May 30 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

GENERAL SUMMARY ~ Ernest Holmes
(Continued from April 30th)

"The only concentration necessary in the best use of Mind is specific mental attention and complete mental acceptance.  Always remember that you are not dealing with a reluctant Force but with a completely receptive one which, by Its very nature, is compelled to receive the images of your thought.  It has no other choice and can conceive no other.  You make up Its mind for It.

Acceptance and realization.  These words are fraught with the greatest meaning to the one who wishes to consciously use the creative power of thought for definite purposes.  Acceptance and realization are mental qualities and may be consciously generated.

When we treat we should be specific.  "Whatsoever things we desire" when we pray we should "believe that we have them."  If we wish money we should ask for, or mentally accept, money.  If we wish a home we should ask for, or mentally accept, a home.  We can put as much detail into our mental work as we desire.  Sometimes to do so will be of great service in gaining a complete mental acceptance of our desires.  This is the whole secret, a complete mental acceptance and embodiment of our desires.

Our mental acceptances should be filled with conviction, warmth, color and imagination.  The creative power responds to feeling more quickly than to any other mental attitude.   Therefore we should try to feel the reality of what we are doing when we give a treatment.  This reality is felt as we become more and more convinced that Spirit responds to us.

We should grow into the understanding that Spirit responds to us and becomes more conscious of Its Presence within us.  It is the very breath of our breath...the imagination back of our word.  It is the creative power in our thought and the law and energy that executes that thought.  "God is all in all, over all and through all."  There can be no greater or more complete Allness.  This Allness is within us, or we may say that within is the only place we can contact It.  It is necessary to understand this else sometimes we shall be trying to reach outside and this is impossible.

If one were to make a complete mental picture of himself as he would like to be, filling in all the details of his desire and trying to accept the whole thing as a present reality, he would soon demonstrate that the control of affairs is from within out and not from without; the cause being that whatever exists as a mental picture in Mind must tend to, and finally does take form if the picture is really believed in and embodied.

We should be careful to distinguish day dreaming and wistful wishing from really dynamic and creative treatment.  When we treat we do not wish, we KNOW.  We do not dream, we STATE.  We do not hope, we ACCEPT.  We do not pray, we ANNOUNCE.  We do not expect something is going to happen, we BELIEVE THAT IT HAS ALREADY HAPPENED.

We should think clearly and allow the image of our thoughts to sink into a subjective state.  We do not crowd them down, we let them sink into this inner receptivity with power and with conviction.  Our individual subjective mind is our place in the Universal Creative Law and immediately connects us with limitless power and energy.

There is a vast difference between "holding thoughts" and holding things in thought.  One is the attempt at an impossible coercion; the other is a mental acceptance.  To hold thoughts, as though we were forcing issues, does no good and utilizes but a fraction of the creative power at our disposal.  To hold in thought, as though we were LETTING something happen, is to use the greater power...the greatest power of all."

May 18 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

Disease Is Not Always Due to Conscious Thought ~ Ernest Holmes

"Diseases which are mental in their origin must arise from some inner state of consciousness.  While most disease must first have a subjective cause, this subjective cause (nine times out of ten) is not conscious in the thought of the person who suffers from it, but is perhaps largely the result of certain combinations of thinking.

So while it is true that disease has a prototype in subjective mind, it is also true that the individual who suffers from the disease, frequently has never thought he was going to have that particular kind of trouble.

But this does not alter the fact that every disease which comes up through subjectivity, and appears in the body, must come through mind.

How to Heal

In our work, we treat man, not as a physical body, neither do we treat the disease as belonging to him, the reason being that if we do, we cannot subsequently free him from it.  We do not think of the disease as being connected with him or a part of him.  The practitioner seeks to realize man as perfect, not needing to be healed of anything.  This is nothing less than the realization of the Presence and the Power of God, or Spirit, as Man's Life, as the only life there is, as complete and perfect in him right now.

First recognize your own perfection then build up the same recognition for your patient.  You are then ready to directly attack the thought that binds him, recognizing that your word destroys it, and stating that it does.  You may then take into account and specifically mention everything that needs to be changed, every so-called broken law or false thought.  Then finish your treatment with a realization of peace, remaining for a few moments in silent recognition that your work is done, complete and perfect.

The work must not be thought of as hard.  When we know that there is but One Mind, we shall realize that this work could not be difficult or laborious.   Mental treatment is a direct statement of belief into Mind, coupled with a realization that the work is already an accomplished fact.  The spiritual man needs no healing, health is an omnipresent reality, and when the obstructions that hinder healing are removed, it will be found that health was there all the time.  So in your work, do not feel that you must heal anyone.  Your only responsibility is to uncover the Truth.

Never say:  "Here is a patient whom I must heal," for if you think of him from this viewpoint, how are you going to heal him?  If you mentally see a sick man, he will remain mentally sick.  We cannot heal successfully while we recognize sickness as a reality to the Spirit.  In spiritual healing by this method, no one believes in disease, it  has no action nor reaction, it has neither cause nor effect, it has no law to support it and no one through whom it can operate.  There is no one to talk with about it, and no one to believe in it.  While we maintain that disease is primarily a thing of thought, we do not deny the actuality of its experience nor the suffering it causes, instead we seek to heal it, and we co-operate with all, no matter what method they are using to relieve distress.

You have nothing to do with the patient's thought as a personality, for as your own thought clears, he will be helped.  First eliminate doubt and fear from your own thought; realize that your patient is a Divine Being, and that your word is the law unto the thing unto which it is spoken.  This is what gave Jesus His power:  "For He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.""

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.""

The Science of Mind in a Year ~ Ernest Holmes

Thoughts Are Things ~ Ernest Holmes

"Health and sickness are largely externalizations of our dominant mental and spiritual states.  An emotional shock, or a mind filled with thoughts of fear, has been known to cause the momentary stoppage or acceleration of the heart.  Physicians now testify that, under emotional stress, particularly anger, the blood leaves a chemical deposit around the joints in the body.  Worry, fear anger, jealousy, and other emotional conditions, are mental in their nature, and as such are being recognized as the hidden cause of a large part of all the physical suffering to which the flesh is heir.  A normal healthy mind reflects itself in a healthy body, and conversely, an abnormal mental state expresses its corresponding condition in some physical condition.  Thoughts are things!

Modern psychology affirms that all the thoughts and emotions we have experienced since we came into conscious existence are still present in Mind, where ceaselessly active they manifest themselves as subjective tendencies that mold the body in health or sickness; and determine, as well, our reactions to all life and experience.

We do not maintain that this or that specific disease is always the result of thinking about such a condition; but we do assert that a prolonged discordant mental state is certain to eventuate in some form of physical ailment.  People have died of great grief; of broken hearts; of outburst of temper; of deep and continued resentment; of excessive worry, and many other mental states, in which there was no specific thought of sickness at all.  The point to remember is, that all mind activity inevitably tends to create its physical correspondent, so that an unhealthful and morbid mental state projects itself into the physical body.

Thoughts are things, they have the power to objectify themselves; thought lays hold of Causation and forms real Substance.  The word of man is the law of his life, under the One Great Law of all Life.  Thoughts of sickness can make a man sick, and thoughts of health and perfection can heal him.  Thought is the conscious activity of the one thinking, and works as he directs, through Law; and this Law may be consciously set in motion.  This Law will work for him to the fullest extent of his belief in, and understanding of, It.  A realization of the Presence of God is the most powerful healing agency known to the mind of man.

One with God

Until we awake to the fact that we are One in nature with God, we shall not find the way of life. Until we realize that our own word has the power of life, we will not see clearly.  The Bible points out that man has the same power, in his own life and in his own world, that it claims for God.  "The Word was with God and the Word was God," is an oft-repeated but little understood statement.  The promise to man is equally positive:  "The word is nigh thee, even in thine own mouth that thou shouldst know it and do it."  If any word has power, it follows that all words have power.  It means that every word which we hear, speak or think, has some power."

March 5 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

Thought Force ~ Ernest Holmes

"Thought force is a movement of consciousness in a field of mechanical but intelligent Law.  The movement of consciousness upon itself creates a motion or vibration upon Substance, the force of which is equal to the embodiment of the thought set in motion.  For everything that happens in the objective world, there must be something in the subjective world which perfectly balances it.

Let us suppose, for illustration, that the Universe is nothing but water, permeated by an Infinite Intelligence.  Imagine that every time this Intelligence moves, or thinks, ice is formed in the water, exactly corresponding to the thought.  We might have countless pieces of ice of different form, color and size, but these pieces of ice would still be water!  If we could heat the entire mass, it would melt, and all forms would again become fluid.  Nothing would have changed except form.  The physical universe is spirit in form.

First is Intelligence; then the Word, the idea, the image, the concept; then the movement toward the thing. Thought is an actual working power.  Otherwise, there would be nothing by which the Universe could be governed.

The Atmosphere of Our Thinking

We are all immersed in the atmosphere of our own thinking, which is the direct result of all we have ever said, thought or done.  This decides what is to take place in our lives.  Thought attracts what is like itself and repels what is unlike.  We are drawn toward those things which we mentally image.  Most of the inner processes of our thought have been unconscious, but when we understand the Law, we learn to consciously embody what we wish, and think of this only, and then we are drawn silently toward it.

The emphasis on true mental healing is insistently on God, the One Mind, the One Soul, the One Being, ever-present and ever-available; and on man's ability and right to make himself receptive to this healing Presence - a realization of the essential divinity of our own nature, and the truth that no evil can live in this Presence.  We must unify ourselves with the great Whole.  The man who dares to fling his thought out into Universal Intelligence, with the assurance of one who realizes his divine nature and its relation to the Universe - and dares to claim all there is - will find an ever-creative good at hand to aid him.  God will honor his request.  To the soul that knows its own divinity, all else must gravitate.  Let us, then, enlarge our thought processes and dare to think in Universal terms.  Let us dare to believe that every constructive word is invincible!"

February 28 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

FROM The TEACHINGS of JESUS ~ Ernest Holmes

Judge Not, That Ye Be Not Judged (Matt. 7:1)

""Judge not that ye be not judged, for with what judgment ye judge ye shall be judged, and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again."  This statement could come only from one who had a deep insight into the universal law of Cause and Effect, which balances everything, and sees that in the long run, everyone receives his just due.  This law Emerson called the "High Chancellor of God."  The law of cause and effect is the law of perfect balance, of logical sequence and of inevitable consequence.  Whatever a man sows, he must reap.

The law of cause and effect is immutable, and every man's action produces an effect in his life, which he must ultimately experience, unless he transcends the law already set in motion.  Such a concept supposes that we are surrounded by a Universal Law, which is entirely impartial, and which returns to the thinker the logical effect of his actions. Man, being a free agent in this law - whether consciously or in ignorance - is continually setting it in motion to some definite end.  Therefore it is true, unalterably true, that he must reap as he has sown!

This means that life must return to us the manifestation of our motives, thoughts and desires - whether these motives, thoughts and desires were intended for ourselves or others.  It means that the thought of judgment, criticism and condemnation must, in time, operate against the one who sets it in motion!  It is doubtless necessary to the well-being of society that our civil laws be enforced, else in our present state of evolution, there would be no protection from those who seek to destroy society; but personal condemnation can be entirely eliminated.

Ultimately we shall see that the Universe rests on the shoulders of Love; that God is Love; and that all the errors of man  are the result of ignorance of his own true nature.  The happy outlook on life is always constructive; the understanding heart is filled with sympathy and helpfulness toward all.  An evolved soul judges no one, condemns no one, but realizes that all are on the road of experience, seeking the same goal, and that each must ultimately find his home in Heaven.

In the long run, nothing judges us but the immutable Law of Cause and Effect.  Whoever deserves punishment will receive it, and whoever merits reward will find that it is brought by the hand of the Almighty and delivered to him.  There is a direct law responding to condemnation and a direct law responding to praise and appreciation.  It is, of course, the same law used in different ways.

There is a Law, common to all people, which responds to every man's belief in life, at the level of that belief.  No man can be happy who lives in a continuous state of condemnation of people, conditions and things.  We must learn to praise and not condemn.

Religious Morbidities

Those who have made a study of soul analysis are aware that poisonous secretions in the body are often the result of religious morbidities.  The time has come to break the bondage of these false impressions.  We are free souls, free spirits, and because this is true, our thought has creative power, and since it has this power, we must carefully choose what we are to think, for everything moves in circles.

We do not say there is no evil experience.  We say, evil is not an entity, but a misuse of a power, which of itself is good.  We shall never know the nature of good by dissecting the nature of evil.

Thought Retards or Quickens

Everything our thought rests upon is either retarded or quickened by the power of that thought.  Everyone is a law unto himself, under the great law of cause and effect governing all things.

When we constructively praise and creatively bless, life abounds with love, peace and joy.  Let goodness shine forth.  Let us learn to see that everyone is an evolving Christ.  Let us so live and think that we may retire at night in peace, knowing that no harm can come to the soul; that we may rise in the morning renewed in body and in mind, with a brighter outlook, a happier expectation and a clearer joy, looking upon all with love, condemning none and blessing even those who seek to injure us.  Let us learn to be perfect, even as that Divine Being, residing in the heart of all and overshadowing Eternity, must also be perfect."

February 9 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

That Which Changes ~ Ernest Holmes, The Science of Mind

"We have learned that Spirit is the Absolute Being, that It is the only thing in the universe which has self-knowingness, volition, choice or will.  The Soul is the servant of the Spirit and has no choice and no purpose other than to execute the purpose given It.  The Spirit of the Universe cannot change; begin ALL, there is nothing for It to change into.  The Soul of the Universe must obey the Will of the Spirit.  THE BODY OF THE UNIVERSE CANNOT HELP CHANGING!  This is what constitutes the eternal activity of Spirit within Itself; the Spirit passing into form - creation eternally going on.  Since Spirit must be manifest in order to be conscious, there must be a way in which It manifests and there must be a manifestation.  So we have Soul and Body.  Body, the manifestation and Soul, the Way, or Law by which It manifests."