Today, I want to explore a very important principle in the context of a personal mission statement: the creative power of thoughts and words. Everything that humans have ever created began with a thought, a word, and an articulated vision. Our capacity to think creatively and to envision a better future makes us God-like, as the book of Genesis tells us: in the beginning there was chaos, and God brought order into the chaos through the spoken word, ultimately making us “in God’s image and likeness.” Just as we have a God-like capacity to create according to our loving and high-minded thoughts and words, so we also have the capacity to mis-create according to our distorted thoughts and words. For this reason, our articulated mission statements are crucial.
Now, I don’t recommend we read the opening chapters of Genesis as a scientific account of creation, yet the creation story presents us with a meta-truth, that is, an insight into the creativity that can work for or against us. Genesis gives us a map of how to bring order into the chaos of our lives. The placebo effect, wherein a form of treatment that has no therapeutic value produces positive effects because of the patient’s belief in its efficacy, proves that power of our beliefs is a scientific fact. For example, when my highly credentialed dermatologist suggested a medical treatment for my psoriasis, he stated that in clinical trials the placebos worked about as well as the actual medical treatment.
Clearly, there is a magic to life. It is essential, however, to distinguish personal magic from sacred magic. I don’t recommend personal magic such as we see in the New Age movement. In that belief system, the individual ego determines the goal and how to achieve it, despite the fact that the ego has no real wisdom to draw from. On its own, the ego will always mis-create, like a child playing with all the drugs in the pharmacy. Disaster is unavoidable. By contrast, sacred magic unfolds to the degree that our will is in attunement with God‘s will, which is the power of love operating within creation because God is love. While our egos are attracted to what is pleasurable and expedient, our souls naturally gravitate toward the river of Divine Love, which is the most powerful force in all of creation. To the degree that our mission statements are rooted in love, God’s Spirit is the wind at our backs. Take a moment to prayerfully contemplate Yogananda’s wisdom:
“Words saturated with sincerity, conviction, faith, and intuition are like highly explosive vibration bombs, which, when set off, shatter the rocks of difficulties and create the change desired. Avoid speaking unpleasant words, even if true. Sincere words or affirmations repeated understandingly, feelingly, and willingly are sure to move the Omnipresent Cosmic Vibratory Force to render aid in your difficulty. Appeal to that Power with infinite confidence, casting out all doubt; otherwise the arrow of your attention will be deflected from its mark.”
