June 23 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

MENTAL EQUIVALENTS
By Ernest Holmes

What Do We Mean by Mental Equivalents?

"Prayer does something to the mind of the one praying.  It does not do anything to God.  The eternal Gift is always made.  The Gift of God is the Nature of God, the Eternal Givingness.  God cannot help making the gift, because GOD IS THE GIFT.  We do not have to pray God to be God.  God is God.  Jesus revealed the nature of the Divine Being by his personal embodiment of the Divine Nature.  He said, "As ye believe, it shall be done unto you."

The whole teaching of Jesus was based on the theory that we are surrounded by an intelligent Law, which does unto each as he believes.  He implied the necessity of faith, conviction, and acceptance.  That is, it must be measured out to us according to our own measuring.  We must not only believe, we must know that our belief measures the extent and degree of our blessing.  If our belief is limited only a little can come to us, because that is as we believe.  We call this the law of mental equivalents.  How much life can any man experience?  As much as he can embody.  There is nothing fatalistic about this.  We are so constituted that we can continuously increase our embodiment.  We grow in grace, as it were.  We grow in power and theoretically there should be no limit to that growth.  But right today we can expect to demonstrate or to have our prayers answered according to our belief and the embodiment of that belief.

Lowell said, "The gift without the giver is bare," and it is just as true that there can be no gift without a receiver.  It is said, "To as many as received him, to them gave he the power."  We seek to uncover the science of prayer:  the essence of the Spirit embodied in it.  We find that the essence of the power of prayer is faith and acceptance.  In addition to the law of faith and acceptance, the law of mental equivalents must be considered.  These are the two great laws with which we have to deal and we shall never get away from either.  If prayer has been answered, it is not because God has been moved to answer one man and not another, but because one man more than another has moved himself into a right relationship with the Spirit or the Principle of Being - whichever one chooses to call It.

Faith, then, touches a Principle which responds, we may be certain of this.  We should have more faith than we do rather than less, nor is it foolish to cultivate faith.  ALL PRAYERS WILL BE ANSWERED WHEN WE PRAY ARIGHT.  The first necessity is faith.  Faith!  But someone may exclaim, "This is what has always been taught, this is nothing new!"  Correct, we have nothing new.  We simply have a new approach to an old truth, a more intelligent, a more systematic way of consciously arriving at faith.  This is what treatment is for."

June 15 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

FROM THE TEACHINGS of JESUS
~Ernest Holmes

The Child-Like Faith (Matt. 18:3, 4, 5)

"Jesus tells us that the child-like mind is more receptive to Truth than the over-intellectual who demand too rational an explanation of those truths which must be accepted on faith alone. What man can explain why he lives?  The self-evident fact of living is the only explanation possible or necessary.  In the whole life, and through the entire teaching, of this marvelous man, we find a child-like faith in the universe and an implicit trust in the goodness of God.  Judging his work by its results, and its influence on succeeding ages, we are compelled to accept the fact that "Wisdom is justified of her children."

The Real Father and Son (Matt. 11:27)

"And no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him."

What reasonable explanation can we find to this passage, unless we look for some hidden meaning behind these words of the great teacher?  God alone knows the real Son, forever hidden in the bosom of the Father.  To God, this idea of sonship must be pure, complete and perfect; divine, holy and indestructible.  With our present limited vision, we neither see nor know the real Son, but the Father within knows and understands.  "Neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him."  God is revealed through the Son, and the Son reveals himself to other sons when he realizes that God is his life.  This implies a direct relationship between God and man.

If one would know God, he must penetrate deeply into his own nature, for here alone can he find Him.  If he would reveal God to his fellowmen, he must do so by living such a God-like life, that the Divine Essence flows through him to others.  The only way to know God is to be like Him; and while this may seem discouraging in our present state of evolution, we should remember that we have but started on an eternal ladder which ever spirals upward.

When Jesus said to come to him and find rest ("Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest...") did he mean that we should, or could, come unto his personality?  Of course not.  Jesus knew that his human personality would soon be dissolved in his divine individuality.  He knew that he was soon to leave this world and go on to a deeper realization of life, truth and beauty.

It is evident, then, that he was referring to his understanding of life, when he told all who are weary to come unto him and find rest.  Had he not already explained that God indwells every soul?  He was inviting people to penetrate more deeply into their own natures, if they would find peace and comfort.  This has ever been the lesson taught by the illumined that we find God only within ourselves, and God can work for us only by working through us.  God reveals Himself directly through the Son.  The Son reveals God, when he realizes that God is already within him.  This understanding would not produce an undue conceit, nor would it set man in the temple of god as God; but it would place a true estimate of value on the life of man.

The Power at the Heart of God

Peace is the power at the heart of God.  It is through the revelation of the self, to the self, that one understands life; that he approaches the power which is at the heart of God.  This comes through a recognition of the unity of the individual, with the Spirit back of, in, and through all.

The problem of philosophy is to unite the Infinite with the finite; to join the abstract with the concrete; to find a meeting place between the Absolute and the relative; to unify with the First Cause.   The same problem confronts religion and is, indeed, its whole purpose:  to unify man with God.  This is also true of science, but from a different angle.  Science seeks to join causes with effects, and by so doing make practical use of its knowledge.  Science is really spiritual, while philosophy leads to true religion.  Science is the handmaid of religion and philosophy."