Unity’s Five Basic Principles
- God is the one power, all good, everywhere present.
- We are each individual, eternal expressions of God and therefore, inherently good.
- We create our life experiences through our thoughts, feelings and beliefs.
- Affirmative prayer consciously aligns our thoughts with the truth about God in our lives.
- Knowing spiritual truth satisfies. Practicing spiritual truth transforms.
God
God is Spirit, the loving source of all that is. God is the one power, all good, everywhere present, all wisdom. God is divine energy, continually creating, expressing and sustaining all creation. In God, we live and move and have our being. In Unity, some other ways we speak of God are Life, Light, Love, Substance, Principle, Law, and Universal Mind.
Jesus
We believe that Jesus expressed his divine potential and sought to show humankind how to express ours as well. We see Jesus as a master teacher of universal truths and as our Way Shower. In Unity, we use the term “Christ” to mean the divinity in humankind. Jesus is the great example of the Christ in expression.
The Nature of Humankind
We are each individual, eternal expressions of God. Our essential nature is divine and therefore inherently good. Our purpose is to express our divine potential as realized and demonstrated by Jesus Christ. The more we awaken to our divine nature, the more fully God expresses in and through our lives.
The Bible
As demonstrated by our co-founders, Charles and Myrtle Fillmore, Unity studies the Bible as history and allegory, and interprets it as a metaphysical representation of humankind’s evolutionary journey toward spiritual awakening. In addition, Unity recognizes that the Bible is a complex collection of writings compiled over many centuries. We honor the writings as reflecting the understanding and inspiration of the writers at the time they were written. The Bible continues to be a valuable spiritual resource for us.
Our Teachings
Unity teaches that each person is a unique expression of God created with sacred worth. Living from that awareness transforms our lives and the world. Unity emphasizes the creative power of thought in our life experience. Our thoughts, feelings and beliefs create our reality. We refer to this as the Law of Mind Action. When we take personal responsibility to choose life-affirming thoughts, words and actions, we experience a more fulfilling and abundant life. Unity emphasizes the importance of not only studying, but also applying spiritual principles in our daily lives. Unity teachings continue to evolve as we identify, embrace and apply spiritual insights and the spiritual implications of new discoveries.
Prayer & Meditation
Affirmative prayer is the highest form of creative thought. It includes the release of counter-productive, negative thoughts as well as holding in mind statements of spiritual truth. Also, as we spend time every day in silent meditation, experiencing the presence of God within, we find ourselves becoming more peaceful, productive, and awake to God’s guidance in our lives. Prayer and meditation heighten our awareness of spiritual truth and thereby transform our lives.
Spiritual Action
In Unity, we feel a sacred responsibility, individually and collectively, to make a positive difference through personal example and active service in our churches, our communities and our world. We regularly offer community service projects to be involved in and encourage you to join us as often as you can.
Honoring Diversity in the Unity Movement
We believe that all people are created with sacred worth. Therefore, we recognize the importance of serving all people within the Unity family in spiritually and emotionally caring ways. We strive for our ministries, publications, and programs to reach out to all who seek Unity support and spiritual growth. It is imperative that our ministries and outreaches be free of discrimination on the basis of race, color, gender, age, creed, religion, national origin, ethnicity, physical disability, or sexual orientation. Our sincere desire is to ensure that all Unity organizations are nondiscriminatory and support diversity. In our effort to reach out to all people as did our Way-Shower, Jesus Christ, we support the modification of our facilities to make them accessible to all people, regardless of physical challenges; the translation of our materials into Braille and other languages; and respect for the wonderful variety of human commitments and relationships. We encourage ministers, teachers, and others within Unity to honor the strength of diversity within their spiritual communities. It is with love and in celebration of our unity, in the midst of our wondrous diversity, that we affirm this position.
Statement for Peace
Unity stands for peace in the presence of conflict; for love in the presence of hatred; for forgiveness in the presence of injury. Unity honors the many names for God, the many paths to God, the many ways to worship God; for there is only one power and presence of God and that God loves each one of us equally. It is therefore the position of Unity to urge all nations, their leaders, and their people to turn to God by whatever the name for guidance during these challenging times and pursue peace, not war, for this is what honors the God of all our faith traditions. Unity stands for peace in our lifetime.