THE PRACTICE of SPIRITUAL MIND HEALING
Ernest Holmes
"We are individual entities in a Universe which furnishes the background and foreground for each of us, but each is unique, different yet fundamentally alike. Why then should it seem strange - if this whole differentiation of the physical universe is but a difference of form, distinguishing objects one from another because of arrangement - that the enlightened should see back of this arrangement the Word of God?
In other words, the Cosmic Order is the Divine Mind; the Universe in which we live is a Spiritual System; we are spiritual beings but we do not know it, we do not understand it. In our ignorance we misuse our divinity without changing or destroying it. We can never change Reality, cannot destroy It nor break Its laws; but we place ourselves in such a position to It that It appears limited and unhappy and even appears to die. "By man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead." What is this but stating that man figured out how to die and how to be born again? God had nothing to do with it, because God "is not a God of the dead but of the living; for all live unto Him."
We are, therefore, members of the Universe, and being members of that which unites everything, we are some part of each other! "I am the vine and ye are the branches ..." Jesus' words were symbols of the Universe in which we live. Except the branch abide in the vine, it shall not bear fruit, but "if ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will and it shall be done unto you." Thus is the Father glorified in the Son.
Our thought, then, is creative in our world. Macrocosm - the big world - and microcosm - the little world. We reproduce the Cosmos in our individual world. The Father is greater than the Son, yet the Father is the Son, and we are each other, and It is in all of us. So every day we are living from this Unity, and projecting the experiences from it upon the screen of our objective lives. We have done this so long in ignorance that we appear to be bound by the outlines of the forms which our ignorance has projected. That is what Plato meant when he gave us the story of the slaves in the cave. They saw the shadows of bondage, and thought they were bound, while all the while the chains had no reality.
We seek a practical use of the Truth. The Spirit is the starting point of everything. There is a Presence in the Universe which we call God, Intelligence, Law, which by the very act of Its Word creates an objective form which is like Its Word. The Word becomes flesh. We are some part of this creative order and we cannot change our nature. We have to accept the truth and we should make use of it. We had better use it constructively than destructively; in happiness rather than in misery. They are made out of the same thing, but let us try to arrive at heaven instead of hell. Hell cools off when we think of heaven.
And we wish to demonstrate. What do we mean by demonstration? Nothing peculiar, nothing weird, nothing that pertains to ghost walking. To demonstrate means to prove, to exemplify, to manifest, to bring forth, to project into our experience something that is better than we had yesterday...less pain, less unhappiness, less poverty, less misery, more good...this is what is meant by a demonstration.
We would like to be happier, have greater physical health. We would like to have more of what it takes to be happy, whether it be millions or marbles. These things are nothing of themselves. It is only when we think of them as entities, within themselves, that we fall down and worship them; and then that which we should possess, possesses and obsesses us. Every great spiritual genius has taught us to this effect: If you have possessions which possess you, it is better for you to lose them that you may understand their temporary, fleeting form. No great spiritual teacher has denied the advisability of using possessions. Emerson says to cast them upon every wind of heaven, do not hold them. "Beware of holding too much good in your hand.""
