This Thing Called You...Chapter 10

This Thing Called You...Chapter 10 

"Who loses his life shall find it." Since the whole teaching of Jesus was that God is Life, he could not have meant that you should actually lose your life, but that you should let go of the lesser in order to experience the greater. This is not a bad bargain. If you lose a sense of unhappiness, you will become happy. If you lose a sense of confusion, you will be at peace. If you could become consciously and subjectively aware, even for one moment, of your true spiritual perfection, there would come such a conversion of your mind as instantly to heal your physical body. 

This is not the easiest thing to do. When you are in pain it is difficult to affirm peace. When you are in want it is hard to affirm abundance. But this is the true meaning of losing your life. What you lose is a false sense of being. You are trading the unreal for the real, the false for the true. If you wish to be happy, take all unhappiness out of your mind and bury it. If you want God, stop thinking about the devil. If you wish to live in the kingdom of heaven, forget hell. 

You are to find the roots of your life in pure Spirit, to see the basic unity of all— the fundamental, mathematical and logical necessity of such a unity. Lose your sense of being separated from your good and you will find that you are united with it. This is the secret you have with the God who is ever with you. He already knows what you are trying to find out. The next time any obstacle appears on your path, try to realize that it is not an entity, person or self-created condition. It is not true to the larger Life within you. Satisfy your mind that it is not a thing in itself. Cease fighting it and begin to realize its opposite. Know there are no obstructions in Spirit and that you already are Spirit. Begin to identify yourself with the Truth which knows no obstruction. Begin to claim your divine inheritance. Say: 

I know there is no negation in God. I know that God is always right where I am. I know that at the center of my being there is a positive affirmation of life. My word erases anything within me that denies the presence of this Life. There is One Life, that Life is God, that Life is my life now. There is nothing in me that can deny the presence of this Life. Everything within me affirms Its presence. I have an inward sense and feeling of this Divine Presence at all times. 

When everyone believed the world to be flat, they did not flatten the round world. When one man made up his mind that the world was really round, he did not resist the flat world because he knew there was no such world. He set out to sail around the world he knew to be round. Through his act of faith, he discovered the truth about the round world. The fear and superstition of others did not deter him. The accumulated experience of the race could not bind him. The belief that the unknown oceans were filled with monsters did not frighten him. He knew the world was round and that he could sail around it. 

You have discovered the spiritual universe. Many others have discovered this same world, but each must make the discovery for himself. You are going to have a lot of joy sailing around this world of yours. Don't fight the opinions of others, or waste your time arguing over these things. Follow the inward gleam of your consciousness and you will arrive. 

Whatever you identify yourself with you will become like. Whatever you resist until you make it a reality, you will also become Like. Therefore, ". . .resist not evil and it will flee from you." Don't fight your fears, see through them. There is nothing in God's world to be afraid of. Say: 

I know there is a spiritual center within me which is perfect. I am now telling my own consciousness automatically to ward off any thoughts of doubt or uncertainty. I sense that every state of doubt, every consciousness of negation is leaving me. Every doubt is being converted into certainty. Fear is being converted into faith. I have an abiding sense of happiness and peace. I am the very essence of peace. I have an inward confidence in my oneness with Good. I rest in sublime trust. 

Jesus spent little time in negative thought—only enough to see through it, to reverse the false sense of life with a true realization of man's union with God. This glorious figure, like a shaft of light, shot across the bewildered consciousness of man, proving every claim he made, leaving behind him a breath of heaven, fragrant with love. As he identified himself with the Source of his being, so you must identify yourself with that Spirit which is ever with you. 

Remember the little boy who brought a few loaves and fishes, all the food there was in that vast multitude crying out for bread. The disciples of Jesus identified the possibility of being fed only with the meagre amount in the boy's pocket. Jesus identified the loaves and fishes with Eternal Substance, forever flowing, manna from heaven. Does not the boy symbolize a childlike faith and expectancy, the vision so newly born from the Kingdom of God? Can you not imagine his countenance shining with joy, his eyes glistening with inward vision? Can you not imagine his enthusiasm as he passed his small offering into the hands of love which multiplied his idea through God's law of abundance? 

Jesus and the little boy had faith, the childlike consciousness which had not been caught in the prison walls of experience—the little boy, and the man who had grown to full spiritual stature. Giving thanks, the bread was broken, the loaves were multiplied, the fish were distributed, the multitude was fed.

Nothing has happened to Reality since that little boy brought the loaves and fishes to Jesus. God has not changed, nature has not changed, law has not changed, truth has not changed. Where shall you look for this man and this little boy, for the loaves and fishes? Jesus took the multitude out in the desert. There was no food there, no bakeries. It was far from the shores where fish were caught. Shall you not also look to the desert place of your own thought where it seems most unlikely that you will find substance?

Perhaps the little boy is still standing there with outstretched hands and glistening eyes. Perhaps you are that boy. The man is there also—the man of Divine Wisdom, the God-intended man. Let the little boy hand the few loaves and fishes to this Divine Man within you, while the intellect gives thanks and the Spirit performs its miracle of love. 

Your search is after something great enough to lose your littleness in, something within you worthy of immortality and eternal expansion. The world has not looked for God where He may be found. Here is the great secret. There is only one God, one Divine Mind. This One is undivided, hence all of It is present everywhere. 

God is not only where you are, He is what you are. In a sense, you might say, “Since God is all there is, the only Presence there is, and since the Spirit is manifest through everything, then everything I see is a manifestation of God. That within me which enables me to see, know and understand this, also is God. Since God does not go in search after Himself, I need no longer go in search after Him. Rather, I shall now live and think from the union which I already have." Say: 

There is That within me which knows. I am not only one with this Power, this Power is actually flowing through me now. I am not only unified with the Divine Presence around me, this Presence is my presence. It is the presence of my real and true self. I am forever one with Life. 

Your endeavor is not to locate the Divine Presence or awaken the activity of the Law. It is, rather, to become aware of this Presence and of Its activity flowing through you. 

It will be well to consider the difference between outlining and choosing. As an individual, you have the right to choose. Being an individual, you cannot escape the necessity of choice. You are not an automaton. You are not a mental mechanism. You are not merely an aggregation of mental reactions. You are a person, a divine being in your own right. The Spirit has set the stamp of individuality upon Itself and called it you. What God has done you cannot undo. When you think, it is the Divine Mind in you willing Itself into action, thinking Itself into manifestation, realizing Itself as the object of Its own thought. 

You do the choosing, the Law does the outlining. This is the distinction between choice and outline. If you choose to plant a tomato seed you have chosen a tomato plant, but you do not outline how many leaves shall grow on the plant, how many stalks it shall have. That belongs to the Law of cause and effect. 

When you say, "I know that the Divine Intelligence is attracting certain conditions to me," and when you have affirmed your union with good, you can go about the business of everyday life with no sense of anxiety, knowing that the Law is working for you. The Law can only operate on your images of thought since the Law is a doer and not a knower. Therefore, it is up to you to keep these images clear that they may reflect themselves in the Law, which is a mirror. Say: 

The Kingdom of God, the Glory of God, is here and now. I am forever a part of Its being. The perfect Law of God is now operating in my affairs. There is no strain, stress or fear in my life. I am in the presence of radiant Joy, of Divine Love and perfect Power. 

You have been told that you should fast and pray. Perhaps true fasting is a determination no longer to entertain negative thoughts, perhaps it means continually to be affirming the good. The act of physical fasting is merely a symbol of this inward grace. The need for the symbol disappears when you understand its meaning. It is a good practice to fast, so far as the negative is concerned, and feast on affirmations only. Why not fast from the idea of lack and feast on the idea of abundance? 

In no way does this mean that you need to withdraw from the world and its activities. You should enter into these activities with a new sense of reality, with a penetrating spiritual vision which sees through the effect to its cause and knows this cause to be good. You will be practicing an uncommon common sense, a spiritual common sense, so rare and so creative that the only man who ever completely tried it was mistaken for God. 

It is certain that you must fast from fear if you wish to establish faith. You must fast from confusion if you hope to enter into tranquility. It matters not if your transition from the negative into the affirmative seems slow, if the ascent from your valley of negation to the mountain top of realization seems difficult. Each step will bring you nearer the summit. 

There is a Divine awareness within you which will lead you upward and onward. Prepare yourself for the ascent, then, filling your mental life with spiritual realization. Your bread is manna from heaven, your meat the living word, your fruit the inspiration of hope, your wine the essence of joy. Say: 

I am aware of the Divine within me. Peace, quiet and confidence flow through my thought. I know that inspiration and guidance are mine. I permit myself to be moved upon by Divine Intelligence. Laying aside every sense of burden or false responsibility, loosening all fear and uncertainty from my thought, I enter into my kingdom of good today. I know that this kingdom is accessible to all. 

You should always expect instantaneous and permanent results from your treatments. Unless you expect such results, you cannot attain them, since your denial of such results would be using the Law in reverse. Practice a complete abandonment to faith. This you must do for yourself. No one else can do it for you. If someone else could do this for you, you would not be you, you would be someone else. You cannot live outside yourself and no one can live for you. You alone can be yourself. Every great soul has known this. This is the greatest of all truths, the apex of all summits. Say: 

I see through all physical and mental obstructions to the one perfect Presence within me. I see through all apparent contradictions to the one perfect Being in every person. I see through all confusion to the one Divine Presence at the center of everything. 

When you say that your body is spiritual, you are not denying your physical body. The physical is included within, and is part of, the spiritual universe. You do not say, "I have no eyes, or feet, or stomach." They are part of the spiritual body. 

God's world is not a world of illusion but of realities. Everything that is exists for the purpose of expressing Life. You are able to recognize the things around you because they are in the same Mind in which you live, the one Mind which is everywhere present. This means the Presence in everything—a tree, a rose, everything in nature, your own physical body. Nothing can be excluded from this omnipresence. It was this Presence that Moses communed with by the burning bush, the Divine Flame which surrounded the bush with an aura of light and color. This flame of Divinity penetrates everything.

If the Spirit has seen fit to express Itself through a physical universe and to give you a physical body, it would be absurd to think of this body or environment as an illusion unworthy of your attention. Rather, you should think of them as things of joy. Know that even the physical universe will respond to you when you respond to it. Say: 

My body is a temple of the living Spirit. It is spiritual substance. Every part of my body is in harmony with the living Spirit within me. The life of this Divine Spirit flows through every atom of my being, revitalizing, reinvigorating and renewing every particle of my physical body. There is a pattern of perfection at the center of my being which is now operating through every organ, function, action and reaction. My body is a Divine Idea forever renewed by the Spirit. 

Stop blaming anyone or anything— persons, circumstances or situations—for what may be happening to you. This is futile. It is a dead-end road. It is a blind alley. It is a raft adrift on an ocean of uncertainty. Today you are going to take your life in your own hands, realizing God is ever with you. You are going to identify yourself with goodness and with joy. Straight thinking is going to do this for you. Straight thinking may not be the easiest thing in the world, but it is possible for anyone. Say: 

The Spirit within me is alive, awake and aware. It is always flowing through me in perfect life. I accept my spiritual perfection. I know that my physical being is included in it. It is a manifestation of the life, the energy, the love, the peace and the power which is of the Spirit. I know that this day in which I live, this present time, which is now, is perfect. Everything in my world works harmoniously, divinely. I live in a completeness of this present moment. I know that the All-wisdom guides me, the All-power protects me. The All-presence goes with me.

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This Thing Called You,

Chapter 10,

Ernest Holmes