Session 5 – Prayer, Meditation, and the Wisdom of Emptiness: The Path of Non-Attainment

In this contemplative session, Rev. Liz Harlow and Licensed Unity Teacher Daryn Wells explore the deeper metaphysical dimensions of prayer, meditation, and spiritual mastery. Opening with prayer and the lighting of the Christ candle, the conversation moves into an examination of sense consciousness, intuition, and the development of spiritual awareness through the teachings of Charles Fillmore and the Unity tradition.

Rev. Liz shares her observation that prayer fills the human energy field with divine substance, bringing greater mastery in refining thoughts and emotions in order to demonstrate truth. From that foundation, she reflects on Fillmore’s 1913 sermon, The Extension of the Senses, expanding the discussion into the relationship between prayer and meditation, identifying prayer as the experience of divine substance and meditation as the practice that leads us toward the realization of emptiness.

Drawing from the Heart Sutra and Buddhist wisdom traditions, Rev. Liz explores the paradox of spiritual realization: the attainment of non-attainment. By releasing attachment to phenomena, including spiritual gifts of sense consciousness such as intuition or telepathy, we become open vessels for divine idea so that the Christ presence expresses through us.

Together, they reflect on the unity between Christian mysticism and Buddhism, revealing how these teachings converge on a shared insight: the path of awakening requires both emptiness and divine substance, meditation and prayer, surrender and expression.

The episode also highlights the importance of persistence on the spiritual path through the teaching story of Rumi, reminding listeners that depth is not found by endlessly searching for new paths, but by remaining present long enough to reach the wellspring of truth within.

As the conversation unfolds, the hosts reflect on the Unity principles of prayer, meditation, and demonstration, including the process of spiritual transformation referred to as chemicalization. They emphasize that awakening is not about acquiring power or attaining status, but about releasing attachment so that the divine presence may express fully in and through life.

Through prayer, meditation, and conscious practice, we learn to empty ourselves of attachment and become vessels for the living Christ, the kingdom of heaven expressed here and now.

In this profound and timely conversation, Rev. Liz Harlow and Daryn Wells explore the deeper metaphysical meaning of Leviticus 5:19, “He is certainly guilty before Yahweh,” and what it means to trespass without even knowing we have done so.

Beginning with the law of the trespass offering in Leviticus, Rev. Liz reflects on the mystery of unconscious error: the sin we commit not through defiance, but through unawareness. Guided to Mysteries of John by Charles Fillmore, she uncovers a powerful insight, the sin of omission. Not the wrongdoing we actively choose, but the good we fail to embody. The divine potential we neglect. The inner guidance we override.

Together, Liz and Daryn unpack:

• The metaphysical meaning of sin as “missing the mark”

• The danger of drifting unconsciously rather than claiming our divine identity

• “Somersaulting into the impossible” as an act of spiritual faith

• Dominion over the inner kingdom, even when outer conditions cannot be controlled

• Sacrificing the animal nature as a symbol of transcending survival patterns

• Listening to divine guidance without overriding it with personal will

• The upward pull of grace whispering, “Go forward”

Rev. Liz shares personal reflections on discernment, spiritual sovereignty, and the courage to step away from dynamics that no longer align with divine order. The conversation explores mammalian survival patterns, ancestral memory, and the evolution of consciousness. The episode also examines the journey from ritual sacrifice to embodying the light of Christ.

At the heart of this episode is a living paradox. We are called to demonstrate the Christ in every condition, and we are called to listen deeply to inner guidance about where we are meant to be.

This is a conversation about spiritual maturity, dominion, genetic and energetic evolution, and the power of the Word to activate new realities within us.

If you have ever felt the quiet nudge to rise higher. If you have sensed the difference between divine guidance and personal will. If you are ready to stop drifting and begin consciously aiming at the mark.

This episode is an invitation to remember who you are.

Go forward.

In Healing Science Lineage: The New Thought Continuum, this third episode of The Metaphysical Word, Rev. Liz Harlow and licensed Unity teacher Daryn Wells explore the living lineage of New Thought healing, and our evolving understanding of God, consciousness, and healing science.

The conversation opens with a reflection on the life and contribution of Reverend Paul Hasselbeck, whose work challenged Unity and the wider New Thought movement to expand its language for God beyond anthropomorphic, gendered, and limiting constructs. Building on the foundations laid by Charles and Myrtle Fillmore, Hasselbeck invited a reframing of God as Principle and encouraged open, spirited dialogue as a catalyst for expanding consciousness.

From this foundation, the episode weaves together scripture, metaphysics, and healing science. Rev. Liz and Daryn reflect on the healing of the crippled woman in Luke 13, recognizing her healing as a natural and lawful expression of spirit moving in divine order through the human energy field.

The discussion then traces a rich historical arc through the healing traditions that inform New Thought. First discussed is Franz Mesmer’s exploration of universal energy and magnetism; Phineas Quimby’s insights into the subconscious mind and mental causation. Next, they discuss Wilhelm Reich’s work with living energy (orgone) and characterology, and the later developments of bioenergetics through Alexander Lowen, John and Eva Pierrakos, and Barbara Brennan. Together, these streams reveal an unfolding understanding of how spirit and science are not in conflict, but complementary tools in the same divine toolbox.

Central to this episode is a call to create balance within language, theology, and the human being itself. Rev. Liz speaks to the necessity of integrating masculine and feminine energies within consciousness as essential to health, wholeness, and the full expression of divine idea. The conversation honors the often-overlooked contributions of women in the New Thought movement while inviting listeners to examine how inherited religious language shapes both personal healing and collective reality.

Throughout the episode, Rev. Liz Harlow and Daryn Wells return to a core Unity truth that consciousness is the vessel through which divine possibility is expressed. As awareness expands, so does our capacity to heal, to grow, and to participate consciously in the ever-expanding universe.

This episode is an invitation to question inherited assumptions or embedded theology, to hold science and spirit as allies, to engage in courageous dialogue, and to allow illumination to move in and through your own life with ease, grace, and joy.