How to Use the Science of Mind: Principle in Practice

by Ernest Holmes, Katherine D. D. Lewis (Foreword by)

Overview

Everything You Need to Know about How to Use One of Today's Most Powerful Philosophies!

"We go in search of that which we already possess, but are not using." So says Ernest Holmes, author of THE SCIENCE OF MIND and founder of the philosophy of Religious Science. God is not far away, but is within ourselves, other people, and everywhere present. Why then, do we fall prey to unwanted conditions - illness, financial lack, relationship difficulties, loneliness and problems of every kind? Written as a manual for the practical applications of the principles set forth in The Science of Mind, this book takes the original philosophy of "change your thinking, change your life," and explains a clear and definite scientific method of prayer that can help you overcome life's obstacles.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780917849428
Publisher:	Center for Spiritual Living
Publication date:	12/01/1984
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	120
File size:	343 KB

About the Author

Dr. Ernest Holmes (1887-1960) is known to millions as a great leader and teacher; and to even more as the author of many inspirational books and tapes, such as Creative Mind, This Thing Called Life, and The Science of Mind. A teacher, writer, and lecturer; Dr. Holmes founded the Science of Mind philosophy in 1927, and regularly appeared on television and radio. His signature saying, “There is a power greater than you in the universe, and you can use it,” became well known over the years. By taking a clear and simple approach in researching the wisdom of the ages from many disciplines, Ernest Holmes developed a practical, spiritual approach to living an abundant life and created the Science of Mind. Since early 1900's, the Science of Mind Textbook has been the cornerstone to Religious Science churches around the world.

Read an Excerpt

How to Use the Science of Mind

Principle in Practice

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By ERNEST HOLMES

SCIENCE OF MIND PUBLISHING

Copyright © 2009 Science of Mind Publishing
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-917849-42-8

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CHAPTER 1

INDIVIDUALIZING UNIVERSAL POWER

SPIRIT IS THE CREATIVE CAUSE BACK OF AND WITHIN EVERYTHING. God is not a spirit, but the Spirit. This one Spirit is the spirit of all people. A philosophy of unity permits many mentalities but only one Mind, innumerable individualized points in the creative consciousness of an Absolute which always remains one, undivided and indivisible unity.

It is because the Mind of God, which is the creative mind of the universe, flows through man that man's thought is creative. It is because of man's nature and not his will that his thought is creative. Who by taking thought — as though he were independent of the universal Mind to do anything — who "by taking thought" can change his spiritual nature or "add one cubit" to its stature?

Man has a mentality. He has a spirit in the sense that the Spirit is individualized through him, but this spirit is not separate from God, for God as man, in man, is man. Man is individual while God is universal. The Universal individualizes Itself in the individual. "The highest God and the innermost God is one God." This One includes man.

Man is an individualized center of Divine Thought and through him the Original Thinker is finding a fresh starting point for Its creative power. Therefore, without violating universal or natural laws, the mind of man steps in to specialize or make personal use of them.

Man, then, is given power over his own life. He cannot alter the laws of nature, but he can so alter his relationship to them that that which had bound him may now free him. He has been given the prerogative of spontaneous thinking. He has been given the ability to initiate a new chain of causation. He announces his own activity. This activity is an activity of the Divine Mind operating through him. It is the original creative Cause doing something new through him.

There is but one Mind and we use It. The laws of nature are universal. Our use of them is individual and personal. This is the secret of spiritual mind practice. Our thought is operated on by a universal creativity which is infinite in its capacity to accomplish. Thus, in taking thought we do not force anything, we merely decide what thought to follow, knowing that the result is automatic.

This idea of the oneness of God is not a philosophy of absorption or annihilism. We do not become absorbed in the universal Self to the loss of individuality. Quite the opposite. We find ourselves, not absorbed, but immersed, in a universality, each one being a unique, individual and different manifestation of that which itself is one, undivided, indivisible and whole,

We cannot think of the Spirit as static, but as forever unfolding Its divine nature. It is doing this in the physical universe independently of our personal thought. In our personal lives It must do this through our thinking. In such degree as our thinking is in accord with the original Nature, the same orderly procession of harmonious ideas will operate in our affairs that are already operating in that larger world which we experience but neither create nor control. This leaves us individual freedom within the law of universal harmony, individual will within a universal coordinating will.

As all deep spiritual thinkers have announced, and right, we soon come to realize that wherever the individual will is contrary to, or in opposition to, this universal coordinating will, it detaches itself from the source of its power, it goes alone and soon becomes exhausted. On the other hand, wherever the individual will links itself up with the universal harmony, it becomes a spontaneous proclamation of that harmony, now individualized.

In spiritual practice we follow the stream of the individual life back to the original Source from which it emerged and in which it still lives, moves and has its being. This is an important part of our treatment, to connect the Universal with the individual, and the individual with the Universal.

Instead of denying that God is personal to each, we should emphasize such personalness. It is one of the chief cornerstones of this spiritual philosophy. Each individual life is a unique expression of the universal Wholeness. No two lives can or ought to be alike. The one universal Life glows through everything. We give individual expression to It.

Life can do for us only what It does through us. We are like an artist who sets up his canvas on a shore, wishing to paint a marine scene. Because he is an individual, he will interpret the scene in the light of his own consciousness. He might think, "I want seagulls in this picture. I want a boat in the distance. I want children playing on the shore. And through it all I want a great sense of peace, calm and beauty.

He is giving individual expression to this particular scene. He meditates on the beauty and the peace he wishes to portray and adds the personal thoughts that come to him. No other person ever did or ever can catch the same expression that he does on this particular canvas. It will be unique. He is not robbing God of His peace or beauty. He is merely expressing it as he experiences it within himself in relationship to this particular scene.

We are always specializing the Law of cause and effect for some purpose. Mostly we are doing this unconsciously. Now we must learn to bring our thoughts and purposes into line with the original harmony. In doing this we should not be afraid that we are usurping the Divine Will any more than a farmer would be afraid that he is going contrary to the laws of nature or the will of God when he decides to plant corn instead of cotton. The necessity of choosing is ordained by the very nature of our being, and we cannot escape it.

We are at liberty to choose what manner of life we shall live. We should feel that in this choice we are backed by all the will, all the purpose and all the law in the universe. Our reliance is on this law and order. It is the creative agency of all life and at the same time our use of it is personal and individual.

Here is all the freedom one could ask for and all the freedom that the Divine Mind itself could possibly have given us — the freedom to act as an individual, the freedom to give full rein to our creative imagination, the freedom to do this, at least temporarily, in such a way as to produce discord instead of harmony; and more important, the freedom to produce harmony instead of discord.

If we couple with this the idea that no one can harm another without ultimately hurting himself, that God alone can finally win, we shall see that when any individual's consciousness is in tune with the Infinite he need no longer ask, "Does God wish me to be happy or whole?" or, "Does the Law of Good desire me to have this thing which I desire?" He need merely ask, "Can I conceive of this as being done? Am I certain that my desire is in line with good? If it is, nothing is against me and everything is for me."

The Divine Mind does not necessarily contain a mental blueprint of everything the individual is going to do. It does, however, contain the possibility of all individual action. When anyone conceives a new idea, thinks up a new plan for procedure, which is in accord with the Divine Nature, the God Himself is going forth anew into creation through that individual. And that person may, and should, expect that all the power and al the presence there is will creatively flow through his individual word because he has complied with the fundamental law of harmony governing all life.

This should be particularly interesting to an inventor, an artist, a writer, or anyone who is introducing new ideas into the world. In actual practice he trains his mind to listen to the Divine Harmony. He affirms that this Divine Harmony is now operating through his own intelligence, governing it, directing it, stimulating it into action. He so formulates this thoughts and ideas that they will in no way detract from this Divine Harmony. He can test them easily enough by being certain that they are life giving, that there is nothing in them that could rob or hurt anything that lives.

When we say there is one Cause back of all manifest form, one Intelligence back of all consciousness, and one Spirit within all men, we are not denying the reality of created forms or individual experience. We are affirming the unity of all life, a unity which includes all variety. Unity passes into variety and multiplicity without division. In each creation Life brings Its whole nature to bear upon that Individual expression. Thus every man's life not only has God, but all of God, back of, within and through him.

The significance of this we but dimly perceive, yet, by some interior awareness which all people possess, we sense the Divine Presence and know that we are part of It. Everyone should feel an intimate relationship with the Spirit. This has been the essence and the vitality of all religious convictions throughout the ages. No matter how crude they may have been, they have been built on a solid, substantial, permanent and changeless Reality.

Everyone needs the warmth and color, the imagination and feeling of a sense of intimacy with the creative Spirit. Our intellect yearns toward It as naturally as a rose turns to the sun. In spiritual mind healing it is important that we sense infinite Personalness back of, in and through everyone. Without this our work would have no warmth or color. It would be without feeling, therefore, unproductive, uncreative, dead.

Listening to the Divine Presence, desiring only that which is right, the practitioner of spiritual mind science must know that he is using a Law of cause and effect which is immutable. It knows how to do anything. It knows how to take his thoughts and ideas and actually project them into specific conditions. These conditions will automatically correspond to his mental acceptance, to his real, actual and embodied subjective acceptance and identification.

Man not only has a right to individualize creative power, nature has imposed this necessity upon him. He has no choice other than to use this creative power. His thought will always be creative, whether he knows it or not. The creativity of man's thought has nothing to do with his will or his belief; it is here just as nature is here. It is the use of a creative power that man has control over, not the thing itself.

The conscious use of spiritual power is the finest of arts because it has deep feeling. It is the greatest of all intellectual perceptions because it is the most penetrating. It is religious in that its whole thought is based on the intimate relationship of the Spirit with everything that is. It is scientific in that it deals with law and order.

We should accept this proposition and see what we can do with it. Have we enough conviction to turn from negative conditions and mentally contemplate their opposites? Can we turn from poverty and want to the acceptance of abundance? Can we turn from sickness to a belief in health? Can we turn from unhappiness to happiness? Can we shut out discord long enough to contemplate harmony? And have we the courage to proceed on this basis?

The effective practitioner in this science has the will to try, the courage to make the attempt, the faith to believe in himself because he has confidence in the Law of Good. The simplicity of this conviction is enhanced when he realizes he has nothing to change outside himself.

CHAPTER 2

LAW OF MIND IN ACTION

MIND TAKES FORM THROUGH THE LAW OF ITS OWN BEING. This is a law in nature, and, like all such laws, must be accepted. Unless one had a deep conviction that there is a principle of mind which operates from thought to thing, through a definite law, he would have no principle to demonstrate and no method to use.

We cannot separate thoughts from things and hope to demonstrate things through thinking. This is the most subtle thing about mental treatment. One must have a deep conviction that the word is operated on by a spiritual law. The practitioner works with ideas. He theoretically resolves things into thoughts and works in the realm of mind only, with no sense of personal responsibility, because the Law is the doer.

The practitioner makes his declarations and knows that a Power acts on them. He does not put the power into the Law. He takes it out. This spiritual realization now becomes law, acting independently of any existing circumstances, and being able to create new circumstances out of itself. This he must know.

The spiritual mind practitioner is in an identical position with any other person who uses a law of nature. Everyone expects to comply with laws if he hopes to use them. The Law of Mind demands, by Its very nature, that we affirmatively believe in and accept Its operation. It would be useless to argue why this is so, just as it would be useless to argue why there is a law of gravitation. These laws exist and all scientific advance is based on the supposition that any law of nature will respond to us when we comply with it.

When Jesus said that we should believe even before we receive, he was explaining the operation of the mental Law of cause and effect. If nothing is believed in It, then nothing is acted upon by It. But since there is such a Law, and since we are always believing something, the Law will always be operating upon what we believe, in the way we believe it. It is not that we introduce a new law, but that we bring the Law we are always using under conscious control, whether it be for ourselves or for someone else.

A practitioner is one who uses this Law for himself and for others. He uses It definitely, consciously and actively. His experience teaches him that implicit confidence and faith in the Law are the chief requirements for Its effective use. The experience of thousands has demonstrated this fact. And we can accept it. This is what we would do in dealing with other natural laws, and the Law of Mind in action is a natural law.

The Law is set in motion consciously. Its reaction is mechanical and mathematical. In such degree as one sees harmony instead of discord, he will demonstrate this harmony without having to create it. This is of utmost importance. Literally, man creates nothing at all, he merely uses creative forces. His obligation, having discovered the way laws work, is to use them intelligently. The responsibility for what is to take place is always in the law. Therefore, spiritual mind practice calls not only for definite attention and active awareness, but equally for a sort of relaxation because of implicit confidence in the Law.

Quite the reverse to the popular concept of holding thoughts, this calls for thinking them and then loosing them into the Law. The only will power used in the process — if it could be called will power — is a determination to keep the thought clear, to think about what ought to happen rather than about what ought not to happen, to be actively aware of harmony rather than discord, to believe that good will always overcome evil as light dissipates darkness.

There must be a calm confidence in our treatment. It is active but poised, conscious but balanced, definitely directed but not pushed into place. All declarations, all affirmations, all denials, all statements made in a treatment are for the sole purpose of clarifying the consciousness of the one who gives it.

The treatment for a person is definitely directed for that person, not to him but for him. Here is one of the main differences between psychology and metaphysics. There is but one mental Law of all life. The one who practices spiritual mind healing knows that he is directing It for a definite purpose but not pushing It out toward that purpose. What the Law of Mind knows in one place It knows simultaneously and instantly everywhere. It is equally distributed and everywhere present and Its manifestation appears at the point of our direction.

This practice is not mental coercion, it is not mental suggestion. It is mental awareness, a spiritual awareness of the mind. The mind is giving its consent. The mind is endeavoring to see the result already accomplished, to believe that it is already done.

Since the action of the Law is automatic and responds by corresponding, or manifests through reflection, we need never wonder whether or not It operates. What we should pay attention to is our own inward awareness, building up an expectancy, increasing faith, stretching consciousness out, as it were, to include more.

Everything that is known about the Law of Mind substantiates the claim that a right state of consciousness can sublimate or transmute a negative state of consciousness. It is necessary that the spiritual mind practitioner assume authority in his work. His authority is the knowledge that the Law enforces Itself.

In actual practice, when a wrong condition does not seem to change it may be necessary to resort to a process of gradual conversion of thought from fear into faith. The scientific mind practitioner will not hesitate to do this when it is necessary. He looks upon the process, not as the thing itself, but as a way of arriving. The pathway is not the goal, but it helps him arrive at the goal.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from How to Use the Science of Mind by ERNEST HOLMES. Copyright © 2009 Science of Mind Publishing. Excerpted by permission of SCIENCE OF MIND PUBLISHING.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Contents

Foreword,
Introduction,
Individualizing Universal Power,
Law of Mind in Action,
Technique for Practice,
Words Used in Treatment,
Function of Faith,
Spiritual Awareness,
The Practitioner Speaks with Authority,
Spiritual Cause and Physical Effect,
Activity of Right Ideas,
Effect of Race Thought,
Subjective Thought Patterns,
Time Element in Treatment,
Relationship of Practitioner to Patient,