This Thing Called You, Chapter 4

This Thing Called You, Chapter 4

The universe is one vast system. All the laws of nature conspire to benefit mankind, but these same laws automatically protect the integrity of nature. It is as though nature said, "All right, little man, the game is yours. Play it as you see fit. I am going to serve you, but don't fool yourself. I am going to reflect right back to you with exactness what you really are. If you don't like what is happening, I am not going to be disturbed. You are the arbiter of your fate. You are the captain of your soul. 

"I have given you all. I have implanted freedom, individuality and self-choice within you. Finally, through experience you will learn the better and wiser way. I am love as well as law, beauty as well as reason, feeling as well as intellect. You are set on the path of self-determination. Your fantastic will, seeking good for yourself that you would not willingly give to others, may lead you up many blind alleys, you may meet with disappointment and chagrin, but I have also placed within you a compass and a chart. There is a course you may pursue which leads to happiness, to wholeness, to peace of mind and joy. 

"Someday you will follow this path, because I have placed a spirit within you which is ever seeking to guide, ever standing aside permitting you partially to obliterate that spark which is part of Myself. Through all the rounds of experience I am there. 

"Some day when you sit down by the roadside, weary with struggle, you will listen deeply and you will hear a voice saying, ‘This is the path, follow it.' Even then I shall wait, for you are you and you cannot return to your Father's house other than as a complete and perfect individualization of Myself. Always I shall be waiting. I shall not reproach you when you return. You will be welcome. The time of your return is in your own decision. It may be now or at any time in that vast forever which stretches before you." 

The freedom which the all-creative Wisdom has designed for man is marvelous beyond human perception. Life has given man an intuitive sense of things, it has permitted him to evolve through countless ages of trial and error to the day of his redemption, always knowing that this redemption is certain. But the timing, even of eternity, so far as man is concerned, rests in his present or delayed acceptance. It could be today or tomorrow. It could have been yesterday. We are living in a universal now and this now waits on our acceptance. 

Many people naturally ask, "If God is good, if God is love, if God is peace, why all this confusion?" Don't you think that even God could not have done it any other way? Can't you see that even the Divine I Will, in ordaining man's destiny, was compelled to let man work out his own future? 

The more you think about this proposition, the clearer it will become. Do you think it would have been possible for it to have been any other way? You would not wish to be an automaton any more than would wish to be a cabbage or a wave of the ocean or a knot in a tree. The greatest gift Life could have made to you is yourself. You are a spontaneous, self-choosing center in Life, in the great drama of being, the great joy of becoming, the certainty of eternal expansion. You could not ask for more and more could not have been given. 

Life will be to you what you are to It. Of necessity there is a Divine Pattern at the center of everything. This is the Christ in you waiting your recognition. Somehow, you must link your will, your thought, your intellect, your imagination and your feeling with the Divine Presence which is already there. Between this perfection and completion, which already exists, and your intellect, environment and everyday experience, there is the accumulated experience subconscious mind. 

In reality there is no such thing as your subconscious mind, for what the analyst analyzes and the psychologist psychologizes is not another mind, it is merely the accumulated thought and feeling of the ages operating through you. It is no more a mind apart or separate than the law of gravitation, which holds you to the earth, is an individual law. All laws are universal and may become individualized. The thing that stands between you and the greater good is a thing of thought and nothing else. It is not Reality that you must change, but your mental reaction to It. 

What is called the subjective state of your thought, the accumulated patterns, is automatically attracting or repelling. These patterns are automatically re-sowing their own seeds in the creative medium of mind. They will keep on doing this until you change them. They will do this without volition of your intellect. 

Your hope lies in the fact that you can change these patterns. Perhaps not in a moment or a day, or a month or a year, but you can change them. This is not a process of merely making affirmations or holding thoughts, it is a process of the gradual re-education of your whole mental reaction. It is a process of following the intuition back to the pattern, of feeling toward it, of accepting it, and of acting as though it were there. 

The whole thing is so simple that at first it seems impossible that it could be that way, yet it is. As you watch your mental actions and reactions, particularly those that are rooted in feeling, as you observe your expectations, you will feel impulses rising from within—habits of belief, patterns of thought—too many of which are negative. 

As you carefully weigh and measure the operation of this unconscious expectancy as it comes to the surface, you can detect what has to be changed. If you can accept that these impulsions are thought patterns that have been laid down there by yourself or the sum total of human belief, you will realize that they can be changed by bringing in exactly opposite thought patterns. This will not be a question of struggling with the old patterns so much as it will be one of gradually straining them out. 

You will notice, if you follow a few simple rules and methods carefully, that when thoughts of confusion persist in coming to the surface, statements of peace will neutralize them. When thoughts of fear assail, statements of faith will counteract their action. When thoughts of unhappiness well up from within, thoughts of happiness and joy will transmute them through the alchemy of Spirit. 

First of all, you must arrive at peace of mind. It is only on the basis of peace that you can persist with absolute certainty. Peace alone gives poise. There is an intuition within you which already knows that you are one with good, that your destiny is certain, and you must listen to this intuition for it is the voice of God in you. 

Quite naturally, many ask, "Is there a secret way? Is there an occult way? Is there some great thing that only a few people know, the great and wise ones, that I must learn? Must I fast, concentrate and pray without ceasing? Must I beseech or implore? Must I work out all the mistakes I have ever made to become redeemed? Must I renounce everything to find peace? How am I going to be made whole?" 

Unfortunately, many persons labor under the mistaken idea that there are deep secrets, that there are subtle and unknown pathways which a few people know about, great truths which only a few have realized, and so the search goes on through the pathway of mystery. Many persons sincerely believe that every mistake they have made will be held against them for an indefinite period. Many others believe that God is trying them, and far too many believe in the necessity of devious pathways, strange and weird rites, adherence to certain forms and rituals. 

You are to take a more direct and simple path from your intellect to your true self. Not withholding from any other his way (which no doubt is good for him), you are to become a simple and direct soul. The answer is not in any book but in yourself. 

The time of redemption is not something stretching out incarnations or through equally endless endless purgatories. Jesus, the wise, proclaimed that your kingdom is at hand, that the eleventh hour is not too late, that the time of your redemption is that split second when the sum total of your thinking includes that which belongs to the kingdom of good. 

When the first house was lighted with electricity the darkness did not groan and say, "How long have I been dark. How ignorant have been those who have permitted this darkness. What grievous mistakes they have made." The darkness said nothing when the light spoke; and the light shown in that darkness and the darkness was not. There were no devious paths other than the discovery of the light. There was no judgment of darkness against the light. There was no action of darkness upon the light. The light merely exclaimed, "Behold, I come!" and the darkness disappeared. 

The eternal Giver is equally the eternal Forgiver and love forever counterbalances hate. Joy will always put sadness to flight and good will overcome evil Peace will neutralize confusion, and hope will banish doubt. Could anything be simpler? Do not delay your good by thinking that you have so much evil to overcome. 

The thing that distinguishes the teaching of Jesus in such a glorious manner from that of all his predecessors and most of his followers is this simple fact, this great thought: "Behold, the kingdom of God is at hand." 

Jesus did not say to the thief upon the cross: Miserable sinner that you are, you must suffer through endless ages of retribution. This glorified soul, who sang a great psalm of life, merely said: You are sleeping to the past and waking to the future—"To day shalt thou be with me in paradise." He did not say to the laborer who came in at the eleventh hour: You are a miserable and unproductive man; how can you expect to enter the vineyard at so late an hour? He said: Behold, the fields are ripe unto harvest—thrust in your sickle. The vineyard yields fruit—pluck the grapes. The wine of life waits, the chalice of love overflows—drink. Jesus did not say to the penitent: Your sins are unredeemed. He said, you are forgiven. How dimly have we understood such glorious truth! 

Jesus had no secret teaching, no occult lore. He indulged in no weird performances. The truths he taught were few and simple. He said that the laws of life are repeated on every plane of being. He did teach the necessity, not of repressing our desires, but of constructively expressing them. The teaching of Jesus was that the universe is made up of love and law. God is love. Love is givingness; love is also for-givingness. There is a law of cause and effect which automatically compels man to reap as he sows. The day he ceases to sow error he will begin to reap truth. When he stops sowing hate he will reap love. When he stops sowing unforgivingness he will be forgiven. When he stops sowing fear, he will reap faith. 

There is no mystery here. Simple, direct statements of cause and effect—the inevitable necessity of good finally overcoming evil, the glorious concept that the Kingdom of God, in all its wonder and beauty, exists eternally, changelessly, waiting your recognition. 

Since you are primarily a spiritual and mental being you must rearrange your thoughts to meet, to agree with, to harmonize and unify with, this new concept. No one can do this for you as well as you can do it for yourself. Try to simplify the whole process, make it direct. You are starting out on a great adventure, a wonderful journey. You are guided by love, inspired by truth, and your future will be what you make it. 

This Thing called You, Chapter 4,

Ernest Holmes