Rev. Mark Fuss is the admissions representative for Unity Institute® and Seminary. This feature was originally published in the May/June 2010 issue of Unity Magazine®.

 
Unity's principles are as relevant today as they were over a hundred years ago. Just ask Byron Katie, Eckhart Tolle, John Shelby Spong and Lynne Twist, whose teachings are aligned with those of Unity's founders.

Many Unity followers are familiar with the story of Unity co-founder Myrtle Fillmore's spiritual awakening at the age of 40. She had long suffered from tuberculosis, which she had learned to accept until she experienced a life-changing realization after attending a lecture in 1886 by New Thought practitioner E.B. Weeks. She wrote of her revelation to friends: “I had been laboring under the belief in inherited ill health, and the Truth of my divine parentage freed and healed me.” From then on, Myrtle used denials and affirmations to not only heal herself, but those around her as well.

One hundred years later, another woman … came to question thoughts … that had tormented her. Long before she became the best-selling author she is today, Byron Katie was in a group home for women with eating disorders. She describes having this life-altering realization…: “I discovered that when I believed my thoughts, I suffered, but when I didn't believe my thoughts, I didn't suffer, and that this is true for every human being,” she said in a 2008 interview with Unity Magazine. …

Byron Katie is one of many contemporary voices that echo the wisdom of Unity's founders, Charles and Myrtle Fillmore. …

Prosperity Teachings
“Sufficiency is the state of being … of knowing … of relating to the world that there is enough,” says Lynne Twist in her book The Soul of Money. “And when you lift the veil of scarcity … get out of the chase for more and actually pay attention to what's already there, you start to see that life meets you exactly where you are and gives you exactly what you need. It's not an amount of anything. It's a way of being … of seeing … of living.”

These words are reminiscent of the 1892 Fillmore Covenant, when Unity's founders dedicated themselves, their time, talent and treasure to the work of what was then called the Society of Silent Friends. [Now known as Silent Unity]

They made this declaration: “It being understood and agreed that the said Spirit of Truth shall render unto us an equivalent for this dedication, in peace of mind, health of body, wisdom, understanding, love, life and an abundant supply of all things necessary to meet every want without making any of these things the object of our existence.”

The Fillmores made this covenant from a place of knowing, from an awareness that there was enough. …

Interpreting the Bible
One might not expect an Episcopalian bishop to share the perspective of New Thought pioneers such as the Fillmores, but when retired Bishop John Shelby Spong critiques traditional Christian dogma and offers an alternative view, he is aligned with Unity's founders.

Dismissing the practice of interpreting the Bible literally, Spong instead takes a historical-critical approach.

“The Bible did not drop from heaven fully written,” Spong writes in a 2006 essay. “It was created over a period of about a thousand years. It was not originally divided into chapters and verses. Those were imposed on it relatively late in Christian history. It was not written in King James English. The Hebrew Scriptures were written in Hebrew; the Christian Scriptures in Greek. Yet in public discourse today, one hears a literal, dropped-from-heaven view of the Bible from a number of people, including television evangelists and other fundamentalists, all of whom seem blissfully unaware of the critical biblical scholarship that is now almost 200 years old.” …

Charles Fillmore also dismissed literalism. He taught a method of metaphysical or allegorical Bible interpretation to help readers glean deeper meaning from stories, people and places. Fillmore also understood the importance of context and history when studying the Bible, often noting the challenge presented by its many translations, transcriptions, omissions and redactions through the centuries.

“The majority of Christian people think that religion came out of the Bible, but now the fact is that the Bible came out of religion,” said Fillmore in a 1919 lecture. …

The Power of Silence
Eckhart Tolle is another spiritual leader whose teachings parallel Unity's. On a … visit to Unity Village, Tolle spoke of inner peace, presence and the power of silence, of stillness.

“It has been said that nothing is so like God as silence. All you have to do is pay attention to it.”

Myrtle Fillmore also understood the power of the silence. In How to Let God Help You she wrote, “The silence is a kind of stillness, a place of retreat into which we may enter and having entered, may know the Truth. We go into the silence by observing the instructions, ‘Be still and know.' The only way to really know is to become perfectly still, to get away from the outer and from looking for things, into the inner quiet where we are alone with wisdom. In the silence, wisdom is given for every need.”

…Just as the Fillmores built on the truth shared by those before them, today's spiritual leaders are contributing to the advancement of human consciousness by building on the foundation of Truth introduced by their predecessors—including Unity's own Charles and Myrtle Fillmore.