March 29 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

Personal Convictions of Life Eternal ~ Ernest Holmes

I believe in the continuation of the personal life beyond the grave, in the continuity of the individual stream of consciousness with a full recollection of itself and the ability to know and to make itself known.  I wish to feel, when the experience of physical death shall occur, that that which I really am will continue to live beyond the grave.  I wish to feel that I shall again meet those friends whose lives and influences have made my life happy while on earth.  If I could not believe this, I would believe nothing in life; life would have no meaning and death could not be untimely, unless it were long delayed.  If personality does not persist beyond the grave, then death would be an event to be devoutly long for and sought after.

I believe that certain experiences have given us ample evidence to substantiate the claim of immortality.  I know that my own experience justifies a complete acceptance in my mind of my own and other people's immortality.  Is there any one who, standing at the bier of a loved one, can possibly feel that the real end has come?  It is useless to say that their influence lives after them.  That is true, of course, but we hope for more than this; WE WISH TO FEEL THAT THEY STILL LIVE!  How anyone can feel otherwise seems unthinkable. I want to live and keep on living and to know that I am I; and unless immortality means this, death means the cutting off of all conscious life, contact or recognition, and it could then be truly said of the personality that it dies with the grave.

Poets have sung of the eternality of the soul, while the saints and sages of the ages have assured us that man is an immortal being.  It is recorded that Jesus rose from the dead and made Himself known to his immediate followers.  The faith of countless millions of the Christian Religion has been based, to a great extent, on its teachings of immortality.  The philosophy of Christianity can be traced largely to Greek thought and ideals, but the Christian Religion itself rests its greatest hope on the assurance that a man rose from the dead and passed from this plane to the next, retaining and carrying with him into the beyond those qualities and attributes which constitute that personal stream of consciousness known as an individual.

But I cannot base my hopes of immortality on the revelation of anyone but myself.  So far as I am concerned, nothing can exist to me unless I am aware of it.  While I believe in other men's revelations, I am sure only of my own.  I look upon the belief in immortality neither as a vague dream, nor a forlorn hope, but as a proven fact.  One cannot doubt that which he knows to be so, and why should he deny the evidence of his senses, his reason and his personal experiences, in one field more than in another?  Immortality, or the continuation of personal existence beyond this life, has been so completely demonstrated to me that it would be unthinkable for me to assume an opposite position, even for the purpose of debate.  Here, within myself, is something that knows.  Here is something knows that it IS, and knows that life itself moves with a tide as irresistible as the recurring seasons.

I do not believe in the return of the soul to another life on this plane.  The spiral of life is upward.  Evolution carries us forward, not backward.  Eternal and progressive expansion is its law and there are no breaks in its continuity.  It seems to me that our evolution is the result of an unfolding consciousness of that which already is, and needs but to be realized to become a fact of everyday life.  I can believe in planes beyond this one without number, in eternal progress.  I cannot believe that nature is limited to one sphere of action.

The average man desires to live beyond the grave.  In most instances where this desire is lacking, we find those whose experiences in this world have been so negative that their greatest hope is for utter oblivion, a complete nothingness.  The average man desires an eternal progress, an everlasting expansion, a complete reconciliation between this life, the grave and everlasting existence. Even the best men feel that their lives here have been marred by incompleteness.  Nine out of ten people believe in some type of immortality, which demonstrates that people not only wish to believe, but that - in the face of all difficulties, disappointments and disillusionments - THEY ACTUALLY DO BELIEVE!

It is human to grieve over the loss of dear ones.  We love them and cannot help missing them, but a true realization of our immortality and continuity of the individual soul, will rob our grief of hopelessness.  We shall realize that they are in God's keeping and they are safe.  We shall know that loving friends have met them, and that their life still flows on with the currents of eternity. We shall feel that we have not lost them, they have only gone before.  So we shall view eternity from the higher standpoint, as a continuity of time, forever and ever expanding, until time, as we now experience it, shall be no more.  Realizing this, we shall see in everyone a budding genius, a becoming God, an unfolding soul, an eternal destiny.

Time heals all wounds, adjust conditions, explains facts; and time alone satisfies the expanding soul, reconciling the visible with the invisible.  We are born of eternal day, and the Spiritual Sun shall never set upon the glory of the soul, for it is the coming forth of God into self-expression.  We must give ourselves time to work out all problems.  If we do not work them out here, we shall hereafter.  There will be time enough in eternity to prove everything.  Every man is an incarnation of eternity, a manifestation in the finite, of that Infinite which, Emerson tells us, "lies stretched in smiling repose."

With all these facts confronting us, we should learn to trust life.  There is no power in the universe which wishes anyone ill. Life is good and God is Good.  Why not accept this and begin to live?  No man need prepare to meet his God, he is meeting Him every day and each hour in the day.  He meets Him in the rising sun, in the flowing stream, in the budding rose, in the joy of friendship and love, and in the silence of his own soul.

When we meet each other, do we not feel that subtle Presence which flows through all things and gives light and color to our everyday experiences?  In our own souls, in the silent processes of our thought and understanding, do we not sense another Presence?  There is something Divine about us which we have overlooked. There is more to us than we realize.  Man is an eternal destiny, a forever-expanding principle of conscious intelligence...the ocean in the drop of water, the sun in its rays.  Man, the real man, is birthless, deathless, changeless; and God, as man, in man, IS man!  The highest God and the innermost God is One and the same God.

And so we prepare not to die, but to live.  The thought of death should slip from our consciousness altogether; and when this great event of the soul takes place, it should be beautiful, sublime...a glorious experience.  As the eagle, freed from its cage, soars to its native heights, so the soul, freed from the home of heavy flesh, will rise and return unto its Father's house, naked and unafraid."

When death shall come

And the spirit, freed, shall mount the air, 

And wander afar in that great no-where,

It shall go as it came,

Freed from sorrow, sin and shame;

And naked and bare, through the upper air

Shall go alone to that great no-where.

Hinder not its onward way, 

Grieve not o'er its form of clay,

For the spirit, freed now from clod,

Shall go alone to meet its God.

March 28 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

Shall We Rest in the Hereafter? ~ Ernest Holmes

"The questions might arise in our minds, "Where shall we go when we die?"  Shall we engage in activity or shall we be inactive?"  These are natural questions.  Where shall we take this marvelous mind and subtle body?  If today is the logical continuance of yesterday, then all of the tomorrows which stretch down the vista of eternity, will be a continuity of experiences and remembrance.  We shall keep on keeping on.  We shall continue in our own individual stream of consciousness but forever and ever expanding.  Not less but ever more:  More and still more ourselves.

Our place hereafter will be what we have made it.  We certainly cannot take anything with us but our character.  If we have lived in accordance with the law of harmony, we shall continue to live after this Divine Law.  If we have lived any other way, we shall continue to live that way until we wake up to the facts of Being.

When we came into this life, we were met by loving friends who cared for use until we were able to care for ourselves.  Judging the future by the past, we can believe that when we enter the larger life, there will be loving hands to greet us and loving friends to care for us until we become accustomed to our new surroundings.  Nature provides for herself there as well as here.  We confidently expect to meet friends who are on the other side, and to know and be known.  We cannot believe otherwise.  We should not look forward to a hereafter without activity; but to a place where our work will be done in greater harmony with the Divine Law, because of greater understanding.  A place where there was nothing to do, would be eternal boredom.

With this understanding of eternity, should we not be able to view our passing in a different light?  The experience loses its sting, the grave its victory, when we realize the eternity of our own being.  Nature will not let us stay in any one place too long.  She will let us stay just long enough to gather the experience necessary to the unfolding and advancement of the soul.  This is a wise provision, for should we stay here too long, we would become too set, too rigid, too inflexible.  Nature demands the change in order that we may advance.  When the change comes, we should welcome it with a smile on the lips and a song in the heart."

March 25 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

The Ether of Science ~ Ernest Holmes

"Science is rapidly proving that there is much more in the Universe than we can see with the naked eye. We are now being taught that ether is more solid than matter.  We know that the ether penetrates everything; it is in our bodies, at the center of the earth, and throughout all space.  This means that within our present bodies there is a substance more solid than the body which we see.  This idea is very far-reaching, for it shows that we might have a body within the physical one, which could be as real as the one of which we are accustomed to think.  If Instinctive Man has molded the outer body in form, why should It not mold the inner one into definite form?  There is every reason to suppose that It does and no reason to suppose the opposite.  In all probability, there is a body within a body to infinity.

We do not depart from reason when we assume this, for while we say that two bodies cannot occupy the same space simultaneously, we must remember that we are talking about only one plane of expression; and the plane upon which we are now living with its form of matter is probably but one of innumerable planes, each having its own matter with its corresponding form.  The new idea of matter and ether has proved that form can lie within form without interference, for it has been shown conclusively that there is a substance which can occupy the same space which our body does.  Once this theory is accepted, it enables us to better understand the saying, "There are celestial bodies and bodies terrestrial."..."There is a natural body and there is a spiritual body."  No doubt, as time goes on, it will be proved that there is something still finer than the ether.  This may go on to infinity.  There is every reason to suppose that we have a body within a body to infinity, and it is our belief that we do have.

The "resurrection body," then, will not be snatched from some Cosmic Shelf, as the soul soars aloft.  It is already within and we may be certain that it will be a fit instrument for the future unfoldment of the soul. If this is true, and if remembrance links events together, in a continuous stream of consciousness and form, then the future body will resemble this one, except that it will be free from disease, old age, or whatever hinders a more complete flow of the Spirit.

It would seem then, that we have a spiritual body now, and need not die to receive one.  We now remember the past, and have outlived many physical bodies during this life.  So it looks as if we were already immortal and need not die to take on immortality. If there are many planes of Life and consciousness as we firmly believe, perhaps we only die from one plane to another.  This thought makes a strong appeal and seems reasonable.

Some think that death robs us of the objective faculties, and that we pass out in a purely subjective state, but personally we are unable to follow the logic of such an assumption.  To suppose that the objective faculties die with the brain, is to suppose that the brain thinks and reasons.  This is provided to be false through the  experience of death itself, for if the brain could think, it would think on and on forever.  No, it is not the brain that thinks.  The thinker thinks through the brain perhaps, but of itself the physical brain has no power to think or feel.  Detach the brain and it will not formulate ideas nor work out plans.  THE THINKER ALONE CAN THINK!

It is not merely pleasing and satisfactory to suppose that we pass from this life to the next, in full and complete retention of our faculties: it is logical.  Jesus revealed himself to his followers after his resurrection, to show them that death is but a passing to a higher sphere of life and action.  TO KNOW THAT WE MAINTAIN AN IDENTITY INDEPENDENT OF THE PHYSICAL BODY IS PROOF ENOUGH OF IMMORTALITY.  This, together with the fact that remembrance maintains a constant stream of recollection; and the realization that mentality can operate independently of the body - performing all of its normal functions without the aid of the body - and that the new theory of matter and ether furnishes proof of the possibility of a body within a body to infinity and that the inner man is constantly forming matter into the shape of a body; all of these evidences should prove to us that we are not going to attain immortality, but that WE ARE NOW IMMORTAL!  Our contention is not that dead men live again, but that a living man never dies."

March 21 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

IMMORTALITY

Ernest Holmes

The Meaning of Immortality

"To most of us, immortality means that we shall persist after the experience of physical death, retaining a full recognition of ourselves, and having the ability to recognize others.  If our full capacities go with us beyond the grave, we must be able to think consciously, to will, to know and to be known, to communicate and to receive communications.  We must be able to see and be seen, to understand and to be understood.  In fact, if one is really to continue as a self-conscious personality beyond this life, he can do so only if he maintains a continuous stream of the same consciousness and self-knowingness that he now possesses.

Personal identity of course postulates memory, which binds into one sequence the old life and the new.  This means that man must carry with him - after the experience of physical death - a complete remembrance, for it is to this alone that we must look for the link which binds one event to another, making life a continuous stream of self-conscious expression.  To suppose that man can forget, and still maintain a self-conscious identity, is to suppose that one could cut off his entire past without destroying the logical sequence of personality.  Where is this faculty?  Cut a man into the smallest bits, analyze and dissect every atom of his physical being, and you will never find memory.  There is something about the personality which not only performs its functions, but also remembers what it has done, and which can anticipate future events.  What is it?  It is the thing we are talking about, the non-physical faculty of perception, the thing that knows...The Knower.  Individuality might remain without remembrance, but not so with personality for what we are is the result of what we have been, the result of what has gone before.

We are not content with the thought that immortality is merely the result of one's life and work, which he has left behind; for instance, that he immortalizes himself in his offspring - we still ask "What of the man?"  Man, then, if he is to have an immortality worthy of the name, must continue as he now is beyond the grave.  DEATH CANNOT ROB HIM OF ANYTHING IF HE BE IMMORTAL!"