipline in this sense of the word, like strictness, regulation, control and authority, may also bring up fear and resistance for some. For example, this meaning can be confusing for those who may want to make meditation and time in the silence a spiritual discipline. After all, who wants to be punished for not doing their meditation correctly?
The second meaning speaks of discipline more as a “branch of knowledge, typically one studied in higher education” or as a “system of rules of conduct.” Both of these meanings speak to the underlying specialized knowledge that a disciplined instruction is built upon. This meaning does not imply an activity or a punishment, but rather the underlying rules of conduct themselves. In Unity teachings, the “five principles” would be considered a “branch of knowledge” upon which the discipline of living the Unity principles is built.
The third meaning, and the one most useful for our purposes here is that discipline is an “activity or experience that provides mental or physical training.” Putting aside the “physical” aspects, this definition of discipline speaks directly to Unity Principle #4 as the “activity or experience that provides mental training.” The fourth principle of Unity teachings says: “Through prayer and meditation, we align our heart-mind with God and with affirmative prayer we increase our awareness of our oneness with God.”
So, the discipline of Unity teachings says we can “align our heart-mind with God” through “prayer and meditation.” Following a spiritual discipline is making time for an “activity or experience that provides mental training,” which in the case of Unity Principle #4, is a method to “increase our awareness of our oneness with God.” This powerful principle is one of the cornerstones of Unity teachings, but it is virtually meaningless, if we do not take action to live its truth.
Time in the silence is time spent with God.
Unless we make a resolution to spend time in the silence, we will not be able to “align our heart-mind with God” and “increase our awareness of our oneness with God.” Therefore, we will have an incomplete understanding of our true nature and will in turn demonstrate less power in our own lives. This is not because we ultimately lack power, but rather because we misunderstand its source and our connection with it.
In a past life, I worked in Human Resources where we performed annual reviews attempting to evaluate performance in empirical, measurable terms. But, how are we to evaluate and discern for ourselves in measurable terms how we are doing in our spiritual discipline? Can we empirically say, “I am so much closer to God because I meditate three mornings a week?” How much closer to the awareness of our oneness with God does three meditations a week get us?
Even just one single moment spent immersed in an awareness of our oneness with God brings us immeasurably closer to God, because the experience of that moment also brings the knowledge that we are as close to God as we believe we are. God is everywhere present, all the time. It is only our inability to feel our oneness and unity with God that seems to create a sense of separation.
So, what does all this have to do with resolutions?
In The Twelve Powers, Charles Fillmore says that humankind fails to achieve mastery, not because we are deficient in power or potential, but rather because we misunderstand our true nature and fundamental unity with God. Misunderstanding our true nature leads to the misuse of our power. Ultimately, this is the reason so many of our resolutions to effect positive change in our lives fail time and again, year after year.
Unity teaches that the only way for us to have a conscious experience of our oneness with God is in the silence. In Chapter 6 of the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus says: “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.” Throughout the Gospels, time and again, Jesus teaches that the “kingdom of heaven is within,” but the only way to know this for our own selves is to actively spend time in the silence, so that we can discover the kingdom within.
Unity’s poet laureate, James Dillet Freeman believed that silent prayer and meditation, is the way we keep our “inner spiritual compass focused on God.” Charles Fillmore stated, “It is difficult to improve upon [Jesus’] simple method” of going into the silence.
Make no decisions before spending time in the silence.
If you have a meditation ritual or discipline that works and helps you make the connection to the awareness of your own fundamental unity with God, then by all means, keep using it! However, if you find all the different modalities of meditation practices to be confusing, just know that, perhaps the most powerful practice of all is to just simply sit down, be still, get quiet and listen.
How long should you listen? As long as it takes for you to connect with your own indwelling Christ Presence and to hear the “still voice within.” It will tell you most clearly what you need to do to support your highest good. It’s always best to make any resolution, whether on New Year’s Day or any other day of the year by first spending time in the silence, connecting with the awareness of our oneness with God and the power that is available to us because of our fundamental unity.
Once we have connected with that awareness, then and only then should we make a resolution or declaration for positive change. Knowing that all power is with us when we make a resolution will definitely improve our success rate. As for how often we should spend time in the silence, the short answer is as often as possible. Emilie Cady, the author of Unity’s classic text Lessons in Truth, tells us that even our acts of “unselfish doing [service]…would better be left undone” if it meant we would “neglect regular meditation.”
So, next time you feel a resolution for change moving in you, choose to demonstrate the power of your own spiritual discipline by seeking the silence in secret prayer and meditation before deciding anything. Once you have connected with the “still voice within” and received its guidance, then declare your resolution knowing that all creative power in the Universe is with you and completely available to facilitate your success. If you follow this discipline, the next resolution you make could change the world.
