April 18 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

How to Approach the Spirit ~ Ernest Holmes

"If we wish to come to the Spirit for the healing of our wounds, let us come in peace and with spontaneous joy, for the Spirit is joy; let us come with thanksgiving also, for a thankful heart is in harmony with life.  But we must come in quiet confidence, with an open and receptive mind, a believing heart, naturally, sanely and expectantly.  In this way, we ware entering the portals of Reality, clad in garments of righteousness.

We often think what we require is money, friends and physical healing. After these things, do those, who are outside a knowledge of the Law, seek; and they do well, for we need all these things.  But they are the effects of right relationships to life.  All people need some form of healing. Most people are unhappy, few have any realization of permanent peace.  We seek fragments, when the whole is at hand.  How illogical to think that anything can rise higher than its source.  The Universe is a perfect, undivided whole, and healing can take place only when one is unified with It.  How can anyone, then, be healed in part?  Let us seek wholeness above all else.

If we would come to the Universal Wholeness, we must approach it through the law of its own nature. This means that we must give our undivided attention to the spiritual unit back of all things.  Since all else is included within this unit, we find our particular good only through unity with life.  This conscious unity makes our mind receptive to completion, since Life Itself is complete.  This perception is always an inner light, for the individual can use only such knowledge as he inwardly possesses.  In reality, we know God or Truth, only as we ourselves embody God or Truth.  AND SINCE IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO EMBODY ANYTHING OUTSIDE OURSELVES, THIS KNOWLEDGE MUST BE AN INNER LIGHT.  The Truth Itself is Infinite, but we only embody the Infinite in degree.  To the degree that we do embody Reality, we become poised and powerful.

The Purpose of the Science of Mind

The whole purpose of the Science of Mind is to reconcile the apparent separation of the spiritual world, which must be Perfect, with the material world, which appears imperfect.  The Spiritual world is the CAUSE of the material; we are spiritual beings governed by mental law.  ONLY THAT WORLD CAN APPEAR TO US WHICH WE MENTALLY PERCEIVE.  Man's experience is the logical outcome of his inner vision; his horizon is limited to the confines of his own consciousness.  Wherever this consciousness lacks a true perspective, its outward expression will lack proper harmony.  This is why we are taught to be transformed by the renewing of our minds.  Since no one lives by proxy, but each unto himself, every individual must make the test in his own soul.

And Jesus Knew Their Thoughts (Matt. 12:25)

"And Jesus knew their thoughts..."  That is, he had an extended vision which enabled him to know what others were thinking.  He had healed a man possessed of unclean thoughts, and the priests had reasoned within themselves that his power to do this was of the "evil one."

Jesus, understanding what was in their minds, told them that a house divided against itself cannot stand; and that if he cast out evil by the power of evil, then evil would be a house divided against itself.  "But," he said, "if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you."

We cannot do good while we continue to do evil, nor can we heal evil except by the power of good.  To all sincere students of Spiritual Science, this lesson is a guide post, pointing to the fact that the thought of good must ever overcome any thought that is less than good.  By the presence of good, evil is cast out, just as by the presence of light, the darkness disappears.

Good Thoughts and a Good Harvest (Matt. 7:17, 18)

A good tree produces good fruit, so good thoughts bear a harvest of good deeds, while evil consumes itself in the flame of its own fire.  If a man's life produces good deeds, then the man is himself good; and this, no matter what his particular religious belief may or may not be.

The mouth speaks from the heart.  It is impossible for a man to conceal himself.  In every act, word, or gesture, he stands revealed as he is, and not as he would have himself appear to be.  From the universe, nothing is or can be hidden; the very walls have ears and the mirror of life cannot help reflecting back to us that which we really are.

Jesus plainly tells us that we are held accountable for the very words which we speak.  No man every lived who placed a greater power in the word.  By our words we are justified or condemned.  The word may be considered to be the complete thought and act of man.  There must be a thought before there can be an act, and a thinker before there can be any thought.  The thinker condemns or justifies himself through his thought." 

February 12 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

Unity and Multiplicity ~ Ernest Holmes

"The stuff out of which our human bodies are made is the same etheric substance from which all things are made. The One Mind conceives all things.  From Unity - which is the One, back of all things, through the One Law, which is the Medium of all action - multiplicity is manifested, but the many never contradict the Unity of the whole.  When we realize that we are dealing with an Infinite Intelligence, and with an Infinite Law within this Intelligence, we see that no limit should be placed upon the Creative Principle.

Could we understand Absolute Causation, we should perceive It to be pure Intelligence operating through perfect Law, and producing effects which live and have their being, not by virtue of an isolated life buy by reason of a Universal Unity which permeates all things.  We should then see that the world of multiplicity is deep-rooted in a Universe of Unity; that nothing happens by chance; that we live under a government of Law - from the vast planetary system to a garden of roses; from the Archangel (the Christ), to the saint and the sinner; through good an in what is called evil.  Thorough cosmic activities and in human destinies, we behold the vast objective panorama of invisible, but adequate, subjective causes.

We should not separate Life from living, Spirit from matter, nor Divine Principle from a Universal Creation.  God is "All in all."  That is, God IS, and is in everything.  The gardener finds a divine idea concealed in the seed; loosed into action this idea produces a plant.  The geologist finds the imprint of invisible forces in the rock.  The evolutionist reads the history of cosmic activities on this planet, as he deciphers the unfolding of an Intelligent Life Force carrying creation forward to its consummation point here, which is the production of self-conscious life.  The scientist finds an energy concealed in the atom, and the spiritual genius discloses an intuitive knowledge, which can be accounted for only on the theory that we lie in "the lap of an Infinite Intelligence."

So close is the union of creation with the Creator, that it is impossible to say where one begins and the other leaves off.  Emerson tells us that nature is Spirit reduced to Its greatest thinness; and Spinoza says that Mind and matter are the same thing; while Jesus proclaimed that the very words which he spoke were Spirit and were life.  Robert Browning writes of the spark which we may desecrate, but never quite lose, and he further announces that all are gods, "though in the germ."  Wordsworth sings that Heaven is that native home of all mankind, and Tennyson exclaims that more things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams, while Shakespeare perceived sermons in stones and good in everything.

We are on the verge of disclosing a spiritual Universe, and will ultimately conclude that what we call the physical universe is a spontaneous emergence, through evolution of inner forces which cannot be explained, but which must be accepted.  How, then, can we doubt that the very mind which we now use is the Intelligent Principle from which all life draws its power to be and its intelligence to express?

The furtherance of evolution depends upon our ability to sense a unity with Nature and her forces.  When the knowledge of this unity comes alike to all, the tread of armies will cease and the bugle call will echo the soft notes of brotherly love."

January 27 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

How to Use It (Continued) ~ Ernest Holmes, The Science of Mind

Of all the people in the world, the ones who have come the nearest to touching the seamless garment of Truth have been the most sympathetic and the greatest lovers of the race.  Jesus said, "And I, if I be lifted up, ....(not dragged down) will draw all men unto me."  (John 12:32)

We are in the world and of it and it is good that it is so.  The world is all right when we view it correctly.  Who knows what would transpire if all men would speak the truth?  It has never yet been tried, but let not the mouth of the profane hinder those who would enter, thereby keeping them from entering.  The world has never yet followed the simple ethics of Jesus, yet it is loud in its proclamation that it is Christian.  This statement is not written in a spirit of controversy, it is one of conviction, and will make its appeal only to those who are convinced  "A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still."

Let us return to the man who really wishes to demonstrate the supremacy of spiritual thought force over apparent material resistance.  Let us put his treatment in the first person - impersonating him for the purpose of clarity.

"I am a center in the Divine Mind, a point of God-conscious life, truth and action.  My affairs are divinely guided and guarded into right action, into correct results.  Everything I do, say or think, is stimulated by the Truth.  There is power in this word that I speak, because it is of the Truth and it is the Truth.  There is perfect and continuous right action in my life and my affairs.  All belief in wrong action is dispelled and made negative.  Right action alone has power and right action is power, and Power is God...the Living Spirit Almighty.  This Spirit animates everything that I do, say or think.  Ideas come to me daily and these ideas are divine ideas.  They direct me and sustain me without effort.  I am continuously directed.  I am compelled to do the right thing at the right time, to say the right word at the right time, to follow the right course at all times.

"All suggestion of age, poverty, limitation or unhappiness is uprooted from my mind and cannot gain entrance to my thought.  I am happy, well and filled with perfect Life.  I live in the Spirit of Truth and am conscious that the Spirit of Truth lives in me.  My word is the law unto its own manifestation, and will bring to me or cause me to be brought to its fulfillment.  There is no unbelief, no doubt, no uncertainty.  I know and I know that I know.  Let every thought of doubt vanish from my mind that I may know the Truth and the Truth may make me free."

The Truth is instantaneous in its demonstration, taking only such time in Its unfoldment as is inherent in the law of a logical and sequential evolution.  In this invisible law of unfoldment, we must come to trust, and although we do not see the way, we must believe that the way IS and IS OPERATIVE.  We must trust the Invisible, for It is the sole cause of that which is visible... "...things which are seen were not made of things which do appear."   (Heb. 11:3)

Healing and demonstration take place as our minds become attuned to the truth of Being.  There is no process of healing, but there is generally a process in healing.  This process is the time and effort which we undergo in our realizations of Truth.

The one who wishes scientifically to work out his problems, must daily take the time to meditate and mentally treat the condition, no matter what the apparent contradictions may be.  He is working silently in the Law and the Law will find an outlet through his faith in It.  This Law is the Law which puts the act into all action.  It is the invisible actor, working through us to will and to do.  As a result of right treatment, the mold formed in the subjective mind by the treatment makes possible a concrete manifestation.  The treatment is an intelligent Energy in the invisible world.  It is a spiritual entity, working through the Law of Mind, and it is an actual force now consciously directed.  Therefore, it must produce specific results.

This will not seem strange to those who have given thought to the subject.  As the primordial Word of the Creator is the only thing which explains creation, so every man's word - partaking of this original nature as it does - must reproduce the creative function in his life, at the level of his consciousness of One Life back of, in, and through all.