Embodiment · “Being Precedes Having”
Realizing Omnipresence
Turn attention to the one omnipresent Good and hold the felt conviction that God is wholly present here and now, in this body, this place, this problem.
“Spirit, God, is everywhere — there is no other substance.” Bring it to now: God includes me now; God-Love is caring for me now; God-Wisdom is guiding me now, in this problem. Turn from the appearance to the Presence, hold it until you feel it, then carry that consciousness into the day.
What it is
The keynote practice of Divine Science, the New Thought denomination Nona Brooks co-founded. Where many New Thought methods aim at getting something, Brooks’s practice aims at recognizing something already true: that God — “Spirit, Living Substance” — is the one presence and power everywhere present, including in this exact moment and situation.
The practitioner deliberately turns attention away from the appearance of lack or trouble and toward the omnipresent Good, holding it until it is felt, not merely thought. Brooks called this “the practice of the Presence of God,” and treated it as the whole of Divine Science rather than one technique among many.
The Method
Brooks taught that omnipresence must be accepted “not merely intellectually, but as a foundation principle by which to live.” The practice as she taught it:
- Set the foundation. Begin from the bedrock premise: “Spirit, Living Substance, God, is everywhere, and there is no other substance.” Nothing is outside the one Presence.
- Bring it to the here and now. Apply the truth to the actual moment and the actual difficulty. Brooks’s own form: “God includes me now. God-Love is caring for me now. God-Wisdom is guiding me now, in this problem.”
- Turn attention from the appearance. Withdraw attention from the picture of lack, fear, or sickness and rest it on the all-present Good. “The secret lies in directing thought toward the Creator, not toward the appearance.”
- Hold until felt. Stay with the realization until it settles into conviction — until you “feel the truth” of it rather than only reciting it.
- Carry it into the day. Go into ordinary activity keeping the consciousness of the Presence, “making each thought and act true, loving, and powerful.” (Sourcing note: quoted phrases are from Brooks’s Short Lessons in Divine Science and her statements of the fundamental teaching; the five-step shaping is attributed paraphrase, not a numbered list in the original.)
Source & Lineage
Nona Lovell Brooks (1861–1945) co-founded Divine Science in Denver with her sisters and Malinda Cramer, after her own reported healing in the Emma Curtis Hopkins lineage.
Omnipresence was her systematic contribution — the clear articulation of God as the one ever-present power as the ground of healing and harmonious living — and it fed forward into Ernest Holmes’s Science of Mind.
Common refinements
Stopping at the intellect. Brooks was explicit: an intellectual nod is not enough; hold it until it is felt as a working conviction.
- Affirming at the appearance. The work is to turn away from the problem-picture toward the Presence, not to argue with the symptom.
- Leaving it on the cushion. The realization is meant to be carried into the activities of the day, not confined to a quiet time.
- Spiritual bypass. “God is present and all is good” must not become a way to ignore real danger, untreated illness, or harm that needs practical action.