PHYSICAL PERFECTION (Continued) ~ Ernest Holmes
"We realize that mental healing must also be spiritual healing, for the two cannot be divorced. We know that a belief in duality - a belief in the power of Good and the power of evil - has helped to destroy man, and the understanding of Unity alone will heal him. We seek to realize this Unity with God in all our healing work. Every treatment must carry with it a realization of God, if it is to be a good treatment. We are not in any way superstitious about this, but understand that it is necessary since all life is One, and God is the ONE Life in which we all live.
We realize that since our understanding is not yet complete, it is legitimate to use all methods which will help troubled humanity, but we do look forward to the day when Truth alone will answer every need! The mental healer will do all his work in mind, and will give his whole time and attention to correct knowing, but he will leave his patient free to use any method that will benefit him. In this way, the practitioner will get the best results, for everything is good as far as it goes, but the consciousness of Truth alone is the tool of a spiritual practitioner.
Too much cannot be said against the belief that will power is creative. The will is directive but not creative. Will is the conscious, directive power of the intellect and as such has a very important place in the creative order but in no case is it to be used as though it could force things to happen. Any idea of using the will to influence people is a mistake.
If we agree that we can influence others by will power, then we are also admitting that someone else with a greater power of will can influence us. There is no law of nature that works only one way since all natural laws are impersonal. The temporary effects of will power continue only so long as the will forces them to. They have no real life within themselves and must disintegrate as soon as the unnatural force is withdrawn.
Moreover this use of will power contradicts the main foundation upon which all true mental science is built, that we use a Creative Power which does not need to be urged or forced into action. It is Its nature to act and because we are as we are, it is Its nature to act creatively upon the images of thought that we impress It with. We do not create energy, we distribute it, and in the natural sciences we know that we can transform energy from one type to another. So the will may decide what form the energy is to take but it cannot nor does it need to create the energy.
The Energy of Mind like other natural energies already exists. We merely use It and it is within our province to use It in any way we may desire, we have it within our power to cause it to take varying forms for us, no particular one is permanent. The imagination is creative, the will is directive.
Through will we decide just what we wish to have done. We may wish to use the creative power of mind for helping someone else, for self-help, or for some other purpose. The will holds attention to the mental viewpoint until the creative power has time to work through the law of unfoldment. We may wish on the other hand to draw some information to ourselves; the will then holds to the idea that we are receiving the desired information. It can become active or receptive or it may pass into a state of neutral contemplation where its purpose is merely to sense the wonders of the spiritual life. But in no case does the will become creative.
The will is given us to protect ourselves with. Nothing should be allowed to pass into the creative currents of our thought until the will has first admitted it. The will must first analyze, dissect and then decide what it wishes the inner imagination to work on. True spiritual work will strengthen the will without exhausting the mind; if our mental work tires us then we are using the will in the wrong way. The right way would be to determine to think peace whether there appeared to be any reason to expect that peace would be forthcoming in the experience.
As we should understand the proper use of the will, so we should understand the true meaning of concentration. So many different ideas have been promulgated that a great deal of confusion results. To concentrate means to bring to a center, and in Mental Science it means focusing the mental attention on some definite and desired thought, image, idea or thing. Of course we are dealing with the idea as though thoughts were things. The spirit of the thing is in the thought. This is its essence, law and cause."
"We realize that mental healing must also be spiritual healing, for the two cannot be divorced. We know that a belief in duality - a belief in the power of Good and the power of evil - has helped to destroy man, and the understanding of Unity alone will heal him. We seek to realize this Unity with God in all our healing work. Every treatment must carry with it a realization of God, if it is to be a good treatment. We are not in any way superstitious about this, but understand that it is necessary since all life is One, and God is the ONE Life in which we all live.
We realize that since our understanding is not yet complete, it is legitimate to use all methods which will help troubled humanity, but we do look forward to the day when Truth alone will answer every need! The mental healer will do all his work in mind, and will give his whole time and attention to correct knowing, but he will leave his patient free to use any method that will benefit him. In this way, the practitioner will get the best results, for everything is good as far as it goes, but the consciousness of Truth alone is the tool of a spiritual practitioner.
Too much cannot be said against the belief that will power is creative. The will is directive but not creative. Will is the conscious, directive power of the intellect and as such has a very important place in the creative order but in no case is it to be used as though it could force things to happen. Any idea of using the will to influence people is a mistake.
If we agree that we can influence others by will power, then we are also admitting that someone else with a greater power of will can influence us. There is no law of nature that works only one way since all natural laws are impersonal. The temporary effects of will power continue only so long as the will forces them to. They have no real life within themselves and must disintegrate as soon as the unnatural force is withdrawn.
Moreover this use of will power contradicts the main foundation upon which all true mental science is built, that we use a Creative Power which does not need to be urged or forced into action. It is Its nature to act and because we are as we are, it is Its nature to act creatively upon the images of thought that we impress It with. We do not create energy, we distribute it, and in the natural sciences we know that we can transform energy from one type to another. So the will may decide what form the energy is to take but it cannot nor does it need to create the energy.
The Energy of Mind like other natural energies already exists. We merely use It and it is within our province to use It in any way we may desire, we have it within our power to cause it to take varying forms for us, no particular one is permanent. The imagination is creative, the will is directive.
Through will we decide just what we wish to have done. We may wish to use the creative power of mind for helping someone else, for self-help, or for some other purpose. The will holds attention to the mental viewpoint until the creative power has time to work through the law of unfoldment. We may wish on the other hand to draw some information to ourselves; the will then holds to the idea that we are receiving the desired information. It can become active or receptive or it may pass into a state of neutral contemplation where its purpose is merely to sense the wonders of the spiritual life. But in no case does the will become creative.
The will is given us to protect ourselves with. Nothing should be allowed to pass into the creative currents of our thought until the will has first admitted it. The will must first analyze, dissect and then decide what it wishes the inner imagination to work on. True spiritual work will strengthen the will without exhausting the mind; if our mental work tires us then we are using the will in the wrong way. The right way would be to determine to think peace whether there appeared to be any reason to expect that peace would be forthcoming in the experience.
As we should understand the proper use of the will, so we should understand the true meaning of concentration. So many different ideas have been promulgated that a great deal of confusion results. To concentrate means to bring to a center, and in Mental Science it means focusing the mental attention on some definite and desired thought, image, idea or thing. Of course we are dealing with the idea as though thoughts were things. The spirit of the thing is in the thought. This is its essence, law and cause."
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