Week 36—Saturday Psalm 116:7-13
Psalm 116:7-13
HEALING A PART, BUT NOT THE CENTRAL PART
In the Morning of the Overflowing Heart we do not get them to tell what has happened to them to get certificates for the Ashram, nor to praise the speakers, but to be like the leper who turned back to lay his tribute of gratitude at the feet of Jesus. To tell it fixes it—the expression deepens the impression.
It is usually said that you cannot have a fellowship in a group larger than thirty. We find it possible to weld a group into a living fellowship all the way from thirty to four hundred. It is the “Open Heart” and the “Overflowing Heart” that do it. With those two things out, it is a discussion group. Those two things make it a quest. We begin with ourselves and working out to the world and its problems. The Ashram is deeply Christ-centric and church-centric.
One service we make a Healing Service. We find that many more are healed by the indirect approach, that is, to get people cleared up spiritually first and then a large percentage of diseases drop off, for they are rooted in the mental, emotional, and the spiritual.
We have emphasized “The Little Ashram” where we turn the redemption power of the Ashram movement into the local church to make better pastors, officials, and members. We telescope the whole of the Ashram program into one day, beginning with the Open Heart and ending with the Overflowing Heart. It works amazingly. The “Little Ashrams” are springing up in many places. The United Christian Ashram movement, which began in 1930 at Sat Tal, India, when three of us met—an Indian minister, a retired English missionary, and myself—three nations—has now spread to twenty-one countries, eighteen Ashrams in the United States, with about sixty in all. It is now a world movement with headquarters at United Christian Ashrams, Damascus, Maryland 20750, and has a magazine, Transformation. This expresses its outlook and purpose. We do not say the Ashram is the only way, nor the best way—it is a way to the Way. It has been called “a healing of love to mind, body, and spirit.” It is an attempt to make the Word of the Kingdom become flesh in a group.
Dear Lord and Father, we thank you for these cells of the New Order. Make us humble enough to be used of you individually and corporately. Make us sensitive enough to be willing to be led of you into deeper and deeper explorations of you. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: Our morning greeting: “The Lord is risen” . . . “The Lord is risen indeed.” We too can rise!