March 11 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

The Power Within ~ Ernest Holmes

"Through spiritual discernment, we see that we have within us a power which is greater than anything we shall ever contact; a power that can overcome every obstacle in our experience and set us safe, satisfied, and at peace, healed and prosperous in a new light and a new life. "If God be for us who can be against us?"

God's Creative Power of Mind is right here.  We have as much of this power to use as we believe in and embody.  The storehouse of nature is filled with infinite good, awaiting the touch of our awakened thought to spring forth into manifestation in our lives; but the awakening must be within our thought!  The word that we speak is the law of our lives, and nothing hinders its operation but ourselves.  We may use this creative word for whatever purpose we desire, and this word become the law unto the thing for which it was spoken.  We are given the power to sit in the midst of our lives and direct their activities.  Strife and struggle are unnecessary.  We only need to know, but we must know constructively.

Just so far as we depend upon any condition, past present or future, we are creating chaos, because we are then dealing with conditions (effects) and not with causes.  Could we but comprehend the fact that there is a Power that makes things directly out of Itself - by simply becoming the thing It makes - could we but grasp this greatest truth about life; and realize that we are dealing with a Principle, scientifically correct and eternally present, we could accomplish whatever it is possible for us to conceive. Life externalizes at the level of our thought.

We Set Our Own Limitations

Do we desire to live in a world peopled with friends who love us, surrounded by things beautiful and pleasing?  There is but one way, and this way is as certain as that the sun shines.  DAILY WE MUST CONTROL ALL THOUGHT THAT DENIES THE REAL; AFFIRM THE DIVINE PRESENCE WITHIN US; then, as the mist disappears before the sun, so shall adversity melt before the shining radiance of our exalted thought!

The Prodigal Son remained a prodigal as long as he chose to do so.  When he chose to, he returned to his "Father's house" and was greeted with outstretched hands. So shall our experience be when we return to the world which is perfect; there will be something that will turn to us.  We shall behold a new heaven and a new earth, not in some far off place but here and now.  "Act as though I am and I will be."  The Spirit of Truth will lead us into all good.  This is the highroad to the fulfillment of our lives.

There is, then, no limitation outside our own ignorance, and since we can all conceive of a greater good than we have so far experienced, we all have the ability to transcend previous experiences and rise triumphant above them; but we shall never triumph over them while we persist in going through the old mental reactions.

Understanding

Before we attempt to improve our conditions; before we proceed further on the subject of healing it is necessary that we be certain in our own minds that thought is creative, as upon this basis our entire superstructure rests. Since Spirit creates by contemplation - purely mental action - then everything in the manifest world is some effect of Its thought.  Our own  minds are an expression of the Divine Mind and must be of the same essence.

That we find ourselves in an undesirable condition in the face of all this, is merely proof that we have limited ourselves by our very freedom.  Shall we not, then, reverse our thinking and take for our starting point the inherent nature of mental powers?

We have gone far in the right direction, when we have determined that Creation could have originated only in Intelligence; and have realized further that our own mental power must be the same in kind with the creativeness of God.  Thus we begin to sense, even though dimly, that as our minds become more like the Divine Mind, we shall expand into a greater livingness - our world created by our consciousness, and our consciousness taking its color from the perception of our relation to the Infinite!

We should strive toward a perfect vision, a perfect conception.  We should expand our thought until it realizes all good, and then cut right through all that appears to be, and use this Almighty Power for definite purposes.  We should daily feel a deeper union with Life, a greater sense of that Indwelling God - the God of the seen and of the unseen - within us. When we speak into this Mind, we have sown a seed of thought in the Absolute and we may rest in peace.  We need not make haste, for it is done unto us as we believe. "In that day they that call upon me, I will answer.""

March 2 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

The Basis for Mental Healing ~ Ernest Holmes

"Much in this field is as yet obscure and imperfectly understood, for the scientific study of the mind is still in its infancy; but the fact that a misuse of mental and spiritual laws is at the root of many unhappy conditions incident to the physical life stands out clear and sharp.

The first principle fundamental to the understanding of the operation of thought is, that we are surrounded by an Infinite Intelligence.  The possibility of healing physical disease, changing environment, attracting friends and demonstrating supply through the power of right thinking, rests entirely on the theory that we are surrounded by an Infinite Mind, which reacts to our thought according to Law.

We comprehend the meaning of Infinite Intelligence only in a small degree, but because we are spiritual beings, we do sense the presence of an Intelligence which is beyond human comprehension - an Intelligence which is great enough to encompass the past, to understand the present, and to be Father of the future.  It is the Cause of everything that has been, and is that out of which must unfold everything that is to be.  Our own intelligence is one of Its activities and is of like nature to It.

The Act of Incarnation

At the level of our self-comprehension, we know and understand the nature of God.  This self-knowing, which is God-knowing, has the possibility of an eternal expansion. As individual intelligence, we communicate with each other - are able to respond to each other - and in so doing we establish the fact that intelligence responds to intelligence.  This same law must hold good, whether we think of finite intelligence responding to finite intelligence, or Infinite Intelligence responding to finite intelligence - for intelligence is the same in ESSENCE wherever we find it.  We may conclude that Infinite Intelligence responds to us by the very necessity of being true to Its own Nature.

But how does It respond?  It can respond only by corresponding, which means that the Infinite Intelligence responds to us by a direct impartation of Itself through us.  "The highest God and the innermost God is One God."  So with Jesus we may say:  "The Father and I are One."  Whatever intelligence we possess is some degree of the One Intelligence, which we call God.

The Infinite Mind, then, imparts Itself to the finite, through the act of incarnation.  The progress of the human race is a result of that process whereby Intelligence passes, by successive degrees of incarnation, through evolution, into the human mind."