October 24 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

MEDITATIONS for Self-Help

By Ernest Holmes

The Quick Answer

My answer comes quickly and surely back to me from On High.

My answer will not fail me, for the Law of the Universe is the Power through which it comes.

I shall not doubt nor fear, for the answer is swift and certain.

My answer comes.

A Song of Joy

There is a Song upon my lips today; it sings of the glad heart and the happy ways of Life.

I will listen to my song, for it carols to me the glad tidings of Great Joy, of Love and Life.

It tells me of the Wondrous Journey of the Soul and the Boundless Life in which my life is hid.

I am filled with joy.

October 13 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

WHAT The MYSTICS HAVE TAUGHT
Ernest Holmes

Cosmic Consciousness - Illumination

"Dr. Bucke defines Cosmic Consciousness as:  "One's consciousness of his unity with the Whole."  The mystic intuitively perceives Truth, and often without any process of reasoning - immediately is aware, with what Swedenborg called a sort of "interior awareness," a spiritual sense.

There can and does descend into our minds - embody and personify in our person - a Divinity, a Unity, the Spirit of God, the direct incarnation of the Original Thing, in us - the mystical presentation of Christ.

Dean Inge, perhaps the best thinker in the Anglican Church of today, tells us that Plotinus had seven distinct periods of cosmic consciousness, in which state he was so completely unified with the Universe that he became One with It.  His spiritual philosophy was a result of these experiences.  Plotinus, you will recall, was one of the greatest of the Neo-Platonic Philosophers.

Dr. Buck, the author of that most rational book, "Cosmic Consciousness," cites many instances of known and authentic records of people who have had definite Cosmic experiences.  In his scientific approach to this subject, he calls attention to the necessity of distinguishing between psychic revelations and Cosmic Consciousness.

Reports of the experiences of most psychics are contradictory.  While on the other hand, the experiences of those who have entered into Cosmic Consciousness - over a period of thousands of years - tell us an identical story, once we get the key to their language - all tell the same story of Reality.  The psychic may or may not be true; the spiritual is always true. The psychic realm is the realm of the subconscious, or relative first cause.   The spiritual is the realm of First Cause.  Therefore, we may read Buddha, Jesus, Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Swedenborg, Emerson, Whitman, Browning or any of the other great mystics, no matter in what age they have lived, and we shall find the same Ultimate.  By reading the writings of most psychics, we enter confusion; therefore, we must understand clearly this vital difference between psychism and mysticism.  One may or may not be true; the other is always true."

September 23 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

WHAT The MYSTICS HAVE TAUGHT
Ernest Holmes

What Is a Mystic? (Continued)

"The teaching of the mystics has been that there should be conscious courting of the Divine Presence.  There should be a conscious receptivitiy to It, but a balanced one.  As one of the Apostles said, in substance, that he would rather speak ten words with his understanding than ten thousand with confusion.  "God is not the author of confusion but of peace."  Unlike the great psychics of the ages, who have been more or less confused, the great mystics have been intensely and pre-eminently the sane people, sound people.

The philosophy of Jesus will remain sound when the belief in a material universe shall have been rolled up like a scroll and numbered with the things once thought to be real.  So will be the philosophy of Buddha, Plato, Socrates, Emerson and Walt Whitman, and the philosophy we are writing about today.  But the more or less unconscious disclosures of many psychics are not entire true, even in the day in which they are given.  While psychism is a most interesting field of study, we should understand it for what it is worth.

It is through the teachings of the illumined that the Spiritual Universe reveals Itself, imparting to us what we know about God.  What we directly experience ourselves, and what we believe others have experienced, is all we can know about God.

Jesus taught a Power transcendent, triumphant, absolute, positive, against which lesser laws meant nothing.  By Its very Presence It heals.  The mystics did not contend or argue with people.  There was nothing to argue about.  THEY SAW and KNEW.  They are the great revealers to man of the nature of the Universe, and the relationship of man to God."

August 19 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

FROM the TEACHING of JESUS
Ernest Holmes

The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth (Matt. 5:5)

""The meek shall inherit the earth."  This is a teaching of non-resistance.  War lords and plunderers of human possessions have come and gone.  Kingdoms have risen only to crumble in dust and become numbered with past events.  Passion and lust for power have strewn the earth with destruction.  It would seem as though the meek had lost out in the titanic struggle for temporal supremacy.

In the midst of this drama of human existence, Jesus declared that the meek shall inherit the earth.  Let us inquire if his teaching is a true one.  Do we teach our children to follow the steps of a Caesar and a Napoleon? Or do we tell them the story of Jesus or Buddha?  The cross is mightier than the crown and we teach our children that LOVE MASTERS EVERYTHING!  The meek shall inherit the earth.  To whom have our artists turned for inspiration and that quickening power which enables them to depict the idea?  Not to the war lords, nor even the captains of industry, but to the meek.

What characteristics are set before us as being worthy?  Have not faith and belief in the divine Goodness been the theme of our greatest singers?  Who could write a beautiful story about hell?  But heaven and love have inspired thousands to the uplifting of humanity.  Jesus was right when he said that the meek shall inherit the earth.  They have done so and will continue to do so!

They That Hunger Shall Be Fed (Matt. 5:6)

They who hunger and thirst after righteousness shall be filled.  Is there anyone who does not have a soul hunger?  Does not the spirit of man thirst after knowledge and understanding, yearn for Truth and Reality, as blind men yearn for light?  And his hunger can only be satisfied with spiritual food, as manna from heaven.

Let us inquire into this teaching and see if it be an illusion.  Turn to the history of those who have been spiritually-minded, and the question is answered.  They have not received a stone when they asked for bread.  All who have been hungry have been fed; their hunger has been blessed, in that it has led them to that only food - that heavenly manna - which has sustained, strengthened and upheld them, while the rest of the world (with thirst unsatisfied and appetite unappeased) has eagerly inquired from what store they bought their goods.  They who hunger and thirst after Reality are always fed, and directly by the hand of God Himself.

The Merciful Shall Obtain Mercy (Matt. 5:7)

"Blessed are the merciful; for they shall obtain mercy."  Again we are confronted with an apparent contradiction.  Do the merciful always obtain mercy?  From casual observation, it would seem otherwise.  But are not many of our observations based on a finite outlook, from a limited concept?  Can we estimate life from the range of one human experience?  If life begins with the cradle and ends with the grave, then are all of our hopes, not only forlorn, but useless.  It is only with the "eye views the world as one vast plain, one boundless reach of sky," that it sees truly.

The perspective of reality is lost when we view life from the range of a short experience.  Jesus saw beyond the veil and estimated life from the great perspective - the long run of the adventure of the soul.  He knew that the law of cause and effect takes care of all, and that the "Mills of God" will grind the chaff of unreality from the wheat of the Spirit. What matter if these mills do not do all of their grinding while we are clothed in flesh! Did not Jesus know another life which to him was as real as this one?  Can we expect, in this world, to receive full compensation for all our work?  Of course not.  We are building on an eternal foundation, one that time cannot alter nor experience destroy.

A true estimate of real values cannot be built on the shifting sands of time alone.  In the long run, the merciful will obtain mercy!  In the long run, we shall reap as we have sown!"