GENERAL SUMMARY
By Ernest Holmes
“We attract to ourselves the objective form of our subjective
embodiments. Law knows how to make
things out of ideas. We do not
consciously know how It does this; nor do we know how corned beef and cabbage
are turned into flesh and bone, but they are and we have been so accustomed to
the thought that they are, that we have implicit faith that they will continue
to be. Should we doubt this phenomenon
we should be thought [strange]. When we
believe in the Law of Mind in the same way we shall be surprised at the results
we receive.
Thoughts of lack, poverty and limitation contain within themselves the
conditions necessary to produce lack, poverty and limitation. Remember that we are not dealing with two
powers, but with one, ever presenting Itself in varying guises. “To the pure thou wilt show thyself pure; to
the froward thou wilt show thyself froward.”
It will become to us what we are to It.
The Law knows us only as we first know ourselves. We make up Its mind because Its mind is
subjective. The Spirit controls the
Law. This is the great mystery, the
limitless wonder of the universe – that, which out of nothing, can make
something. But Its nothing is really the
Substance of every something.
Because all people have believed in lack a law of human thought has
been made which binds the race.
Limitation is the result of an ignorant use of the Law. Every advance in any science proves this to
be true. The real Law is one of
freedom. By that freedom we bind
ourselves until we learn how to change the thought and by so doing to change
the limitation into freedom. The two are
merely a different use of the One Law.
Limitation is a condensation of the idea of want. Mind accepts this idea as though it were true
and then makes it true in our experience.
It is not always easy to see this nor is it easy to rise above it, but
it can be done and we should begin at once to control our thought patterns in
such a way that they will produce plenty instead of lack.
The Law of Mind is not selective.
That is, It is receptive without caring what It receives. It is creative without caring what It
creates. It knows how to do without
consciously knowing that It is doing or what It is doing. It seems strange that the first thing to
realize is that there could be such a Law in the universe. But on second thought we find that all
natural laws are of a like character, no natural law is ever selective of
itself. This is why we must realize that
the Spirit Itself is more than any or all laws as we understand them. Conscious mind controls the Law of Mind. The Law of Mind is sensitive but not conscious
from the standpoint of having any selective quality. Selectivity is the office of the conscious
mind while creativeness is the office of the Inner Mind.
Thoughts of lack manifest as limitation. Thoughts of abundance manifest as success and
happiness. Failure and success are but
two ends of one stick. All conditions
and every circumstance is of the nature of effects and can in no way limit Mind
unless we take them as a fresh starting point for a creative pattern. The thought that any given condition is a
thing of itself tends to make it appear to be a thing of itself. Reverse the thought and the condition tends
to become reversed.
The Law can know no conditions as such.
It knows form but not size.
Outline is real but limitation is unreal to Mind. In the Absolute nothing depends on anything
but ideas. Ideas are form, condition,
circumstance, cause and effect, and everything that happens between cause and
effect. This is what a treatment
is. It is a thing of itself if we know
that it is. It is what we know it to be.
“Fear not, little flock, it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you
the kingdom.” Fear is the great enemy of
man. But fear is a mental attitude and
as such can be converted into something else.
Fear is the reverse mental attitude to faith, and is a result of the
lack of faith. Fear brings limitation
and lack in its wake and destroys the happiness and possibility of a greater
degree of livingness to those who suffer from it.
Fear blocks the more complete givingness of the Spirit to Its highest
form of manifestation on this planet, which is mankind. Fear arises from that mental attitude which
limits the possibility and the willingness of Spirit to give us the good we so
greatly desire. There is nothing wrong
in the desire for self-expression. God
is more completely expressed through the man who lives largely than through the
one who lives meagerly.
Fear is a belief in limitation, a denial that the Divine is the Center
and the Source of all good. We must do
all in our power to overcome it. “Perfect
love casts out fear;” that is, confidence overcomes the depression of
doubt. Mental depression can produce
physical and financial depression. The
psychology of economic cycles proves this.
In the midst of plenty humanity lives in want, because of fear. To overcome fear is the greatest adventure
of the mind of man.”
