Eric Butterworth Unity Podcast

This is the second of an eight-talk series on how to find self-realization and fulfillment through our work and career. Three of the talks are missing, so I have only five to offer. This one is about personal excellence. A phrase Eric repeats several times was learned from his mother, May Butterworth, also a Unity minister. The phrase is “Good, better, best. I will never let it rest until my good is better and my better is best.” It’s a great affirmation and this is a great motivating talk about how to achieve your best.

This is the first of an eight-talk series on how to find self-realization and fulfillment through our work and career. I have only five of the original eight talks, but these that we have will certainly get us on our way to a new sense of what Eric calls The Great Intrapreneurial Revolution.

Eric Butterworth elaborates in this talk on Matthew 21:21 “If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not only do what is done to the fig tree, but even if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou taken up and cast into the sea, it shall be done.” In fact, he doesn’t just elaborate on the passage, but he explains how that is literally true in today’s world. This is a great talk on faith.

Eric shares several notable ideas in this talk: “get out of the grandstand”, our “acceptance quotient”, working with law, THIO “time has its opportunities”. If you need encouragement to rise up out of a slump, this is a classic Eric Butterworth talk that will get you going.

This is Eric Butterworth’s answer to "Why does God allow evil and suffering?" If you listen, you will find that there are two parts to Eric’s answer. He acknowledges that evil and suffering is caused by what we refer in Unity to “by right of consciousness.” But Eric concludes that we should not ask “why doesn’t God, but why don’t I? ... Let God be the answer through you. Let God be the flow of love, of life, and protection, and you’ll be the channel.” In my opinion this is an example of how Metaphysical Christianity offers a much better story than traditional Christianity.

This talk is so powerful that the audience applauded for a half minute at the end. Eric deserved it. He spoke about how we build walls for protection and how the fortress we build up becomes our prison. This lesson is based on an Old Testament story from Zechariah and Eric concludes "The prophet’s ideal is not a word of fortress cities and societies, but unwalled cities and free and open communication and commerce between nations… Jerusalem should be inhabited as a village without walls." Whew! What a lesson for today!

Eric concludes this talk with "Resolve that never again would you allow yourself to think of your ordeal, your limitation, your handicap. Resolve to think of the constant opportunities provided in life that enable you to deal with the condition, to refine it, and to go throw it. And give thanks for this ability to look at yourself, to see the great potentialities that are yours. Make commitment now that you will stop whining, and commence refining."

Eric says in this lesson "Wherever you are in time and space, be there. Live the moment and the experience completely. There may be regrets about the past, there may be apprehensions about the future. But what about today? What about the opportunity for joy and fulfillment in this moment just where you are. One of the great discoveries, which is somewhat puzzling to many persons, is the truth that now is all the time there is. Now is all the time there is, this moment." Read the full transcript at http://www.truthunity.net/ebup72

This recording is important because it reveals some important things about a state of consciousness known as Solipsism. Solipsism can be a very troublesome philosophical condition, especially in Unity circles. We need to be aware of what solipsism is and how it can be misused. As a side note, this recording also reveals the likely source of Eric’s well-known statement that there is an “Allness in every Illness.” Click through to the link for a lengthy analysis of this talk: http://www.truthunity.net/ebup71

From the content of the talk it is apparent that this talk was given in October 1987, the Sunday after the stock market dropped by 22%. Eric Butterworth served in Manhattan NYC and those who attended his services were highly impacted by the market drop. So this talk is what Eric Butterworth would have said to us in our present situation. Much of what he says is contained in other talks but it is Eric's advice at his best in meeting an overwhelming challenge.

I believe this is the very message that Eric Butterworth would have given if the COVID-19 virus had occurred during his lifetime. Eric says, "Some years ago I was facing an extremely disturbing situation in my own life. I was feeling as if I had a great weight on my shoulders. Casting about for a helpful insight I was browsing through the Bible. For some reason, my attention focused on the words, “It came to pass.” These are innocuous words. They have no pertinent significance in themselves. But I kept returning to that phrase: it came to pass. The realization dawned; it has been one of the great discoveries of my own truth seeking life, the realization that this challenge did not come into my life to remain as a permanent fixture, it came to pass. This was the birth in my conscious of the idea of the flow of life."

Going back as far as the mid-1970s, Eric held a summer retreat in Allentown, Pennsylvania. This is an early Sunday morning talk where he describes what goes on during those retreats. He describes the many "mini-selves" that we experience and explains how the retreat process can help us understand our inner dialog of these mini-selves and how we can find and unfold the "real you."

Eric Butterworth reveals in this talk his personal views about healthy relationships, sex and marriage.

In this talk, Eric Butterworth says "Charles Fillmore, was used to say truth demonstrates itself. It demonstrates itself. You don’t have to make a demonstration. Truth will demonstrate itself, if you make a covenant and keep it. You get yourself in tune and decree that you will keep your contact, your conscious connection, if you keep yourself as August says, synchronize with the divine law."

This is an incredible talk by Eric Butterworth. In 52 minutes he explains why this day is not our day to "go through things" but rather to "grow through them." If the stress of these days is a burden on you, this talk by Eric Butterworth will convince you that this is our opportunity to grow. This is the message we all need to hear today.

In this talk about self-acceptance, Eric Butterworth says "So, if a Goliath is taunting you with threats and boasts, then like David, go forth in the name of the Lord and take with you the smooth stones of humility, which means to let go. Really let go all of your sense of inadequacy, self-appreciation. Realize that there is a divine process within you, a great God self and knowing this, knowing that you are a unique individualization of God, give yourself a pat on the back occasionally, and self-acceptance…"

Eric shares the theme of this Easter talk: "There’s an ancient Chinese aphorism, which incidentally, is on the front of your program today: If you keep in your heart a green bough, I have heard there will come one day to stay a singing bird. If you keep in your heart a green bough, I have heard there will come one day to stay a singing bird. So if you catch the eternal message of Easter and are inspired by it, you’ll keep in your heart green bough of expectancy, then you will come one day to actually experience the singing bird of health or the vision of health."

At 19 minutes and 40 seconds into this podcast Eric Butterworth says "In the work of public health and maybe talk about a particular disease which has reached epidemic proportions. There are medical researchers who were talking about 'contagion through consciousness.' I can remember a writing in the proceedings of a Medical Journal about 'psychic infection', that the real contagion is mostly in the mind." "How to Recession-Proof Your Life—4—Tighten Your Ship" is a classic lesson about "tightening our ship" through the words we use. He opens by recalling the World War II slogan "loose lips sink ships." The same slogan applies to use today, according to Eric Butterworth in this part 4 of a four part series on How to Recession-Proof our life.

"How to Recession-Proof Your Life—3—Harness Your Faith Power" is a lesson about faith in God when the world is holding a faith in recession. Eric Butterworth's message is to "Make a commitment now that you will hold to this idea of believing not in God, but from God."

"How to Recession-Proof Your Life—2—Security In a Changing World" is the second of four lessons given by Eric Butterworth loosely based on Spiritual Economics. This talk is very applicable to today's time. In fact, he writes "In the past six months, we’ve seen changes that few of us would’ve believed we would see in our lifetime." Little did Erick know what we know today. I highly recommend that you sit quiet and give Eric your full attention for these 32 minutes.

"How to Recession-Proof Your Life—1—Resolving Your S and L Dilemma" is the first of four lessons given by Eric Butterworth loosely based on Spiritual Economics. If you find yourself worried about financial matters, this lecture and the next three are for you.

Eric writes, "One of the major evidences of the lack of emotional management is anger, and we want to talk a little bit about it today. Sometimes a subtle, slow-burning rage seethes within, unrecognized, unaccepted. And yet present and doing tremendous harm to all the facets of our lives." He then lists seven ways to defuse anger. This is a wonderful talk.

When you try to understand God, it’s like a fish trying to understand water. I would say, What is the one thing a fish can never find? Water. What’s the one thing a man can never find? God. There’s no way that you can find God, because God is not lost. Many a person spends most of their lives looking for God, trying to reach God, trying to find God. The problem with understanding God is that in a three-dimensional perspective we’re trying to relate to something that is fourth dimensional in nature. You would invariably form a relative image of an absolute principal in process. So actually we create our God in our image like-ness.

Because retirement is normally a compromise, a partial experience in life. Most often, something very vital is left out, leaving only frustration and hopelessness. Unless it deals with the whole person, retirement becomes a negative experience. So we’re suggesting a creative alternative. The word is “entirement”, entirement. It deals with the whole self, living and alive, in a whole universe. It is turning from the partial experience to the whole of life. So instead of going into retirement, go into entirement, into the next step of growth, which will have meaning and fulfillment.

There’s a legend of an eastern monarch who plagued by worries and harassed at every turn called his counselors and wise men together. He asked them to formulate for him a motto, a few magic words that would help him in times of distress. It must be brief enough to be engraved on a signet ring so that he could always have it before his eyes. It must be appropriate for every situation because youth spent in prosperity is in adversity. It must be a motto wise and true and endlessly enduring. Words by which a person could be guided all his life. Who wouldn’t want such a talisman?

This recording is a of a meditation and lesson given by Merton Thorpe at the Unity Center of NYC. He was filling in for Olga and Eric Butterworth. The lesson is wonderful, certainly one that fans of Eric Butterworth will appreciate.

Every moment of your life, you’re at a point of decision. The crossroads of personal choice. You may be asking, “Which way should I go? What shall I buy or sell? Should I take that job I’ve been offered or remain where I am? Should I take the road less traveled or follow the multitudes in what is being done?” … Life for such folks could be best be described as, drifting with the tide.

We’re going to deal with one story of the Bible today. Seeking to get a metaphysical, personally symbolic interpretation of the story of David and Goliath. This is one of the most well-known stories, to all persons. Even those who have little truck with Bible teachings.

Fundamental to getting to know who you are, to getting to know the power within you, know that it’s not something extraneous to you. The power within you is God at the point of you. It’s hard to see this when we think of God as the person upstairs, or the great manlike figure on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome, bearded, muscular creature reaching down touching the hand of the man. It’s hard to see the truth in this context, you have to be willing to let go of this limited God. “Destroy the God of our intellect,” as Emerson says, “and experience the presence of God.” The power within you is the activity of God. It’s the primal power of being, and to discover this power is your birthright. You’re never really coming to understand yourself or life until you discover this tremendous depth within you, which is the presence of God acting as you.

If you’re filling out an information form of some kind, and it asks you, what is your religion, what do you answer? You would put down Catholic, or Protestant, or Jew, or you may be more specific, and you may say Methodist, Baptist, Lutheran, Episcopalian, even Unity, but what does this mean? Can you define your religion? Could you tell the difference between your church, and the one across the street? It is doubtful if many persons could except that perhaps you believe in baptism by dunking, and they believe it by sprinkling. For many persons, religion is inherited by family tradition. I was a Methodist born, and a Methodist bred, and when I die I’ll be a Methodist dead. Often when we hear the expression, “I’ve gotten religion.” What is meant by that? Does it mean that the person has developed a new feeling toward life, or as is more likely that he subscribed to a particular collection of church dogma?

We’re considering today the second in our series, The Gospel Truth. Last week We’re considering today the second in our series, The Gospel Truth. Last week we dealt especially with the background and ideas and the objectives of Jesus, with the key idea in his teaching, the divinity of man. We emphasized the distinction between Jesus the man and Christ the divine level within the man, that Christ is not a name but a principle and a process within all persons. Jesus discovered the Christ of his being, but it was a discovery of the potential of the Christ in you and me. Today we’re going to speak frankly about the roots and evolution of the Christian Church and the religion about Jesus. Next week we’re going to look at the confusion of Christian creeds and traditions, deal with the confusion of church dogma and the need to return to 1st century Christianity.

Early in this talk, Eric Butterworth says "I freely confess a deep love for the man Jesus. Over 50 years, I’ve been on a personal quest to know what he was about." Here is what Eric Butterworth believed about the life and message of Jesus. This Sunday sermon, about the life and message of Jesus, is the first in a series of three talks ("The Gospel Truth"). Subsequent talks discuss how the church responded to the life and message of Jesus.

Eric gave this talk on the occasion of the 30th anniversary celebration of his ministry in Unity of NY. He opens "The word thank you is not enough. I’ll just try hard not to get emotional. Then again, maybe I should. I see a man hold things in, and I said, “Let them go,” so should I break down and cry here you’ll know why. Certainly this kind of tribute is, as we said in our title this morning, good cause for thanksgiving…"

In my early years as a teacher of truth I had the opportunity to witness a tremendous demonstration of this principle, of great expectations. A man who had been attending one of my classes experienced a financial tragedy which almost overnight swept away the results of half a lifetime of effort. People all felt sorry for him. How could this happen to such a fine person? Such a good man. And why? As one fellow student put it, “And he was studying truth already.” But he didn’t feel sorry for himself…

Now, the Bible suggests through many, many, many different stories, that there is always a “wayshower”. There is always that which comes along to lead man out of his enslavement. It’s the inspiration of the Almighty, it’s that inner flow of guidance and direction, it’s the healing process, it’s that which will not allow us ever, to remain in a situation long, but there will always be those little urges, those guidances, ideas, suggestions, things will happen. Because, and this is what I call the ascending urge of man.

Eric Butterworth's Easter message for 1979.

A reflective talk by Eric Butterworth about what might have been going through the mind of Jesus at the end of day, Palm Sunday. He writes: "So I would like you to come with me to a garden outside the city gates of Jerusalem, up the slope of Mt. Olivet in the little village of Bethany where Jesus had finished supper with his friends, Mary and Martha and Lazarus, in their little clay dwelling and had gone out for a quiet time under the silence of the twinkling stars of the night. Here we see Jesus reflecting over the turmoil and confusion of this very exciting day which had been called the triumphant entry into Jerusalem."

In an Easter Sunday message given many years go, Eric Butterworth reveals the real meaning of Easter.

You may recall that inscribed over the entrance to the ancient Temple of Delphi was the phrase, “Man, Know Thyself.” Any religion that prates of God out there, of a devil on the prowl down here and of heaven or hell in the great tomorrow is patently lacking in the means to live abundantly today. What we need are the keys to the kingdom within.

When we really catch the message of spiritual healing, it is truly an exciting discovery. I want us to make a clear distinction between faith healing and healing faith. This is not just a play on words, this is very important insight. Faith healing is a term that is often used referring to any kind of non-medical healing. However, with the trends that are taking place in the medical industry, it’s important to highlight some important differences.

So the question remains, what do you really believe about God? You know what you believe by how you find yourself acting. And you pray for healing, healing for help from God as the great healer. And you seek the awareness of the wholeness of life. And you have a particularly naughty problem. You approach God as the heavenly answer man? And you know that in your transcendent self, the answer is known in you.

For you see, when we catch the insight of the rolling stone of Easter, giving rise to an awareness of our divine depth, then Easter is no longer a way of seeing certain things, but rather it is a certain way of seeing all things. In other words, I want to help you gain a perspective by which to deal with every experience in the light of this resurrection principle. Easter may begin with the resurrection story of Jesus, but should not end there. This is no story of God playing the role of man for a while, though we may have been told this. It is the story of man at his finest, demonstrating the God potential within every person, yes, within you and within me. It was, and it is, the triumphant discovery of the resurrection principle within all persons.

Paul calls for us to lay aside every weight, then the sin is not so easy to beset you. It’s not easy, for pernicious negatives become deeply rooted in the mind. These attitudes that are absorbed into your consciousness over a lifetime can be changed, but not overnight. First of all, you must get the feeling that you can change. Then, you must cast off the excess baggage of your mind with a great deal of effort.

Now you can never understand life or truth or yourself until you give up once and for all the idea that you live in a universe of favoritism or caprice or the fortuitous turn of events. Life is not a game of chance.

I want to share with you this morning some thoughts about divine discontent. It might appear to be somewhat strange that we would elevate to a divine status, a negative state of consciousness. It certainly little is more than unpleasant than to be surrounded by people who are always griping, complaining, grousing, always discontent. What is good or divine about discontentment? You might ask yourself what the word contentment means. Does it indicate peace and wellbeing? Fulfillment, and achievement, relaxation from the struggles and frustrations of life? Or, does it imply self-satisfaction, complacency, a stuffy self-centeredness isolated from reality?

The word “prodigal” also means lavish, generous, abundant, profuse, bounteous, limitless, boundless, affluent, luxuriant, inexhaustible, and so on. Almost antithetical to the “prodigal” application we within the parable of the Prodigal Son. Just ease your mind, we’re not talking about wastefulness and extravagance, we’re talking about abundance, affluence, the lavish, generous, profuse manifestation of the universe as it is in support of us. In our quest for the secret of life, we discover that abundance is the law of nature. Nature is lavish, extravagant, and beautiful. An even more exciting insight, there’s a legitimate royal abundance for every living person. Because you are, we say, a child of God, you might say in terms of the universe, but you are an outforming unfoldment of the universe. You are the universe expressing itself as you

So all of this has come out of, even though it’s a caricature of this great eschatological concept of the kingdom of Heaven as something up there, and something that deals with futurity. But what did Jesus have to say about it? All of this has come about as a result of the religion about Jesus. Rarely do we hear the words of Jesus relative to this, because he was very clear. He made no bones about it. In the 17th chapter of Luke and being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God cometh, he answered, “The kingdom of God cometh not with observation.” In other words, you don’t see it. “The kingdom of God cometh not with observation, neither shall they say lo here or lo there, for lo the kingdom of God is within you.”

The eternal question of Easter, which is asked and reposed over and over again, what does that empty tomb mean? Coincidentally, it means more than anything else that there is something eternal about life. Something that transcends what we call death. It may well be as the ages go by, it’s not inconceivable to me, that there will be a time when science will come to realize that the coming back from the dead is not at all impossible. Perhaps in our day we won’t see it, but there are those who are talking about all sorts of demonstrations and experiences in life beyond anything that our common sense would come to accept.

In other words, Jesus’ gospel of prosperity is tremendously needed in our time, when there’s a great deal of interest in trying to solve the shortages of the world and to somehow take care of the needs in our cities, in providing means for the poor and so forth, to get the realization that Jesus states clearly and implies constantly that there is a legitimate, loyal abundance for every living creature.

Now we’re considering today, from the Sermon on the Mount, the fifth chapter of Matthew 13th through 28th verses. And it begins, “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt has lost its savor, wherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out and to be trodden under the foot of man.” Salt of itself, is a useless food. It’s value is in seasoning food. Truth, in the same way, is nothing of itself. This is a hard lesson for some because quite often in our study we make truth everything. Truth is nothing of itself. It is only vital when it becomes an influence. It is only vital when it helps you to alter your thoughts, to change your consciousness, to redirect your life. It is only good when it is used.

But you ask the average person, “Do you believe in God?” And he probably will say, “Of course.” Ask him what he means by God, or to describe or define or talk about God, he will look at you with an attitude all the way from shocked that you would have the audacity to say such a sacrilegious thing, or else he will shrug his shoulders and say, “Who knows?” and walk on his way. In other words, the chances are very likely that he will reflect the idea that one isn’t supposed to know anything about God. You’re just supposed to believe… The point is, the whole concept of God has been so clouded, so confused, that the average religious person has had this very confused, clouded attitude about deity.