THE LAW OF ATTRACTION
By Ernest Holmes
Attracting
Friends
"In
turning to the Law, realize that it is a Law of Reflection. “Life is the mirror of king and slave.” Emerson said:
“If you want a friend, be a friend.”
As the idea of friendship dawns upon the consicousness, the law of
attraction produces friends, for one is the picture and the other is the
thing. This is the great teaching of
involution and evolution, the thought involved and the result evolved. One is the treatment and the other is the
demonstration. When we are dealing with
Causation, we are dealing with that which has involved within Itself all effect,
as it unfolds. We may leave it to the
Law to compel right action. With this in
mind let us go on to treatment.
Do
we wish to attract friends? We must
begin to image ideal relationships, be they social or otherwise, to sense and
feel the presence of friends; to enjoy them in our mentalities, not as an
illusion but as a reality, not as a dream but as an experience; to declare that
their presence is now here. BUT WE MUST
NEVER LOOK TO SEE IF THEY ARE HERE, BECAUSE THIS WOULD IMPLY DOUBT AND WOULD
NEUTRALIZE OUR WORD. We can attract the
kind of friends we wish if we specfiically designate the kind, but we must never
think of certain people, or that a particular individual must be one of the
friends, for this would be hypnotic. The
idea will bring the right kind of friends.
In
order to have this friendship enduring, true, really worth while and a thing of
beauty, we should cultivate an attitude of friendship toward everybody and
everything. The one who has learned to
love all people will find plenty of people who will return that love. This is not mere sentiments, and it is more
than a religious attitude of mind. It is
a deep, scientific fact, and one to which we should pay attention. The reason is this: As all is Mind, and we attract to us what
we first become; until we learn to love, we are not sending out love vibrations,
and not until we send out those vibrations, can we receive love in return.
When
we find we are without friends, the thinking to do is at once to send our thought
out to the whole world; send it full of love and affection. Know that this thought will meet the desires
of some other person who is wanting the same thing, and in some way the two
will be drawn together. Think of the
whole world as your friend, but you must also be the friend of the whole world. In this way, and with this simple practice,
you will draw to you so many friends that the time will be too short to enjoy
them all. Refuse to see the negative
side of anyone. Refuse to let yourself
misunderstand or be misunderstood. Know
that everyone wants you to have the best.
Affirm this wherever you go, and you will find things just as you wish
them to be.
One
of the first things to do, is to love everybody. If you have not done this, begin to do so at
once. There is always more good than bad
in people, and seeing the good tends to bring it forth. Love is the grandest healing and drawing
power on earth. It is the very reason
for our being, and that explains why it is that people should have something or
someone to love. The life that has not loved has not lived, it is still
dead. Love is the sole impulse for
creation, and the man who does not have love as the greatest incentive in his
life, has never developed the real creative instinct. No one can swing out into the Universal
without love, for the whole Universe is based upon it.
“To
him who hath loved much, much is forgiven.”
A man may have many shortcomings, but if he loves greatly much will be
forgiven him. People are dying for real
human interest, for genuine friendship, for someone to tell them they are all
right. We always welcome the man who
looks at the world as his friend and loves it.
And it is a law that the man who sees what he wants to see, regardless
of what appears, will someday experience in the outer what he has so faithfully
seen in the within. From selfish reasons
alone, if from no loftier reason, we cannot afford to find fault, to hate, or
even to hold in mind anything against any living soul! The God of love cannot hear the prayer of the
one who fails to love. In our meditation
for friendship, let us make our unity with all people, with all life:
“God
in me is unified with God in all. This
One is now drawing into my life all love and fellowship. I am one with all people, with all things,
with all life. As I listen in the
silence, the voice of all humanity speaks to me and answers the love that I
hold out to it.
“The
great love which I now feel for the world is the Love of God, and it is felt by
all and comes back to me from all. I
understand all people and this understanding is reflected back to me from
all. I give friendship and therefore I
have friends. I help, therefore, I am
helped. I uplift, therefore, I am
uplifted. I am now surrounded by all
love, all friendship, all companionship, all health, all happiness, all
success. I AM ONE WITH LIFE. I wait in the silence while the great Spirit
bears this message to the whole world.””
