Portland Center for Spiritual Growth
We Believe... THE 7 PRINCIPLES
God is the all-present, all-powerful, all-knowledgeable essence within everything. This includes all life, all non-life, all circumstances and situations, and in general, the Universe we see, as well as the Universe we don't see.
God is unconditional Love, unconditional Forgiveness, expressed throughout all creation in ways we don’t always understand. And, God is practical, because within the realm of God is a set of principles that allows us to find sanity, health, prosperity and happiness, though the world around us seems chaotic.
We find this sanity by “proving” God. In other words, God’s existence, reality, healing and joy, can be consciously brought into expression and experience when we apply God’s principles to our everyday lives.
Principles—or laws, as they are often called—rule the Universe; but not the kind of laws we think of when we are talking about crime and punishment. The laws or principles we are referring to are the kind we think of when we think of gravity. We can’t see it, smell it, taste it or touch it, but we can experience it. If we disregard the law of gravity, we find ourselves naturally falling through space as we attempt to jump off a cliff and fly like a bird. The disregarded law of gravity doesn’t mean to cause us pain and suffering; it has no intentions at all. It’s just a principle that works a certain way, and when we learn to work respectfully with its properties, we can achieve great things. Combine the law of velocity with gravity and we can fly like birds.
Anyway, getting back to spiritual principles—add together a bunch of ‘em and you achieve the expression and experience of God in your life. It’s a lot like Music. Music as we know it doesn’t just happen. Certain principles have to come in to play (pun intended).
Beat + Rhythm + Melody + Harmony + Dynamics + Timbre + Intensity
= Music
Music is Beat, Rhythm, Melody, Harmony, Dynamics, Timbre, and Intensity combined. Melody alone only goes so far. A full experience of music includes all of its properties.Truth + Life + Love + Intelligence + Soul + Spirit + Principle
=God
Each of these seven Principles is an aspect of God, and when we actively play these Principles in our lives, God expresses; we then experience God. What that means is that we experience healing and miracles. The more of these Principles we play, the greater the experience of healing and miracles. Like the principles of music, spiritual principles take plenty of practice, and hitting sour notes now and then is to be expected. What’s important is that we keep practicing.The Seven Principles are the foundation of our Practice of the Presence of God at the Portland Center for Spiritual Growth.