Punishment and Reward ~ Ernest Holmes
"Before we leave this subject of bondage and freedom, we wish to make clear that there is no sin but a mistake, and no punishment but an inevitable consequence. Wrong doing must be punished, for the Law of Cause and Effect must be eternally operative. Right acts are rewarded in the same manner.
We do not say that man cannot sin; what we say is, that he does sin - or make mistakes - and he is thereby automatically punished AS LONG AS HE CONTINUES TO MAKE MISTAKES; but bondage is not real to the Universe and sin is not real to God. This does not mean that we can do whatever we wish, with disregard for the consequences; nor does the fact that we are punished for our mistakes mean that there is an evil power in the Universe; it does mean that there is an immutable Law of Cause and Effect running through everything. We are not punished for our sins but by them. Sin is its own punishment and righteousness is its own reward!
The age-long discussion of the problem of evil will never be answered until we realize that evil is not a thing of itself. It is simply a misuse of the Law of Freedom. The problem of evil will be met only to the degree that we cease doing evil and do good, for the evil will disappear when we no longer indulge in it. When the whole world sees the right and does it; then, and not until then, will the problem of evil be solved for the entire race.
Spirit, Soul, and Body
It is necessary that we understand the Unity of all life, the Unity of God and man on all three planes. We have studied Universal Spirit; Universal Subjectivity, which is called the Soul of the Universe, and Universal Spirit in manifestation, which is called the physical Universe, or the Body of God.
Studying man, we find that his body - like the physical Universe - devoid of mind or intelligence, has no volition. It may be permeated with intelligence, but it is not intelligent. It is one with the Body of God, the physical universe.
What did we learn about the Soul of the Universe? Remember the qualities that were discussed under the head of Subjectivity, and you will find all of them depicted in what is called the subjective nature of man; for our subconscious or subjective mind reproduces all of the attributes belonging to Universal Subjective Mind. When we turn to the spirit of man, we find that it is one with the Spirit of God, i.e., man is a self-conscious, thinking, choosing center of individualized intelligence, or God-Consciousness, in the great Whole.
So we find that man is one with everything physical in the physical world; one with the Soul of the Universe in the subjective world; and one with the Spirit of God in the conscious world. Through that which we call our objective or conscious mind, comes what we know of God and Life. The objective, or conscious mind is the spiritual mind for which we have been looking, but it is not fully developed. If this were not so, there would be no mind with which to look. The objective mind must be the spiritual mind of man, since it is the only thing about him which knows that he has life and is conscious of itself!
The whole of Spirit is potentially focused in our individual objective consciousness, but we have not yet evolved to a realization of this, except in a slight degree. We approach and contact the Larger Spirit through our own spirit or conscious mind. The doorway to the Absolute stands open at the center of our intuitive perception. We enter the Absolute through that which appears to be finite, because the finite must be drawn from the Infinite. This Spirit which animates us is the same Spirit which animates all life and everything that lives. Emerson said that we animate what we see and see what we animate, the reason for this being that only as we truly see can the Divine Harmony be reflected through us and animate that which is seen.
The spirit of man is equipped with decision, will, choice, volition, intellect and purpose. It is the microcosm within the Macrocosm, which means the little world within the big world. It is also called the image of God; it is Sonship, the Sonship of the Father; it is Emmanuel or God with us; it is the Christ or Logos, which means the Word, it can reason both inductively and deductively.
The spirit of man seems to have an external and in internal perception. Its external perception is by appearance; its internal, through intuition. Appearances would limit the future possibility of man to the uses he has already made of Life, and thus circumscribe the Infinite, hence we are told to judge righteously and not by appearances. Plotinus tells us that there are three ways by which we gather knowledge: through science, through opinion, and through intuition or illumination. These channels represent spiritual capacities since each is an avenue leading to self-knowingness, and self-knowingness is the very nature and essence of Spirit. Science is spirit inducing Its own laws. Intuition is Spirit knowing Itself. Opinion is our estimate of Reality. All are spiritual faculties and should be so considered in the study of this Science. The race is growing into a broader divinity, from age to age, as more and more of Reality opens before its onward march in its eternal progress.
We should think of our spirit as being some part of the Universal Spirit, and of our minds as open to the Divine Influx. As any specific knowledge must come from the center of all knowledge, it follows that whenever and wherever the mind of man is open to the Divine Influx, it will receive instruction directly from the center and source of All. Science, invention, art, literature, philosophy and religion, have one common center from which, through experience, is drawn all knowledge.
We should neither separate Spirit from matter...physical form from that which gives form...nor Life from living. To supposed that one must retire from the world to be spiritual is one of the greatest possible mistakes. This is directly opposed to the self-evident truth that Spirit enjoys Itself only in Its own works, which is Its self-manifestation We enter into the Spirit of Life only as we enter into the spirit of living."
