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.""

October 27 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

SOME PHASES of the SUBJECTIVE LIFE
Ernest Holmes

Tuning in on Thought

"Thought-transference, or telepathy, is such a commonly known fact that it is not our purpose to do other than discuss it briefly.  However, there are some facts which might be overlooked unless we give them careful attention.  The main fact to emphasize is that mental telepathy would not be possible, unless there were a medium through which it could operate.  This medium is Universal Mind, and it is through this medium, or avenue, that all thought-transference, or mental telepathy, takes place.

Telepathy is the act of reading subjective thought, or of receiving conscious thought from another without audible words being spoken.  But there must be a mental tuning in, so to speak, just as there must be in radio.  We are surrounded by all sorts of vibrations and if we wish to catch any of them distinctly, we must tune in.  Even then, there is a great deal of interference and we do not always get the messages clearly.  We often get the wrong ones and sometimes many of the vibrations come together and seem to be nothing but a lot of noises, without any particular reason for being.  It is only when the instrument is property adjusted to some individual vibration that a clear message may be received.

This is true of mental telepathy, which is the transmission of thought; the receiver must tune in.  It does not follow, however, that the sender knows that this is taking place, any more than a radio speaker knows how many are tuning in to hear his address.  In other words, one might pick up on thoughts just as he picks up radio messages.  Some have the ability to tune in on thought and read it more or less accurately.  These people we call psychics, but all people are really psychic, since all have a soul or subjective mind.  What we really mean is that a psychic, or medium, is one who has the ability to objectify that which is subjective - to bring to the surface of conscious thought that which lies below the threshold of the outer mind.  The medium reads the book of remembrance and it is marvelous how far-reaching this book may be.  Whatever may have happened at any time on this plane remains within its subjective atmosphere as a memory picture of the experiences of those who have lived here.  These pictures, or vibrations, may be clearly discerned by those who can read them.

Since the Universal Subjectivity is a Unity it follows that all of these pictures exist at any and every point within It.  Consequently, we may contact at the point of our own subjective mind (which is a point in Universal Subjective Mind) every incident which has ever transpired on this planet.  We might even see a picture which was enacted two thousand years ago in some Roman arena, for the atmosphere contains such pictures.

Each person in his objective state is a distinct and individualized center in Universal Mind, but in his subjective state (in his stream of consciousness, or at his rate of vibration) each is Universal, because of the Indivisibility of Mind.  Wherever and whenever any individual contacts another upon the subjective side of life, if he is a psychic (if he objectifies subjectivity) he may see a thought form of that person, but it does not necessarily follow that he would really be seeing the person.

We need not be astonished when a psychic gives us the complete history of our family, even to reciting the things that engaged the attention of our ancestors while they were on earth.  The psychic is merely reading form the subjective remembrance."

October 21 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

SOME PHASES of the SUBJECTIVE LIFE
Ernest Holmes

The Subjective Mind

"We have already seen that what we call the soul is really the subjective part of us.  We wish to look a little further into some of the phenomena of the soul.

We do not have two minds, but we do have a dual aspect of mentality in what we call the objective and subjective states of consciousness.  The objective mind is that part of the mentality which functions consciously.  It is the part of us which is self-knowing and without it we would not be self-conscious entities.  Our conscious mind is the place where we consciously live and are aware that we are living.  This is Spirit.

Our subjective mind is our mental emanation in Universal Subjectivity.  It is our individual use of mental law.  We certainly do not wish to deviate from that which psychology teaches about the mind of man in its conscious, subconscious, or subjective states.  We merely wish to add this:  the reason we have a subjective mind is that Subjectivity existed in the Universe prior to our use of It; and where we use It, It forms around us a subjective personification of ourselves, which is a result of the action and the reaction of our thought.

The subjective mind is the seat of memory and contains a remembrance of everything that has ever happened to the outer man.  It also contains the family and race characteristics.  It retains these memories, in a certain sense, as mental pictures.  The subjective mind might be compared to a picture gallery, upon whose walls are hung the pictures of all the people whom the individual has ever known, and all the incidents which he has ever experienced."

October 9 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

WHAT The MYSTICS HAVE TAUGHT
Ernest Holmes

Evolution (Continued)

"Evolution is a principle which, though invisible, finds manifestation in every form of life.  It is the logical or necessary outcome of Universal Intelligence of Spirit; but evolution is an effect of Intelligence and not its cause.  Evolution can only follow involution.  Involution is the idea, while evolution is the unfoldment of the idea.  INVOLUTION PRECEDES EVOLUTION AND EVOLUTION FOLLOWS WITH MECHANICAL PRECISION, PROPELLED BY AN IMMUTABLE LAW...the Law of Cause and Effect.

God is Universal Intelligence or Spirit.  The only way Intelligence can move is by an interior movement.  God must move within God, if God is ALL.  He moves within and upon Himself.  It is evident that the movement back of the objective world must be a subjective movement - a movement of consciousness.  It is necessary , then, that whatever movement takes place, it MUST take place within and upon the One; and it follows that whatever is created, is created out of this One.

God moves upon God.  This is the starting point of Creation.  Every time one conceives an idea, it is God expressing Himself.  He is eternally knowing, and eternally known through everyone.  It is God's nature to know and there is an emotional craving, or desire for expression, inherent in the Universe.  There is a Universal Law obeying the Will of Spirit.   This is the Law through which that which is involved, evolves.   We, as conscious Spirit, set a Universal Law in motion which makes things from ideas.  The Spirit INVOLVES the Law EVOLVES.  The Law does not know that It is evolving; it is Its nature to evolve and this nature is mechanical."

September 22 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

WHAT the MYSTICS TAUGHT
Ernest Holmes

What is a Mystic? (continued)

"Man has compelled nature to do his bidding.  He has harnessed electricity, caught the wind, trapped steam, and made them do his will.  He has invented machines to do the work of thousands.  He has belted the globe with his traffic and built up a wonderful civilization; but in a few cases has he conquered his own soul.  The mystic has revealed things that do not pass as ships in the night.  He has revealed Eternal Verities and has plainly taught us that there is a Living Presence indwelling ALL.  This constitutes the greatest intellectual and spiritual heritage of the ages.  The balance of our knowledge of God must come as a direct impartation from Him.  We must learn it for ourselves.

The mystic does not read human thought, but rather he senses the atmosphere of God.  The mystics of every age have seen, sensed and taught THE SAME TRUTH!  Psychic experiences, on the other hand, bear the exact opposite testimony, as they more or less contradict each other, for each psychic sees a different kind of mental picture.  But the mystic experiences of the ages have revealed ONE AND THE SAME TRUTH!

A psychic sees largely through his own, or another's subjective mentality.  Consequently, his impressions are more or less colored by the vibration of his own or another's thought.  He is subject to hallucinations and false impressions of every description.  That is why, generally speaking, no two psychics see the same thing.  Mystics have all sensed one identical Reality, and their testimony is in no way confusing, because the Spirit within them has borne witness to the same Truth.

The mystics have been perfectly normal people.  They did not think of themselves as mystics, that was their language.  It was natural to them - perfectly normal.  They have been people like Jacob Boehme, a cobbler, pegging away at his shoes, who, looking up, saw in the geranium plant the reflection of the Cosmos - the very soul of God; like Jesus looking into the heart of nature; like Moses reading God's Law from a burning bush."

September 15 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

MEDITATIONS for Self-Help

By Ernest Holmes

The Power Within Blesses All

The Power within me is blessing all mankind, and is forever healing all with whom I come in contact.

The Power within me is God, and It must bless and help and heal all who come near It.

Silently the work goes on, and silently all are being helped by this Inner Power which is operating through me.

I will give thanks that my Power within is silently blessing and helping every one to whom my thought reaches.

The Life within me blesses all mankind.

August 31 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

GENERAL SUMMARY
Ernest Holmes

"We should contact a larger field of faith.  This is done by understanding that God is the giver and the sustainer of human life and expression.  God is all there is.  He is Substance and Supply.  We must learn to accept this.  If it is God's pleasure to give us the Kingdom then it should be our privilege to accept the gift.

The Spirit has not withheld good from us, but ignorance of the true law of supply has caused us to have fear.  "They could not enter in because of their unbelief and because they limited the Holy One of Israel."  We should endeavor to stop limiting God.  All things are given unto us but we shall have to do the taking.  God gives in the abstract, we receive in the concrete.  The gift of Heaven is forever made.  The receiving of this gift is an eternal process of forever expanding the finite.

Since we cannot contract the Absolute we shall have to expand the relative.  The Infinite will not be, or become, less than Itself.  We are of Its nature.  We did not make our own being.  All we can do is to accept that the being which we are is some part of the Divine.  To know this is to overcome fear.  Whether this fear is of lack, pain, sickness or death, it is always a belief that there is something other than Life or that Life withholds pleasure, peace, success and Heaven from us.

Love alone can overcome fear because love surrenders itself to the object of its adoration.  The soul must make a complete surrender of itself to the Spirit.  That is, the Law must come under subjection to the Spirit.  The will of the Spirit is peace, clear thinking and happiness, It could have no other will.

Should we learn to contemplate those things which are desirable and to forget the rest, we would soon overcome fear through faith.  Both are mental.  Let us learn to reverse the thoughts of fear and transmute them into faith.

Since Spirit is present in Its entirety at all times and in all places it follows, that all of Spirit is wherever we center our attention.  And since Spirit is both receptivity and creative responsiveness it follows that wherever we center our attention its image must concentrate substance into the form of such attention.  This is fundamental to our concept of mental and spiritual treatment.  For it is not by external power nor through objective might that our work is to be done, but through the Spirit and the Law.  The Spirit guides and the Law executes.  That which we can take is given us.

Pure Spirit exists at the center of all form.  Of Itself, It is formless but It is ever giving birth to form.  The forms come and go but It goes on forever.  We are some part of It.  If pure Spirit is at the center of everything and is always responding to our thought there is no limit to Its manifestation for us except the limitations that we set.

If it is difficult to see this, realize that our subjective self is the immediate connection between the Absolute and the relative.  It is our share of the Law and immediately connects us with the Creativeness of the Whole.  The Absolute is in relationship to Itself alone.  It is not circumscribed by any form but remains independent of all forms.  It can as easily create a new form for us as to perpetuate an old one.

Mind is the realm of causes.  Conditions are in the realm of effects.  Effects flow from causes and not from themselves.  Thought is the instrument of Mind.  New thoughts create new conditions.  We must learn to think in the Absolute.  This means to think independently of any given or experienced effect.  "Judge not according to appearances."  This thought strikes away the shackles of bondage and finds a new cause at work.

Just as we can conceive of some definite idea, then go on to the conception of another, so we can treat for as many conditions as we can clearly conceive.

We cannot account for the seen without having faith in the unseen.  All advance in science or any other branch of learning must follow this rule if it is to accomplish anything.  To believe in Life is to believe in the invisible.  As science postulates some etheric movement at the center of all objective form, so we start with the premise that this initial movement starts as Pure Intelligence, independent of any form but ready to take form.  All form is temporary even though it lasts for countless millions of years.  That is, any given form comes and goes in a process of time for any given time is temporary.

We have arrived at the conclusion that Spirit or the Mind of God is all Causation.   Then Spirit or Mind is also all effect.  Cause and effect are but two ends of one Unity.  The physical end is visible, the spiritual invisible, but may be inwardly perceived and outwardly experienced.

Spirit, then, is all there is at this very hour and all creation is spiritual.  The Universe is a Spiritual System impregnated with Divine Ideas and peopled with Spiritual Forms.  The ideas of God are perfect laws on their way to producing complete and perfect effects.  The Universe is alive, conscious, awake and aware.  It is love and life.  It is law and order.  It is a Cosmos."

August 30 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

MEDITATIONS

By Ernest Holmes

(The following meditation is printed just as it was given in class and group work.)

Perfect Intelligence Directs My Thought

We now let go of everything and enter into a state of peace.  We know the Spirit within us is God, the Living Spirit Almighty...that God Who is Infinite, Perfect and Complete, never needed anything, never had any trouble, never could destroy; the God Who never operated against Himself, Who never condemned Himself--the Spirit that fashions each of us from His own perfect Being.  "All in all, we know Thee, God, omnipresent, full and free; one with every pathway trod, our immortal destiny."

That Infinite Wholeness is perfect peace within us.  That Infinite Intelligence is working through us and our affairs; our thought is inspired, guided, governed and directed by Divine Wisdom.  That Infinite Wholeness is the circulation of ideas, of intelligence, wisdom, truth and life.  It is the elimination of every conception of confusion.  It is the assimilation of that which is whole, happy, perfect.  The Divine Intelligence is the government of our affairs.  Each has within himself this guide to truth, to reason, to beauty, to right action, to certainty and to peace.

Perfect Intelligence Directs My Thought

August 14 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

OTHER TEACHINGS FROM the NEW TESTAMENT
By Ernest Holmes

There Is No Condemnation (Romans 8:1)

""There is therefore now no condemnation to them...who walk...after the Spirit."  As it is impossible for us to be in another man, and as it is necessary that each live his own life, within the One Life, it follows that the writer was not referring to personality but to a universal Principle.

We are in Christ when we are in the Truth; we are in the Truth when we live in harmony with It.  There is no mystery about this.  It is common sense.  The law of the Spirit makes us free from sin and death.  The law of the Spirit is freedom, and knows no bondage.  When we enter the Spirit, we come under Its law of freedom.

"To be spiritually minded is life and peace."  Who does not long for life and peace?  These are contained in the Spirit, which is the center and circumference of all.  The carnal mind is not subject to the law of God because it is a limited concept of Truth.  The carnal mind symbolizes anything that disbelieves in the supremacy of Good; it is a belief in isolation, a sense of separation from good.

The Spirit That Raised Jesus (Romans 8:11)

The Spirit that raised Jesus dwells in all.  This Spirit quickens our mortal bodies when we let It.  Here is a lesson in mental and spiritual healing.  As the Truth dawns upon the subjective state of our thought, it stimulates it into newness of action.  Everything works from within out.  The body is a reflection of the soul and when the soul, which is the subjective state of thought, is illumined by the Spirit, it quickens the mortal part of us and heals the body.  The mortal is always an effect, a creature of time but a necessary one, for without it we could not function as objective individuals.

The Spirit of Adoption (Romans 8:15)

We have not received a spirit of bondage but one of adoption.  This is a mystical and beautiful saying.   It implies that we are adopted by the Supreme Spirit as Its own offspring.  How could it be otherwise, since we are made of the same stuff as the central fire?  There is no fear in the Spirit, and there will be none in us when we realize who and what we are.  God wishes us well and knows only that we are now free and perfect.  This is the spirit of freedom whereby we are all born free.

Joint Heirs with Christ (Romans 8:16, 17)

The inner Spirit, which is God, bears witness to the divine fact that we are the sons of God, the children of the Most High.  As sons of God, we are heirs to the heaven of reality; joint heirs with Christ.  This means that we are all one in Christ as we are one in God. Christ typifies the Universal Son, of which each is an individual member.

Our expectation looks for a more complete manifestation of our own inner divinity.  Evolution will bring this about, as it does all things.  We are an unfolding Principle of life, Truth, perfect law and action.  We wait for a more complete unfolding of our inner life.  It is already within, the perfect way and the eternal Truth.  We wait for the unfolding of ourselves, through the law inherent within our real nature."

August 7 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

OTHER TEACHINGS from the NEW TESTAMENT
By Ernest Holmes

The Law of Correspondents (Romans 1:20)

"This teaching incorporates the great law of correspondents.  The spiritual world contains an image of the physical; the physical is a counter part of the spiritual.  A true estimate of the outward symbol points to the spiritual reality behind it.

We understand the unseen by correctly viewing the seen.  The outward effect must partake of its inward nature.  The physical universe is the result of an inner Intelligence, working through Law.  Behind form is idea.  The Formless creates form, through the creative power of Its own Mind and Spirit.

Behind every effect there is a cause, and if this cause is a spiritual idea - which it must be - then it follows that should the spiritual idea be discerned, the physical effect would be like it.  The entire possibility of demonstrating the Law of Good depends upon this proposition.  The idea is father to the fact.  Ideas are real, having the power within themselves to be made manifest.

The whole teaching of the Bible is to the effect that God is Universal Spirit, and Universal Creation.  He creates by the power of His Word.  This Word is the law of His Being.  Man reproduces the Divine Nature on the scale of the individual.  He also uses creative power which works through the law of his word.  From this he cannot escape, he need only to use this power constructively and all will be well.  If he uses the creative power of his thought destructively, then it will destroy.

In the Science of Mind, we learn that persistent, constructive thought is the greatest power known and the most effective.  If the visible effect in our lives is not what it should be, if we are unhappy, sick and poverty stricken, we know the remedy.  The Truth is always the remedy, and the Truth is that the law of liberty is the only real law.  When we reverse the process of thought, the effect will be reversed."

July 31 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

FROM THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS

By Ernest Holmes

Abiding in the One (John 15:7)

“If ye abide in me and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.”

It is impossible for humanity to literally abide in the man Jesus, so we must look for a figurative meaning in these words.  He is speaking of the spirit of his teachings; and the whole spirit of his teachings is to the effect that man is an individualized center of God-Consciousness.  The spirit of man is the spirit of God, for God is One.

When we abide in the One, we cannot ask amiss, but we must ask for that which is right and good.  Consequently, our prayers to the One will be answered.  But let us remember that the prayer is answered according to the law, and this law is one of liberty and never one of license.  True liberty comes only through true harmony; true harmony only through true unity; and true unity can come only through the conscious realization that we are one with God or Good.

Jesus implies a power which can and will work for those who harmonize with, and believe in it.  But we must first abide in the Spirit of Truth.  And what is the spirit of Truth other than that we live in conscious unity with good and do harm to no one?  Goodness is natural, while evil is abnormal.

To trust in the law of good is to constantly believe that we are surrounded by a Power which can and will cast all fear from our minds, free us from all bondage, and set us safe and satisfied in a new order of living.

That Ye Bear Much Fruit (John 15:8)

“Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit.”  When we express a greater livinginess, then Life is more completely expressing Itself though us.  A barren tree does not express the principle of abundance and production, so a life barren of good does not fully express the divine ideal.

Evolution has brought man to a point of self-expression and it can do no more for him until he consciously co-operates with it.  Its law is one of growth and unfoldment.  God goes forth anew into creation whenever anyone discovers a new truth or increases knowledge about an old one.  Each is a center of the All, and each has access to the All, through his own nature.

Jesus refers to his joy on the eve of his greatest lesson to mankind.  That joy which is full and complete.  That joy which no man can take away:  the joy of a sense of completion.  He was about to lay down his earthly life, as the greatest object lesson ever taught.  And what was this lesson?  That LOVE knows no bounds and that the Eternal Goodness gives Itself to all.  God as man, in man, is man.”

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 17 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

MEDITATIONS for Self-Help

By Ernest Holmes

My Business

My business is directed by Divine Intelligence.

The All-Knowing Mind knows what to do and how to do it.

I do not hinder, but let It operate in my affairs.

It prospers and directs me and controls my life.

My affairs are managed by Love, and directed by Wisdom, 

and they cannot fail to prosper and expand.

My affairs are in His hands.

July 10 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

FROM THE TEACHING OF JESUS
By Ernest Holmes

God Can Only Give Us What We Take

"God cannot give us anything unless we are in a mental condition to receive the gift.  The Law cannot do anything for us unless it does it through us.  Belief is absolutely necessary to right demonstration.

We are on the path of experience, just waking to the real fact of our true being; as we awake, we find we are surrounded by many false conditions, but there is something within which remembers the real state.  If one will sit in quiet contemplation of good, as an inner experience, he will experience the good which he contemplates.  He can do this only as he turns from that which is evil and dwells on the good alone.  The Universe will not be divided.

The Universe Holds Nothing Against Us

The Universe holds nothing against us.  No matter how many mistakes we have made, we are still perfect beings within, and the within may become the without, if we will carefully train ourselves to listen to the inner voice of truth which speaks to us in our moments of quietness and solitude.

There is nothing in the Universe that wishes evil to anyone.  Indeed, it is only as we experience good that God is expressed through us.  The more completely we realize good, happiness and success, the more perfectly do we express God and the more of God do we become, that is, the more does God become personified through us.

As the prodigal returns to his father's house, so must we return, not with a morbid mind, but consciously and definitely, with direct intent and a complete concentration of purpose.  The journey back should be fraught with happiness and joyful expectation for we shall be met with a smile from the Universe and shall be folded in the arms of love forever.

The Eternal Completion

Substance and supply exist eternally in the Father's House; health, happiness and success are native to the Heavenly Home, and God Himself shall be our Host.  More we could not ask, more could not be given than that which has been given from the foundations of the Universe.

Discord, misery, and unhappiness are the result of a misuse of our true nature, the result of ignorance.  Ignorance of the law excuses no one from its effects; but knowledge clothes us in the seamless robe, while wisdom puts the ring of completion on our finger and understanding feeds us with the fat of the land.

No one who has tried this has failed; it would be impossible to do so.  If any have thought they have failed, let them realize that somewhere they have fallen short of the divine calling.  The Truth cannot fail, for it is God, the Absolute and Unconditioned One, who is the Truth.

Let us no longer fight the old; let us no longer remember that we were once on the outer rim; let us forget the past and live in the eternal present of God's happy smile.  Today is good; tomorrow will be even better, and that vista of tomorrows that stretches down the bright eternities of an endless future will all be good, for the nature of Reality cannot change."

June 30 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

GENERAL SUMMARY
By Ernest Holmes

"Conscious thought is the starting point of every new creation.  Trained thought is far more powerful than untrained since the admission that thought is power gives it added power.  This is one of the great secrets of Mental Science.  Conscious thought is the starting point.  The Subjective Law knows only to obey.  It can do nothing else.  It has no will of Its own.  We impress our will upon It.  We do not will, as though we were using an arbitrary force, we impress It.  We should be careful to differentiate between these two attitudes of mind.

The idea of a successful life will create success.  This idea will find objective form in the outer world of the one who holds to it with conviction.  It must first become established in the conscious mind.  It will then transmit itself into a subjective embodiment and when this happens success will become habitual.

If one does not know exactly what he wishes to do he should treat himself for general success in whatever he attempts to do.  He must treat himself for guidance into the knowledge of that which would be best for him to do, remembering that the Inner Mind knows infinitely more than the intellect.  It knows how to take ideas and form objective circumstances around them.  Naturally the sooner we know just what we wish to do the quicker we shall create the mental images that are definite and the Creative Mind can more quickly set to work to carry out our plans for us.

The objective mind alone may consciously decide what is to happen.  All subjective decisions are merely conclusions built on already accepted premises, ideas or thought patterns.  The conscious mind may change these thought patterns and thereby cause a different flow of energy and intelligence toward the objective of its desires.  The Spirit alone has the power of real self-expression and true volition.  This is why we call the conscious part of mind, the Spirit of man; the conscious Mind of the Universe, the Spirit of God.

Remember that when you use your subjective mind you are using the Creative Power of the Universe.  For the two are really one.  There is but One Mind, whether It be individual or Universal.  Remember also that Mind in its conscious state is Spirit, whether we think of It as in man or in God, that is, whether we think of It as individual or Universal.  Mind in its unconscious or subjective state is the Law of cause and effect.  The Law of cause and effect of Itself is not an entity but is the way that we use the great Law of all life.  From this viewpoint any particular effect may be changed by altering our thought relationship to the fundamental Law which gives rise to lesser causes and effects.  This we cannot do while we look only to that which is limited or already in form.  We DEAL WITH THE FORMLESS.

We must consciously know that we can use creative power. The more complete such acceptance on our part, the more completely we shall be able to use this power for definite purposes.  We should develop a conscious conviction of our ability to know and to understand the way that the mind works.  We shall not be able to do this while we listen to those who deny us, or themselves, the privileges we wish to enjoy.  No one ever yet found a living soul in a dead body or learned that affirmations of life and health will become beneficial by denying any power to them.

If, at times, we doubt our ability to  use the law, we should again remind ourselves that it is not I but the Spirit of the Father in me who doeth the work.  This will straighten our thought and place us again on the road of faith and understanding.  WE MUST BELIEVE.  WE MUST LEARN HOW TO BELIEVE.  WE SHOULD TREAT OURSELVES UNTIL WE DO BELIEVE.  No one every started at the top.  Let us be happy to begin right where we are and grow."

June 2 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

Physical Perfection - Concluded ~ Ernest Holmes

What Can Be Healed?

"What should we try to heal through spiritual treatment?  If we were dealing only with the power of a thought, we should not expect to heal anything; but if we are dealing with a Universal Principle, why should we set any limit to Its power?

Since the Law of God is Infinite, from the spiritual viewpoint, there is no incurable disease, as opposed to a curable one.  The Law knows nothing about disease; It only acts.  The practitioner realizes that this word is the presence, power and activity of Truth, which is in him, which is Almighty, which is God, "beside which there is none other."

This word is the law unto the thing whereunto it is spoken, and has within itself the ability, the power, and the intelligence to execute itself, through the great Law of all life.  This word being the spontaneous recognition of Living Spirit - Infinite, Ever-Present, and Active - is now made manifest in and through this person, or thing, about which the practitioner is thinking.

To Spirit there can be no incurable disease.  The word "incurable" means not susceptible of being cured.  The root definition of cured is "cared for."  If we say that a disease is incurable, we are saying that it is not sensitive to care.   As long as any cell is alive it is sensitive to care, which means that as long as a person is alive, the cells of the body respond to care.  Naturally, they are not being cured if they are not being property cared for.  We have already learned that disease is largely a state of mind, and we could hardly say that a state of mind is incurable, could we?  We know that thought is constantly changing, forever taking on new ways of expression.  It cannot possibly remain permanent.  It has to change.  Can we not, accordingly, change it to a better state instead of to a worse?

Materia medica is using the term "incurable" less and less frequently, for most disease in the field of medicine is being cured.  Let us then free ourselves from the assumption that any disturbed state of thought need be permanent ("incurable")."

May 25 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

The Medium of Healing ~ Ernest Holmes

"The thing to remember is, that THERE IS JUST ONE SUBJECTIVE MIND IN THE UNIVERSE.  This is a point that people often do not realize, and because they do not, they cannot see how a person may be treated without touching him, or that a person at a distance can be helped through absent treatment.  If there is but One Subjective Mind in the Universe (and we have already learned the meaning and nature of Subjective Mind:  It is the deductive, receptive, plastic, neutral, impersonal and creative, It is the Stuff from which all things are made) you can impress upon It a certain image of thought, or a certain process of realization, and you will get a result, for It is the Actor.

When we speak of every thought dropped into the Creative Medium, do we think of God's thought and man's thought as the same?  We think of each as thought; but, whereas man thinks both inductively and deductively, God thinks only deductively.

God is not conscious of matter as we know it.  God is conscious of form but not of size.  God is conscious of manifestation but not of space.  God is conscious of outline but not of limitation.  God is conscious in many forms, but not as division.

There is a great difference between conscious and unconscious thought for trained thought is far more powerful than untrained.  If this were not true, the thoughts of the metaphysical practitioner could not neutralize those which caused his patient to be sick.  Even a small amount of right thought puts to rout that which is wrong.

We have learned that Subjective Mind can deduce only, that It cannot of Itself initiate anything; but this does not mean that It is unintelligent.  We must be very careful not to labor under the delusion that because Subjective Mind cannot reason, It is unintelligent, for It is infinitely more intelligent than our present state of conscious mind, but is, nevertheless, controlled by it.

If our subjective consciousness were always clear, if it never received false impressions, the Spirit would always flow to the point of objectivity, and we would never make mistakes, would never be sick, poor or unhappy.

The Universe being deductive only, cannot refuse man anything.   The very force which makes us sick can heal us, the force which makes us poor can enrich us, and the power which makes us miserable can make us happy.  If this were not true, there would be a duality in the Universe and this is impossible.

You do not need to look for a law of health as opposed to a law of disease, for there is only One Law.  This gives a great sense of relief since it means that THERE IS NO POWER TO OPPOSE A TREATMENT.  We are bound by our very freedom, our free will binds us, but as free will creates the conditions which externally limits us, so it can uncreate or dissolve them.  Instead of saying, "Here is a sick man to heal, and I shall have to work hard on this case," we should realize that there is nothing but Spirit in the Universe and, therefore, say, "I am going to conceive of this man as being Spirit, and the same power which made him sick will heal him."

People often say:  "It must be a drain on one to treat so many people.  I should think the practitioner's will-power would become exhausted."  This is a misconception.  Our reference to "free will" means merely the matter of self-choosing, the matter of deciding what we shall think.  WILL-POWER HAS NOTHING WHATEVER TO DO WITH MENTAL HEALING!  Its use would imply that the practitioner exercises a personal thought force over his patient.  This is a false suggestion, which is always some form of hypnotism.  Knowing our Oneness with God and the Creative Medium, Law, our treatments are free from any thought of control.

All thoughts of doubt concerning one's ability to heal, come from the belief that it is the personality and not the Law which does the healing.  Never say:  "I am not good enough to heal," or "I do not know enough to heal."  Know that you are dealing with the Law, It is the Actor.  Recognize all such arguments as some form of suggestion, and refuse to let them operate through you.  YOU CAN HEAL, but you must know that you can!  The day will come, and is rapidly approaching, when the entire world will believe the truth, because of the great neutralizing power which right thought is exercising upon the race consciousness.

The reason people do not get better results is that they do not understand that Principle works independently...the Truth demonstrates Itself!"

May 19 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

Healing is Clear Thinking ~ Ernest Holmes

"Scientific mental healing is the result of clear thinking and logical reasoning, which presents itself to consciousness and is acted upon by Mind.  It is a systematic process of reasoning, which unearths the mental cause or idea underlying disease, and presents the Truth about man's being.

For instance, say to yourself:  "God is all there is.  There is only One Life."  When you are treating, if there is any slight point which is not clear, do not continue with the treatment.  Stop at once, go back to your analysis of Ultimate Reality and build your whole argument upon It, in order to get a clear consciousness.

Repeat:  "God is All.  There is but One Power, Intelligence and Consciousness in the Universe, but One Presence.  This One Presence cannot change into but Itself.  It is Changeless, and It is my life now, It is in me now."  Claim that no form of race-suggestion, belief in limitation, subjective idea of limitation, thought of karma, fatalism, theology or hell, horoscope, or any other false belief, has power.  Accept none of them.  If you have ever believed in them, if you have ever believed that the stars govern you, or that your environment governs you, or that your opportunities govern you, recognize this as an hypnotic condition into which you have fallen, and deny every one of them until there is no longer anything in you that believes in them.

This is a good way to clear your consciousness.  We can readily see what it does:  it induces a clear concept of Reality, which must reproduce Itself.  This process of clear thinking, if carried out every day, will heal.

When you are giving a treatment, you are thinking.  You are meeting, opposing, neutralizing, erasing and obliterating suppression, fear, doubt, failure, morbid emotion and sense of loss - whatever the trouble may be.  Every time your thought hits fairly and squarely, it erases just as definitely as one would erase a chalk line.  Such is the mystery of the appearance and the disappearance of thought."

May 16 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

Who Would Save His Life Shall Lose It ~ Ernest Holmes
(Based on Matt. 16:24-27) 

"This is another of those mystical sayings of Jesus which must be carefully considered before accepting it.  Does God demand that we give up everything if we are to enter the Kingdom of Heaven?  Of course not!  To suppose that God wills us to be limited, is to contradict the Divine Nature.  God's only will is to Be, and for all to Be, for God can conceive of man only as part of Himself.

It must be, then, that what we are to lose is the sense of living apart from Life.  We find ourselves in the Divine Idea, immersed in the Infinite Godhead, one with the Perfect Whole.  But should we think that we, of ourselves, without this relationship rightly established, can be, or can express, then we cut the cord that binds us to the main power line and lose what little power we have.

We are powerful only as we unite with Power.  We are weak when we desert this Power.  Not because God is jealous, but because this is the way things work.  The idea of a false renunciation - of the given up of all pleasure and benefits in this life - is not even suggested in the teachings of Jesus.  Self-effacement, the neglect of the body, the belief that we must be unhappy and poor in order to serve the Truth, all these are immature ideas which deny the divine birthright of the soul, the incarnated Spirit of the Most High within us.

When we are willing to lose a personal sense of responsibility; when we let go of the thought of isolation and claim a real unity with God, then we lose the personal and find the Universal.  But remember, as the greater always includes the lesser, so the Universal always includes the personal, which is a personification of Itself.

Man is to lose the small estimate of himself, the isolated person, and is to find the greater reality, the incarnated and real ego.  The image of the Father cannot be defaced nor can all the wit or the sham of man really obliterate this image.  The Eternal Light is God, and this Light illumines the pathway of the personal when there are no obstructions.

Who leans on the Truth, throwing all - with an undivided attention - on the scales of Reality, will find them balanced rightly, through the great law of compensation, which weighs and measures everything exactly as it is.

Fasting and Prayer ( Matt. 17:21)

We are not to suppose that the physical act of fasting, or the metaphysical act of prayer, can move the throne of grace to a kindness which is otherwise withheld.  God plays no favorites and the Law of the Universe cannot reverse Its own nature.  Fasting and prayer often do bring our thought closer to Reality, not because of the fasting or the prayer, but because they open up greater fields of receptivity in our minds.

If one wishes to embody an ideal and is willing to give up all else to attain it, then he is fasting and praying!  He is sublimating an old idea with a new and a better one. If he is willing to abstain from the old and cling to the new, then he is giving greater reality to the new, and in this way contacting the Law from a more affirmative angle.

A steadfast determination to attain some purpose, the letting go of all that opposes it, a complete reliance upon the Law of Good, and an unqualified trust in Spirit - this is true fasting and real prayer.

The scientist, in profound thought and meditation before his problem - deserting all to solve it - is praying a true prayer to the principle of his science.  The poet, waiting in the silence of his own soul for inspiration, is praying that he may invoke the spirit of poetry to his listening ear.  The sculptor, chiseling at his marble, contemplating the beauty to be brought forth, prays to his god of art; and the farmer, kneeling beside his cabbage patch, trusts in the natural Law of Good to bring his seed to harvest.

We live in a fasting and praying world, but often we do not read the signs aright.  We are too used to the outward sign to realize its inward significance.  The world is much better than it knows or feels itself to be.

Healing the Lunatic (Matt. 17:14-19)

What majesty and might do we see in the calm words of Jesus!  "Bring him hither to me."  No doubt is here, no sense of approaching failure, no lack of trust in the perfect Law which governs all.  "And Jesus rebuked the devil; and he departed out of him."

Surely this lesson should teach us that evil is but an obsession and - from the standpoint of eternal Reality - a complete illusion.  Could we cast out evil from our thought if evil were a real entity or had actual power?  The answer is self-evident, we could not.  Evil flees before Reality and to the mind which knows it, evil is not."

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."