December 2 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

PHYSICAL PERFECTION
Ernest Holmes

Weather Conditions

"Pure Spirit is not and cannot be governed by any weather conditions whatsoever.  All weather is a manifestation of Spirit, a flowering of the Divine in sunshine, in shade, in rain and in clouds.  Say:

"I am in complete unity with all.  I am in complete agreement with all, and I enjoy all.  There is no congestion in the weather and none in me.  There is no confusion about the weather in my thought.  I have no fear of any kind of weather since I know that I am at one with all.  I love the clouds, the rain and the sunshine.  I am one with the heat and with cold.  I am unified with humidity, with dryness of atmosphere, and with sunshine and shadow.

"Every atom of my body responds to this understanding that changes in weather conditions are but variations of the One Life, but different manifestations of the One God appearing to me in many forms.  Each and every one of the forms I love and feel my unity with.  I love the heat of the desert and the dampness of the ocean.  I feel physically complete and harmonious in every climate.  I do not condemn any kind of weather for all at part of myself.  I am one with all.  I love all and I feel comfortable in all.

"Every belief that I may have ever had that says I am afraid of weather conditions, is now vanished from my thought forever.  It is no more and therefore can no longer operate.  I now and feel my freedom.  In this freedom I rejoice.""

November 28 - The Science of Mind in a Year

MEDITATIONS for Self-Help

By Ernest Holmes

Substance and Supply

The Substance of the Spirit is my Daily Supply.

I cannot be without my Good.

I can see that the constant stream of Life, flowing to me, brings into  my experience

all that makes Life happy and worthwhile.

I rest in security, knowing that Infinite Good is within and is expressing through me.

I receive my good.

November 27 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

PHYSICAL PERFECTION
Ernest Holmes

Treating Insomnia

"Insomnia is the result of a disturbed mental condition, either conscious or subconscious.  Sometimes this arises from shock, grief, or anxiety, though often it is merely an inability to let go of the affairs of the day.  Perfect trust in God within is the secret of relaxation, rest and renewal..  The following is one treatment for insomnia:

"The Spirit within me is in perfect rest.  The center of my being is quiet and poised.  I let my inner spirit fill my whole being with peace and stillness.  With this word, I now relax in body and mind.  I let the Divine Tranquility fill me.

"My mind now releases all sense of burden or strain.  Nothing can hurt or disturb my spiritual self.  I am free and safe.  All plans and ideas can wait until later.  The Divine Wisdom works through me and I am protected from mistakes.  My mind is quiet, calm, and deeply still.  All tension is released and the great inner peace flows out through every nerve.  My body rests in the still silence of the Spirit.  I bless my body and my mind, for they are good and worthy of my love.

"The great blessing of the Spirit pours through me now and protects me in all my ways.  My good is around and with me so that I am secure and safe.  The loving presence of Spirit is with me now and forever, so that I am divinely protected.  I let go of all problems and know that Spirit is with me.  The great quietness and calm of the Universal Love is within me.  I am richly blessed.

"Rest permeates my mind and body with its healing presence.  I do not try to make anything happen, I accept restful sleep.  Restfulness pervades my room and my bed.  I let the Spirit take care of the Universe and my affairs, while I release all responsibility and sleep.  The all-powerful Mind of the Indwelling Christ within me dissolves all sense of wakefulness and I am at peace.""

November 26 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

PHYSICAL PERFECTION
Ernest Holmes

Treating Stomach and Bowel Troubles

"No organ in the body is more quickly upset by a disturbed mental condition than is the stomach.  Frequently people, not even familiar with the manner in which thought controls the body, are heard to remark that a certain experience has "upset my stomach."

Even those who do not habitually say grace before meals would do well to lift thought in thanksgiving - putting aside all thought of worry, distrust, and anxiety - and thereby insure a wonderful digestant, a perfect aid to assimilation.

Sometimes a constant conflict in the emotional nature because of hurt feelings will become such an irritation that it manifests as hemorrhage or stomach ulcer.  Also, a deep-seated sense of discouragement and disappointment will objectify in a disturbed condition of the stomach and bowels.  (Constipation is treated under a separate head.)  A patient may need to be shown that super-sensitiveness is nothing more or less than an expression of selfishness, the presence of which may be unknown to him.

The very best mental remedy for stomach trouble is love and joy.  Say to  yourself:  "The glory of my thought makes me immune to negative experiences, even to negative suggestions.  The very life of God vitalizes my every organ and tissue.  I now have perfect and complete faith in God as my ever-present Good.  My faith fills me and elates my entire being.  As my thought relaxes, all the muscles of my body relax, the Life Spirit flows through me, and my body responds perfectly to Its healing activity, and every function of my body is now brought into perfect action.  The Infinite Life which is within me is now healing me, making me whole, after the pattern of an Infinite and Eternal Perfection.""

November 19 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

THE PRACTICE of SPIRITUAL MIND HEALING

Ernest Holmes

"One should never allow himself to think of, or talk about, limitation or poverty.  Life is a mirror and will reflect back to the thinker what he thinks into it.  The more spiritual the thought, the higher its manifestation.  Spiritual thought means an absolute belief in, and reliance upon, Truth.  This is both natural and normal.

All is Love and yet all is Law.  Love is the impelling force and Law executes the will of Love.  Man
is a center of God-Consciousness in the great Whole.  He cannot deface his real being, but may hinder the Whole from coming into a complete expression through his life.  Turning to the One with a complete abandonment and in absolute trust, he will find that he is already saved, healed and prospered."

November 17 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

THE PRACTICE of SPIRITUAL MIND HEALING

Ernest Holmes

 

“A sense of separation from good causes us to feel restricted, while a sense of our Unity with GOOD changes the currents of Causation and brings a happier condition into the experience.  Everything in the physical universe is an effect, and exists only by virtue of some invisible cause.  Man’s individuality enables him to make such use of the Law as he desires.  He is bound, not by limitation but by limited thought.  The same power which binds him will free him when he understands the Law to be one of liberty and not of bondage.  The power within man can free him from all distasteful conditions if the Law governing this power is properly understood and utilized.

The Law of Mind, which is the Medium of all action, is a law of perfect balance:  the objective world perfectly balances the images within the subjective world.  Water will reach its own level by its own weight, and according to the same law, consciousness will externalize at its own level by its own weight.  Cause and effect are but two sides of the same thing, one being an image in mind and the other the objective condition.  Here is the invariable rule for knowing how to treat.  We can judge the subjective concept only by its objective effect.  If everything a man does leads to confusion, we should treat to know that he is poised.  The spirit is not confused over anything.  If everything a man does turns out to be a failure, we must know that the Spirit within him cannot conceive failure.  What we put into the treatment will come out of it.  More than we appear to put into it can come out of it, but not a different type.  If I plant a watermelon seed, I will get watermelons but I will get a number of melons, and they will have a lot of seeds which can produce more melons, so the thought is MULTIPLICITY but never DIVISION.  Treatment is a definite, conscious, concrete thing.  There is intention in a treatment and there should be a definite acceptance.”

November 16 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

THE PRACTICE of SPIRITUAL MIND HEALING
Ernest Holmes

"Does it make any difference whether or not the patient is taking medicine? Not at all.  If it gives him any relief, he should have it.  We need all the relief we can get.  The patient is healed when he no longer needs medicine.  Some think they dishonor God when they take a pill.  This is superstition.  Discard these thoughts and give your entire attention to realizing perfection for your patient.

Healing is not accomplished through will power but by knowing the Truth.  This Truth is that the Spiritual Man is already Perfect, no matter what the appearance may be.  "Holding thoughts" has nothing to do with this form of treatment.  If you find when you begin to give a treatment that the process gives you a headache, know that you are doing your work on the mental plane and not through spiritual realization.  A treatment should leave the practitioner in better condition than before he gave it; otherwise, it is not a good treatment.

One might ask:  "Is all mental disease a thought held in the conscious mind of the patient?"  No, not necessarily.  It may be a subconscious thought, or it may be the result of many thoughts, which brought together produce a definite result.  Combinations of thought unite to produce definite effects.

Limitation and poverty are not things, but are the results of restricted ways of thinking.  We are surrounded by a Subjective Intelligence, which receives the impress of our thought and acts upon it.  This natural Law in the Mental World is neither good nor bad.  It can only be said of It that IT IS, and that we may consciously use It.  The Law is a law of reflection; for Life is a mirror, reflecting to us as conditions the images of our thinking.  Whatever one thinks tends to take form and become a part of his experience.  The Medium of all thought is the Universal Mind, acting as Law.  Law is always impersonal, neutral, receptive and reactive."

November 13 ~ The Sciend of Mind in a Year

THE PRACTICE of SPIRITUAL MIND HEALING
Ernest Holmes

"No matter what the need may be, whether we call it physical disease, poverty, unhappiness, lack of opportunity, or need for love and friendship, we should conform the words in our treatment to meet the necessity of the case.  Because we are all members of one another, the word of the practitioner will rise through the consciousness of his patient into experience.  There is a law in physics which says that water will reach its own level by its own weight.  There is a law of metaphysics corresponding to it; consciousness will externalize at is own level, by its own recognition.  We may call this faith, we may call it embodiment, we may call it whatever we will, there is something in the Universe which responds and corresponds to our mental states.

Therefore, it is imperative that we turn from the relative, because TO VIEW LIMITATION IS TO IMPRESS IT UPON THE MIND, and accentuate the state of consciousness which produced it.  It is not always easy to turn from fear, from poverty and pain, and from the hurt of human existence, to that which is perfect.  But whoever can do this - and will train himself to do it - will be like the man healed of blindness.  He had little comprehension of how it had been done; he could only say:  "Whereas I was blind, now I see.""

November 10 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

THE PRACTICE of SPIRITUAL HEALING
Ernest Holmes

"We must conceive of the Spirit, God, as governing, controlling and directing man's activity.  God is not a failure.  Therefore, we must resolutely turn away from every experience which has been negative, from every experience which has been a failure, and from every experience which denies God.  The mental and spiritual practitioner should deal with his field alone.  He is not opposed to the medical practitioner, he does not say, "I cannot treat this man if he takes a pill."  Unless the practitioner can prove that the man does not need to take a pill, the patient had better take it if it will benefit him.  There is nothing weird about the application of Truth.  We should not be superstitious in using the Law of Mind.  But the mental practitioner should remain in his own field, which is always the field of thought.

If one is working for a person who has "high blood pressure" or "low blood pressure," after a few treatments he might have his patient go back to his physician for a physical check-up.  "But," one may ask, "can I have spiritual treatment if I do this?"  This is a superstitious reaction and all superstition is ignorance.  If the mental and spiritual practitioner can restore normal blood pressure for his patient, a doctor who can weigh and measure it, can quickly ascertain if the work has been done.  When this is understood, the closest co-operation will be brought about between physician and metaphysician.  It is inevitable that the day shall come when they will understand each other.  They are working in two separate fields, which at the same time have a fundamental unity in one primal principle.  But the mental and spiritual practitioner works in the field of Mind alone."

November 9 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

THE PRACTICE of SPIRITUAL MIND HEALING
Ernest Holmes

"We would like to help ourselves and each other through using the Law of Mind.  This we may do by treatment.  What is a treatment? It is something the mind becomes aware of.  Someone might ask, "Is it something the Spirit of God does to us?"  Yes, the Spirit of God is everything, but the mind must accept, and since the mind cannot accept what it rejects, then the mind must unqualifiedly accept.  This is where the trouble comes in.  We all have the spiritual power to raise the dead, but we do not believe we have.  Our mind does not unqualifiedly accept this.   Therefore, that which we are, through disbelief, projects the form of have-not rather than the form of HAVE, but even in taking the form of have-not, it demonstrates that it has what it BELIEVES.

We enter the Absolute in such degree as we withdraw from the relative.  The Bible tells us not to count our enemies.  It is not easy, is it, to turn from a disease and KNOW THAT THERE IS NO DISEASE, when we know very well that it is an experience of the moment.  This is not easy, but the one who can do this, can heal.  The All-Creative Wisdom does not think one thing is difficult and another easy.  With God all things are possible.  We must know this and this Power of God must be hooked up with our thought, with what we are doing.  Energy unconnected does nothing, it is only when it is used, properly directed, that it accomplishes things."

September 30 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

GENERAL SUMMARY
Ernest Holmes

"Mind is forever conscious of Itself and of what It does.  Its consciousness is Its law.  Its consciousness is perfect and Its laws are perfect.  Mind cannot be conscious of anything but Itself, since It is all.  Spirit is conscious of man since man exists and since God must be conscious of all that is.  Therefore man is, because God is conscious of him.  And God's consciousness of man must be complete and perfect.  Generic man must be held in the Mind of God as a complete and perfect manifestation of the Divine.

Mind is all-inclusive and all-pervading. Mind is also self-governing and self-propelling.  Spirit is conscious of love as Its is conscious of life.  It is inspired by love and Its government is one of love.  Thus love is the fulfilling of the perfect law.  Law is the outcome of love and love is the outpusher through law.  Love and law go hand in hand to produce a complete and perfect manifestation.

Man's consciousness of God constitutes his real and immortal self.  There is really only one man viewed from the Universal sense, but in this one, or "grand man" as it has been called, there are innumerable persons.  Each is in direct relationship to the Whole.  Each is an image of God but God is not lessened by being represented in innumerable forms and through limitless numbers of mentalities any more than the figure five would become exhausted by being used by innumerable mathematicians.

Our consciousness of God is our real self and at the same time it is both personal and impersonal.  It is personal in that it is personified through us and it is impersonal in that we are all using a universal power.  When we know that we are using such a power all doubt as to our ability to use it will vanish and our words will be spoken with spontaneous reliance on Truth.

In spiritual healing the practitioner deals with thought alone.  He is not dealing with a sick body or a sick man.  There is no one to be healed in the Truth and we must think in the Truth if we expect to heal.  There is no material body to be healed and no material man to suffer pain or anguish.  Disease is neither person, place nor thing to the one who wishes to heal.  The practitioner must try to become conscious of perfection alone and nothing else.  In whose mind is he to become conscious of perfection?  In the only person's mind he can ever be conscious of anything, in his own mind.  The first man to be healed is the practitioner.

Here in his own mind he meets the belief in the necessity of sickness or discord.  He repudiates this belief and explains to himself what the real truth is.  He is conscious, as his explanation goes on, that he is meeting and neutralizing false claims held to be true about his patient.  Knowing that they are false, he resolves them into thoughts and heals the thought.  The whole process is one of thought and realization and could not be anything else.

The practitioner works within his own mind until he is mentally satisfied, until the whole reaction in his thought causes him to understand that his patient is now healed.  This healing is really the action of Spirit upon the mind of the healer, the active Principle of truth, goodness and harmony.

Since the Divine must hold us as some part of Its eternal perfection, we are fulfilling our destiny when we think of ourselves as already Divine and perfect.  To contemplate that Divine Life which is at the very center of everyman's life - this is the very essence of mental healing.

This is what we mean by realization.  Words carry the mind forward to a place in thought where realization begins.  At this point the most effective work is done.  It is an inward feeling, a silent sense of Divine Reality.  Troward tells us that the Divine Spirit is the limitless potential of human life.  Which means that the human is really Divine but will ever evolve into newer and better states of conscious being.

In practice we state clearly in words what these ideas mean to us and then we relate these statements to some needed experience or to some desired good which we have not been experiencing.  After using whatever words will bring conviction to our thought we pause and try to realize the presence of the All Power from which every special good comes.  This is the adding the Spirit to the letter of the Law.  However we should never forget that both the letter and the Spirit are necessary in our work.  The letter molds while the Spirit creates.  The thought is a mold, conviction is the molten substance poured into this mold.  One is not complete without the other and many people make the mistake of using only one of these essential states of consciousness.

When we live in obedience to the Power which is over us we shall be able to consciously direct the lesser conditions that are around us.  Adam was permitted to name all creation and man was supposed to exercise an authority over all that is below him.  This means his whole physical environment, of course.  But this power was abused and the experience of lack, sickness and limitation fell upon humanity.  Adam symbolizes everyman's experience. The allegory of Eden is the story of human evolution.

Wherever the image of thought is set, there the Power to create resides.  "God if thou seest God, Dust if thou seest dust." Can we see good where evil appears to be?  Then we can remove the evil.  When we bring a lamp into a darkened room, where does the darkness go?  The darkness neither came nor did it go, anywhere.  It never was a thing of itself, merely a condition.  And we have power over conditions."

September 11 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

MEDITATIONS for Self-Help

By Ernest Holmes

No Delays

There are no delays in the Divine Plan for me.

Nothing can hinder the operation of this Law unto my Life and Action.

Obstructions are removed from my path, and I now enter into the

realization and manifestation of complete fulfillment.

I do not have to wait, for the Law waits upon me at every turn in Life's road.

Now it is done unto me.

No Delays

There are no delays in the Divine Plan for humanity.

Nothing can hinder the operation of this Law unto our Life and Action.

Obstructions are removed from our path, and WE now enter into the

realization and manifestation of complete fulfillment.

We do not have to wait, for the Law waits upon us at every turn in Life's road.

Now it is done unto All of Us.

September 7 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

MEDITATIONS
By Ernest Holmes

I Am Not Bound by Any Mistake

Let us now let go of everything and enter into the consciousness of that which we believe.  The Spirit within each one of us is God, and It is perfect, It is love, reason, life, truth and beauty.  It is limitless and perfect and complete and whole.  It knows no lack and no limitation.

There is nothing we have done, said or thought which rises up against us, which has power over us or which limits us; there is no memory of fear, no condemnation for previous mistakes.  With the desire to free ourselves from the further indulgence in the mistake, the effect of the previous mistake is wiped out, just as light dissipates the darkness.  The Universe holds nothing against us; It can hold nothing against us, because It can know nothing unlike Itself.  Therefore, It only knows us as Perfection.  There has never been an occurrence for which we have to suffer!  Consequently, every apparent shortcoming - which could be traced to some mental or spiritual infringement of the Law - is not only removed but the effect is healed!

That means there is no history to our case.   All of its history is this minute wiped out in the knowledge that today the perfect Law - the Law of Freedom - is the only Law there is in our experience.  We enter into that freedom with joy, free from every sense of sadness and burden.  We enter into it with laughter, with lightness.  It is something which lifts us above the heaviness of morbidity and lack and limitation, into that rarer atmosphere where our opinions do not collide, and we enter into it with peace, free from fear.

We know that Infinite Wholeness is in us and through us and around us now, and we are conscious that we are renewed this moment, instantly and perfectly, after the image of Perfection.  We are today guided into right action in every exercise of our affairs.  Since there is no great and no small to the Infinite, all that seems of little consequence in our lives has the Divine Guidance just as perfectly and completely as that which we think of as being tremendously important.  We are guided into the knowledge of happiness, of certainty, of wholeness and of freedom; and we know that there is that subtle Essence of the Spirit, which emanates from us at all times, healing everything It contacts.

I Am Not Bound by Any Mistake

August 5 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

PHYSICAL PERFECTION
By Ernest Holmes

Asthma and Hay Fever

"Many medical men believe that "nervous persons, and those whose work is largely mental, are most often attacked by hay fever, and that hay fever attacks only those who are predisposed to it."  The general acceptance is that it is the result of an undue sensitiveness of the nostrils to the pollen of certain flowers or plants, or even the hairs of certain animals.

We should know that the claim of hay fever has no power over us, that we are inspired and directed by Infinite Mind, and that perfect discrimination and judgment are established in us.  In treating oneself, declare that every day you are capable of expressing the greater possibilities which are your divine inheritance; that you are busy expressing good and have not time for any fear thoughts of asthma and hay fever.

Know that you alone are the door-keeper to the "Temple of the Holy Ghost," your body.  You have the power to say what shall enter there.  No false thing can enter there while you are recognizing your Oneness with Infinite Life.  The pollen which you have thought irritated you is made from the very same Substance from which you are made.  You are sending out only thoughts of peace, love and joy, and no irritating thought or thing can come back to annoy or obstruct the perfect functioning of every organ of your body.  The passages of  your mind are open only to the inflow and outflow of good.  You are sensitive only to good, dwelling in the higher altitudes of consciousness, understanding Life in Its spiritual purpose, experiencing exhilaration, vitalization, and exaltation.

It is written that the breath of God animates creation, with the living presence of a pure divinity.  What breath are we breathing other than this true breath, unrestricted, flowing through channels of pure receptivity, from the Infinite Intelligence and the perfect Life of God?  Let your thought dwell, not on breath nor lack of breath, but on that which breathes.  Sense the freedom of this God-Life, flowing in and through you.  You did not create the Original Substance out of which your body was formed.  God Himself made your body, to be used as His Self-Expression.  This channel must be perfect.  With good-natured flexibility, free your thought from any sense of anxiety or strain, or indecision, or deep-seated worry and concern, knowing that you have only to keep your thought steady and clear, fixed upon the potential perfection of the Universe in which we live.  When you have lifted your consciousness in this manner, use this meditation:

"My entire body is now a receptive channel for the operation of God-Life.  My thought is pure, relaxed and peaceful.  My breathing is not obstructed (asthma) my thought is not sensitive to any discordant or disagreeable sentiment (hay fever), as Mind could not entertain a disagreeable sentiment.  I breathe in the eternal Life Essence.  By this breath I am purified and made strong.  I am freed from the belief in anything unlike Perfection.""

July 30 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

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.”

July 21 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

THE LAW of ATTRACTION
By Ernest Holmes

Attracting Success (continued)

"We live in Mind an It can return to us only what we think into It.  No matter what we do, Law will always obtain.  If we are thinking of ourselves as poor and needy, then Mind has no choice but to return what we have thought into It.  "It is done unto you as you believe."  Thoughts of failure, limitation or poverty are negative and must be counted out of our lives for all time.  God has given us a Power and we must use It.  We can do more toward saving the world by proving this law than all that charity has ever given to it.

Remember God is the silent Power behind all things, always ready to pour into our experience that which we need.  We must have a receptive and positive faith in the evidence of things not seen with the physical eye but which are eternal in the heavens.  All is Mind, and we must provide a receptive avenue for It, as It passes out through us into the outer expression of our affairs.   If we allow the world's opinion to control our thinking, then that will be our demonstration!  If, on the other hand, we rise superior to the world, we shall create a new pattern.

It is quite necessary, then, that the successful business man should keep his mind on thoughts of happiness, which produce cheerfulness instead of depression.  He should radiate joy and should be filled with faith, hope and expectancy.  These cheerful, hopeful attitudes of mind are indispensable to the one who really wants to do things in life.  Declare your freedom.  Know that no matter what others may say, think or do, you are a success now, and nothing can hinder you from accomplishing your good.  All the power of the universe is with you.  Feel it, know it, and then act as though it were true.

Begin to blot out, one by one, all false beliefs - all ideas that man is limited, poor or miserable.  Refuse to think of failure or to doubt your own power.  See only what you wish to experience and look at nothing else.  We are relieved of all thought of clinging to anybody or anything.  Cannot the Great Principle of Life create for us all that we need?  The Universe is inexhaustible; It is limitless, it knows no bounds and has no confines.  We are not depending on a reed shaken by the wind, but on the Principle of Life Itself, for all that we have or ever shall need.  It is not some power, or a great power, it is ALL POWER.  All we have to do is to believe, never wavering, no matter what happens.  As we do this, we shall find that things are steadily coming our way and that they are coming without that awful effort which destroys the peace of mind of the majority of the race.  We know that there can be no failure in God's Mind, and this Mind is the Power on which we are depending."

July 7 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

MENTAL EQUIVALENTS
By Ernest Holmes

How to Demonstrate a Home

"All our beautiful dreams, all our wishing and praying, for material good, will reach no higher level in our experience than our belief in the power of God and in His willingness to help us.  God's willingness to help us is expressed in the existence of that Immutable Law which gives us exactly the type of objective experience for which we build a mental likeness.  If we have the mental equivalent of a commodious home, roomy, light, cheery, and an income in keeping with it; if we are able to build in mind the kind of home we wish, and there is nothing in our subjective thought which denies this, then we shall be able to decide and demonstrate for ourself the kind of home we desire."

July 2 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

MENTAL EQUIVALENTS
By Ernest Holmes

"Spiritual knowing is correct mental treating.  Love is the impulsion of mental treatment.  A consciousness of the Divine Presence in the one we are seeking to help is necessary, for we must provide different mental equivalents for healing than those which create disease.

If the manifest universe is the outward form of the thought of Spirit; if it is a result of the Self-Knowingness of God, and if we are of like nature to the Supreme Mind, then it follows that in giving mental treatment we are going through a mental process of self-knowing.  Consequently, only that kind of treatment will be effective that knows it will be effective.  This is the true meaning of faith for faith is not a foolish fancy, it is a dynamic fact.

The treatment will find an outward correspondence in the objective world which will exactly equal its inward conviction, when it is given, plus the necessity of its finding mental acceptance by the one for whom it is given.  The more we think this over the more rational it will appear to be.

Faith in God is such a complete conviction that the Spirit will make the gift, that there is no longer any subjective contradiction.  This faith can exist only in such degree as the conviction is in line with Reality.  We cannot believe that any law of the Universe will ever change its own nature because we desire it to do so.  AS WE COME INTO THE SPIRITUAL REALM - which is a perfectly natural and normal realm - WE HAVE TO COME INTO IT IN ITS OWN NATURE.  It is a unity.  There must be nothing vicious in it.  Remember what Jesus said?  "Therefore, if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee, leave there thy gift before the altar and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother and then come and offer thy gift."  Why?  Because we cannot enter into peace while we are in a state of confusion.  It cannot be done.  We cannot manifest love when we have a mental equivalent of hate in our hearts and minds."

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 10 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

Treating Pain ~ Ernest Holmes

"Use the thought of peace with the realization of a Perfect Presence.  Many times, just the statement:  "Right where pain seems to operate, the Presence of God is," will instantly obliterate the pain.  The perfect realization of this Presence would always do so.  Know that in this Presence there is no tension, no struggle, no fear, there is no sense of conflict.  Know this until there comes to your consciousness a deep, calm sense of peace and ease, and until every thought of pain is eliminated.

Healing takes place to the degree that we send down the right kind of thoughts into subjectivity.  We mean, by thinking consciously and with deep feeling (knowing) we implant the right idea in Mind, and Mind reproduces this idea, as effect, in the body.  We must realize that we are using a Power, compared to which the united intelligence of the human race is as nothing.  The practitioner involves an idea in Mind; it is the Law which creates.  As the practitioner treats his own mentality, which is simply a point in Mind, he reaches the mentality of his patient.  The practitioner can erase the thought of pain from the patient's mentality when he has first neutralized the idea in his own thought."