The Fire of Unconditional Love

The Fire of Unconditional Love – An unavoidable discomfort 

By Mike Jenkins 

Life giver fires up;
burns away excess of waste
I have all you need.

— Haiku by Mike Jenkins (2022)

Sometimes we are moved to action by discomfort or unease that is so persistent, our choices narrow to a simple binary option; change course or stay here to wither and die.

The heat this year in the UK and the rising temperatures along with the fires raging across the planet, indeed, all extreme weather conditions could be seen as a metaphor for the collective un-ease of humanity. 

Many of us live with the conviction that peace will arrive when our circumstances finally change. We will feel secure when the financial pressure has lifted, when a difficult relationship has been resolved, when our health improves, or when we have escaped the situation that seems to be causing our distress. We look outward because the outward problem appears to demand an outward solution. In almost all of his writings and certainly in our latest New Hamblin Edition, ‘The Way to the Inner Kingdom’, Henry Hamblin tells us again that ‘the decisive battles of life are not fought in circumstance but in consciousness.’ 

It was after a group mediation and therapy session with others, where we had been ‘checking-in’ to bear witness to some of the obstacles and the problems in our lives that, for whatever reason, we felt unable to fully and honestly disclose to our nearest and dearest, that it became clear to me, I had been delaying the process of grieving the loss of my father. 

I say delaying, but avoiding seems a better word. I had turned away from my own personal pain and focused instead on tending to the needs of others. And for a time, that had some good effects for others and for me too. 

Circumstances do matter. Some situations are genuinely harmful and must be confronted or changed. Christian spirituality should never be used to persuade people to remain passive in the face of injustice, mistreatment or avoidable suffering.

Yet there is another dimension to our difficulties which can easily be overlooked. Even when our circumstances change, the fears, habits of thought and inner conflicts we carry may remain. We can leave one difficult situation only to discover the same anxiety taking a different form. We can achieve something we believed would bring lasting satisfaction and find that our sense of insecurity has followed us into our new circumstances. 

The external battle may be real, but it is not always the whole battle.

Looking in the wrong direction

Human beings naturally search outside themselves for the source of fulfillment. We seek security in possessions, status, approval, institutions, relationships and plans for the future. In religious life, too, we may imagine God primarily as distant from us: someone to be found in a particular place, through an extraordinary experience, or at the end of a long spiritual search.

Christ’s teaching concerning the Kingdom of God challenges this habit of looking only outwardly. The Kingdom is not merely a distant destination or a future reward. It is also a present spiritual reality, encountered wherever the life of the individual is brought into harmony with God.

This is the starting point of Henry Thomas Hamblin’s The Way to the Inner Kingdom. Hamblin asks the reader to look within—not in a spirit of self-absorption, but with honesty, attentiveness and faith.

He presents the inner life as the place in which our deepest choices are made. It is where fear is either entertained or resisted, where resentment is rehearsed or released, and where appearances are accepted as final truth or brought under the light of spiritual understanding.

I think this is what Hamblin means when he says the decisive battles of life are not fought only in circumstance but also in consciousness. In the safety and the non-judgement of the light of our own awareness. 

The power of unexamined thought

A thought may seem private and insignificant. Yet repeated thoughts gradually form attitudes, expectations and habits of response.

A person who continually anticipates failure may begin to interpret every setback as evidence of personal inadequacy. Someone who repeatedly rehearses an injury may remain inwardly controlled by the person who caused it. A mind trained to expect danger may struggle to recognise safety even when immediate danger has passed.

This does not mean that every difficulty is created by thought, or that people are to blame for every misfortune they experience. Such a claim would be both simplistic and cruel.

It does mean that the way we meet experience is shaped, in part, by the inner patterns we have allowed to develop. Or the inner patterns we had no real choice in developing, when we were young and impressional children. What we dwell upon affects what we notice. What we repeatedly accept as true influences the choices we make. Fear can narrow the field of possibility long before any external door has closed.

The Christian discipline of examining thought is therefore not an attempt to deny reality. It is an effort to see reality more truthfully.

We may ask: Is this fear presenting the whole truth? Is this feeling of defeat consistent with the life and presence of God? Am I responding to what is actually happening, or to an expectation formed by an earlier wound? What belief is governing me at this moment?

These questions turn our attention towards the place where spiritual transformation can begin.

More than positive thinking

The language of mind power can easily be misunderstood. It may suggest that human beings can obtain whatever they desire simply by maintaining the correct mental attitude.

That is not the path Hamblin presents.

His teaching is not positive thinking detached from God, nor is it the attempt to impose the personal will upon life. The aim is not to persuade ourselves that everything is pleasant or that suffering is unreal. It is to bring thought, desire and action into alignment with divine truth.

In this understanding, thought has power because our consciousness shapes the way we behave. The thought we accept influences the spirit in which we speak, decide, work and respond to others. A mind governed by panic produces different actions from one grounded in prayer. A person consumed by resentment cannot act with the same freedom as one who has begun to release the past.

The mastery of thought is therefore inseparable from surrender. For me, surrender has been the primary spiritual practice of my life. After every genuine moment of acceptance, allowing or surrender, circumstances that have been causing dysfunction and suffering have begun to change for the better. 

We are being asked to surrender the fearful, reactive and self-defeating mind to the life of the Spirit. To surrender and give up the thoughts, beliefs and behaviours that no longer serve us or those around us. This is true persistence. It is having the courage to start really living, as opposed to continuing on a path that is destructive and self defeating. 

Inner mastery is not achieved by forcing every unwanted feeling into silence. It develops as we learn to recognise what is governing us and deliberately return our attention to God.

Practical Steps to Walk Daily with God

Spirituality remains abstract until we bring it into the texture of our daily lives. Hamblin’s roadmaps—detailed in The Way to the Inner Kingdom, God’s Love, Your Life, and Walk Daily with God—are meant to be lived, messily and genuinely, in the real world.

Here are three practical ways to cultivate that alignment daily:

1. Witnessing without Entanglement

The “Inner Kingdom” is that sacred space of conscious awareness within you that can observe your thoughts, feelings, past pain, and memories without being swallowed by them.

• The Practice: Spend quiet time each day sitting as the witness. Through reflective journaling, observe what moves through your mind and heart without judging, fixing, or creating a false sense of identity out of past trauma.

2. Space-Holding and Conscious Connection

Learning to live from divine reality or the kingdom within, is rarely a journey we are meant to make entirely alone.

• The Practice: Build a routine of presence. Beyond private contemplation, share your inner landscape with a trusted spiritual friend, fellowship group, or circle. Finding spaces where others witness your journey without trying to advise, judge, or fix you restores a deep sense of peace and shared humanity.

3. Living Ritual and Personal Honor

Spiritual concepts take deep root when we anchor them in tangible, heartfelt actions.

• The Practice: Create personal rituals to honor life, transitions, and those who came before you.

A Personal Reflection:

Recently, I conducted a simple ceremony to give thanks for my late father. Standing in a quiet room, I spoke words of gratitude out loud—to the space, to my dad, and to the friends, family, and supportive souls who held me when I felt lost after his passing. Verbally expressing that genuine sentiment fostered a deep connection to my father’s memory and awakened a profound appreciation for the kindness of those walking beside me.

“The Son is Burning inside you; let him lead you through The Inner Kingdom”

Mike Jenkins

From Insight to Action – Words, meaning and metaphors that can inspire new ways of being

The play on words between the Sun in the sky and the Son (the Christ Within) is more than poetic—it is a practical metaphor. In the subtitle for this extended article, I use the words “an unavoidable discomfort.”

The use of the word “fire” to describe unconditional love can remind us of all the various characteristics of the element of fire, both good and bad. Fire and unconditional love also share some characteristics. Drawing our attention to the changes in climate at this point in human history, when we are experiencing the death and destruction that the intensity of the sun in the sky is causing, is intended to help us recognise that unease or dis-ease is often an outward sign that something is out of balance and that a correction or change of some kind is being called for.

We know from Science that the sun is also the giver of life on planet earth. Professor Brian Cox has spoken very beautifully about how he imagines early humans developing myths and legends from observing and reflecting on the power of the sun to create new life. Earlier civilisations paid careful attention to signs from Mother Nature. I am suggesting that when we begin to pay attention to discomfort or unease from within our own bodies and minds, we would also do well to follow the guidance of a Master Teacher such as Henry Thomas Hamblin. He would be quick to remind us that we do not venture into the fearful depths and shaddows of our own psyche and of any trauma or suffering we have endured, alone. We are accompanied by the divine light and presence of God. 

When we allow that inner light of unconditional love to guide us, compassion ceases to be just a warm feeling; it becomes direct, natural action flowing from our state of being. By stepping back from outer panic and anxiety and anchoring in the Inner Kingdom, we become steady anchors for everyone around us.

May you find time to regularly sit quietly, let the inner fire burn away what no longer serves you, and walk with the steady guidance of the Christ within. In time, you will discern the clear difference between navigating by the fearful instruments of the mind and being guided by the wisdom of the Kingdom Within

A practical path into the inner kingdom

In Hamblin’s ‘Walk Daily with God’, we have a reminder to return to our deeper, inner awareness every day. As many have said before, the solution is often quite simple. The dedication and persistence required in the face of our conditioned modes of thinking and feeling and indeed, the courage it takes to finally face some of our core wounds, is not so simple.

Repeatedly experiencing the safety and the tenderness that flows from the heart of unconditaional love can, over time, reassure us that walking with God is a safe bet!

In The Way to the Inner Kingdom: Master Inner Mind Power Through Christian Mysticism, Henry Thomas Hamblin presents an approach that is both devotional and practical.

The first part, Look Within, challenges the assumption that lasting change begins entirely outside us. It directs attention towards the purification of motive, the discipline of thought and the recognition of the spiritual forces operating within consciousness.

The second part, The Life of the Spirit, considers how inward transformation finds expression through courage, service, steadiness and joy.

Together, these teachings offer a path for readers who find themselves caught between spiritual longing and intellectual doubt, or between a desire for contemplative depth and the demands of practical life.

The inner kingdom is not offered as an escape from the world. It is the place from which the world can be met with greater clarity, faith and strength. When the student is ready, the teacher appears. Your own inner guidance system has been waiting for you! And Hamblin is a fine instructor on how to navigate with it. 

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