October 16 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

WHAT The MYSTICS HAVE TAUGHT
Ernest Holmes

Cosmic Consciousness - Illumination (Continued)

"Illumination will come as man more and more realizes his Unity with the Whole, and as he constantly endeavors to let the Truth operate through him.  But since the Whole is at the point of the Inner Mentality, it will be here alone that he will contact It.  "Speak to Him, thou, for He hears."  Always in such degree as one has spiritual sense, he realizes universality in his own soul.  The great mystics have had that sense and have felt the possibility of an immediate communion with the Universal Spirit.  This essence has run through all theologies and has been the cause of much of their vitality.  Theology with all its weakness has been stronger in its strength than it has been weak in its weakness, because the vital elements in it have been greater than the devitalizing ones.  It would not have lived unless this were true.

The only God man knows is the God of his own Inner Life; he can know no other.  To assume that man can know a God outside himself is to assume that he can know something of which he cannot be conscious. This does not mean that man is God; it means that the only God that man knows is within, and the only life man has is from within. God is not external but is Indwelling, at the very center of man's life.  This is why Jesus said that the Kingdom of Heaven is within and why He prayed:  "Our Father which art in Heaven."

The great mystics like Jesus have taught that as we enter into the One, the One enters into us and becomes us and is us.  They have taught the "Mystical Marriage," the union of the soul of man with the Soul of God, and the Unity of all Life.  The great mystics while sensing this Unity - the Universality of all things - have also sensed the individualization of Being and the individuality of Man as a Divine Reality.  Tagore, in seeking to explain this, says that the individual is immersed in, but not lost in, Nirvana, and he uses the illustration..."as an arrow is lost in its mark," still remaining an arrow.  The mysticism of Buddha did not teach the annihilation of the soul, but the eternality of an ever-expanding principle of the soul."

October 5 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

WHAT The MYSTICS HAVE TAUGHT
Ernest Holmes

Ultimate Salvation for All (Conclusion)

"There cannot be a Law in the Universe which demands evil, lack, limitation, and the experience of unhappiness, to provide shades to magnify Its glory.  Therefore, the mystics have taught that evil has only the power to destroy itself; that it is not God-ordained.  From the viewpoint of reality, it is an illusion, but they have not denied it as an experience.  It is an experience all have had.  The great have not failed to recognize the appearance of evil, but they have separated the appearance from the reality.  They have done away with evil as a cosmic entity - NO DEVIL, NO HELL, NO TORMENT, NO DAMNATION outside of one's own state of thought, NO PUNISHMENT outside of that self-inflicted, through ignorance; and NO SALVATION OUTSIDE OF CONSCIOUS CO-OPERATION WITH THE INFINITE.  Heaven and Hell are states of consciousness."

September 10 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

FROM The TEACHINGS of JESUS
Ernest Holmes

The Pure in Heart Shall See God (Matt. 5:8)

""The pure in heart shall see God."  Can we ever see God?  Is there any news of Heaven other than that which comes through our own thought, or through the thought of another?  Who thinks purity see it, and is beholding god.  The face of "The Ancient of Days" onlooks eternity, and the upward glance ever sees this reality in all things.  The pure in heart not only shall see God, but do see Him.

The peacemakers are called the children of God.  We never associate warriors with the divine Kingdom.  Struggle and strife are outside the Kingdom; they cannot enter in because of their confusion.   Only peace can enter the gates of Reality and sit at the table of love.  The Divine Host serves not his bounty to confusion, but distributes His gifts to those who enter His gates with peace in their minds and love in their hearts.

"Ye are the light of the world."  Man is the candle of the Lord.  How important then that this light be kept trimmed and burning with the oil of pure Spirit, through the wick of peace and joy.  In this way do we glorify that Indwelling God who is the Heavenly Father and the Cosmic Mother of all.

The Altar of Faith (Matt. 5:23)

Again, Jesus tells us that our gifts, brought to the alter of life, are unacceptable while there is aught between us and our fellow man.  Here is a hard saying.  We cannot always please our fellow men.  Human experience has taught that this is impossible.  What attitude, then, are we to assume?  This:  whether we please or whether we displease, we need have no personal animosity toward others.  The altar of faith is approached through peace and goodwill toward all.  The Divine Ear is attuned to harmony and cannot be approached through discord.

When we agree with our adversaries quickly they will disappear, for there can be no reality to us unless we recognize it.  But if we recognize that which is false, by our acceptance of it, we shall be delivered to the judgment whereby we ourselves have judged.  The utmost farthing must be paid, until we no longer indulge in evil doing.

Jesus tells us to resist not evil, to love our enemies, and to do good to them who would do us evil, for this is to manifest the spirit of love, which is God.  God loves all alike and causes His rain to fall and His sun to shine alike upon all.  In arms which are all inclusive, Divine Love encompasses everything.

The Father Who Seeth in Secret (Matt. 6:4)

We are not to give our alms before men to be seen of them, but to do good for the pure love of good.  Here Jesus is teaching the lesson of sincerity.  Men will come and men will go, friend and foe alike may fall away, but always the soul shall be thrown back upon itself.  The Indwelling Spirit who lives in the secret place of our lives, will ever be with us.  And this Father who seeth in secret will reward us openly.  Here, again, is a suggestion of the Law of Cause and Effect, about which Jesus so often spoke.

Our prayers are to be made to God in the secret place of our own being.  They are not to be shouted aloud for the ears of  men.  The soul must enter this secret placed, naked and alone.  This is how the One returns to the One."

September 9 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

FROM The TEACHINGS of JESUS
Ernest Holmes

The New Birth (John 3:3-9)

""Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."  Jesus is referring to the heavenly birth, which means being born into the knowledge of Truth.  He refers to this as being born of water and Spirit.

The symbol of water is used to express the idea of a complete immersion in Spirit.  As water flows in and around, so we are immersed in an everlasting Spirit which flows around, in and through us.  To be immersed in water symbolizes our recognition that we are surrounded by pure Spirit.  It is the outward sign of an inner conviction.  But water alone cannot make us completely clean or whole.  We must be born of the Spirit, for "that which is born of the spirit is Spirit."

Man partakes of the Divine nature and the Divine nature is man.  The recognition of this is being born of the Spirit.  But we cannot be born of the spirit unless we do the will of the Spirit and the will of the Spirit is goodness, peace, mercy, justice and truth.  It is conscious union with God.

The new birth comes not by observation nor by loud proclamation, but through an inner sense of reality.  We cannot tell where this comes from, if we look to outward things, as it proceeds from the innermost parts of our own being.

Heaven (John 3:13)

"And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he hath came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven."  Here is another of those hidden meanings which places Jesus among the great mystics.  He says that no man can go to heaven unless he came from heaven, and that he can neither go to, nor come from, heaven unless he is already there!

This is in line with the idea that the Truth knows neither yesterday, today nor tomorrow.  It knows sequence but not time.  Only that can return to heaven which was born in heaven, and since heaven is not a place, but a state of consciousness, the return must be a recognition that heaven is already within.  The son of man, who is also the son of God, is already in heaven and knows it not.

The Son of Man (John 3:14)

As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so Jesus tells us must the son of man also be lifted up.  By looking on and believing in this son, we are saved.  Jesus could not have been referring to his own personality, for he knew that this would soon be taken from the sight of humanity.  We must look for a deeper meaning.

We must be lifted up, that is we must realize our Divine nature and relationship to the Truth of God.  This relationship is one of complete unity.  The cross represents the tree of life and may also be thought of as the tree of unity.

When Moses lifted up the serpent, those who looked upon it were healed.  This understanding produced a consciousness of unity, which had healing power.  The Life Principle is either looked up on as material or spiritual.  When looked upon as material, it casts us from the Garden of Eden - the garden of the soul.  The Life Principle viewed only as matter is death, but viewed as life and unity, It becomes life everlasting.  Moses elevated the Life Principle and Jesus did the same.  The son of man must be lifted up, even as Moses lifted up the Life Principle, symbolized by the serpent.

We are reminded here of another symbol, one used in the Old Testament, that of the serpent which cast Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden.  The serpent meant the outer rim of spiritual existence - the Life Principle viewed from an isolated and materialistic basis.  The worship of material existence, apart from God, cast Adam and Eve from the Garden of Perfection.  The attempt to live in effects, apart from True Cause, always does this.

The story of the Fall, taken literally, would be ridiculous to the point of absurdity; hence it is necessary to look for a deeper meaning.  The writer was trying to teach a Cosmic lesson ... the lesson of right and wrong.  The Garden of Eden typifies life in its pure essence.  Adam means man in general, generic man.  Man exists in pure Life and has all of Its agencies at his command.  This si the meaning of his being told to till the soil and enjoy the fruits of his labor. 

The Tree of Life is our real being, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil means the possibility of dual choice - that is, we can choose even that which is not for our best good.  Man is warned not to eat of the fruit of this tree, for it  is destructive.

Eve, the woman in the case, was made from a rib of Adam.  this story suggests the dual nature of man as a psychological being.  The woman is made from the man.  She must have been in him else she could not have been made out of him, and the story clearly states that she was taken from his being.

Adam and Eve are potential in all of us.  The serpent represents the Life Principle, viewed from a material basis, which beguiles us in this way:  he says that evil is as real as good; that the devil has equal power with God; that negation equals positive goodness, and that the Universe is dual in Its Nature.  From the acceptance of this argument, we experience both good and evil.  And should we come full-orbed into individuality, without having learned the lesson of unity, we should live forever in a state of bondage.  This is the meaning of God saying, "He shall become as one of us and live forever."  The eternal Mind does not wish us to live forever in bondage, and this is what would happen unless we first learn the lesson of right and wrong.

And so that part of us which can be fooled eats of the fruit of dual experience and in so doing reveals its own nakedness.  The native state of man is one of purity, peace and perfection and it is only when we compare these with impurity, distress and imperfection, that we are revealed as naked.  Emerson tells us that virtue does not know it is virtuous.  It is only when virtue tastes of impurities that it becomes naked and must hide from itself.

The Voice of God, "walking in the garden in the cool of the day," means the introspective and meditative part of us, which in its moments of pure intuition and reason, sees the illusion of a life apart from God or Good.  Error is ever a coward before Truth, and cannot hide itself from Reality, which sees through everything, encompasses all and penetrates even the prison walls of the mind with Its clear effulgence.

The conversation between God and Adam and Eve, in the Garden of Eden, represents the arguments that go on in our own minds, when we try to  realize the truth.  These arguments are familiar to all.  The expulsion from the Garden is a necessary and logical outcome of tasting of dual experience.  If we believe in both good and evil, we must experience both.

But, lest we should become discouraged, we remember that Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness and those who looked upon it were healed.  The serpent means the Life Principle.  Viewed from a material basis alone, it casts us from a perfect state.  Lifted up, that is, viewed from a true meaning of the Unity of God, it heals.  Here is the choice again, only stated in different words.  The difference is not in the thing itself, but in the way we look at it.

The son of man is every man who ever lived or ever will live.  Our life is from Spirit, not from matter.  This viewpoint is the truth and truth alone makes free.  We come into everlasting life as we elevate this inner principle to a sense of the unity of man with God.  Each must lift himself to the cross of the tree of Life, thus unifying himself with Reality.  The concept is glorious and the reward certain.  The revelation of the self to the self - this is the great lesson of lessons."