Action and Reaction

Action and Reaction

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There is something that casts back at us every thought that we think. 

“Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord,” 

is a statement of eternal truth and correspondences against which nothing can stand and whatever the person sets in motion in mind will be returned to him, even as he has conceived within himself and brought forth into manifestation. If we wish to transcend old thoughts we must rise above them and think higher things. We are dealing with the law of cause and effect and it is absolute. It receives the slightest as well as the greatest thought and at once begins to act upon it. And sometimes even when we know this we are surprised at the rapidity with which it works. If we have been misusing this law we need not fail, all that we have to do is to  turn from the old way and begin in the new. We will soon work up out of the old law into the new which is being established for us. When we desire only the good the evil slips from us and returns no more. 

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Creative Mind,

Ernest Holmes

Mind In Action

Mind In Action

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Everything that we see is the result of mind in action. We all have a body and we have what is called a physical environment. We could have neither if it were not for mind. The law implanted within us is, that we need nothing except ourselves and this All-Wise Creative Mind to make anything and that just so far as we depend upon any condition, past, present or future or upon any individual, we are creating chaos, because we are dealing with conditions and not with causes. Every living soul is a law unto himself but of this great truth few people are conscious. It seems difficult for the race, which feels itself to be so limited, to comprehend the fact that there is a power that makes things directly out of itself by simply becoming the thing that it makes and that it does this by self knowing. But we will not demonstrate until we see at least some of this, the greatest truth about life.

We should realize that we are dealing with the principle that is scientifically correct. It will never fail us at any time but is eternally present. We can approach the Infinite Mind with a depth of thought and understanding, knowing that it will respond, knowing that we are dealing with reality.

Jesus, who saw this very clearly, laid down the whole law of life in a few simple words. “It is done unto you as you believe.” We do not have to do it, it is done unto us, it is done by a power that is all. Could we believe that a material mountain would be moved, it would be done unto us. But unless we do believe there is no impulse for the creative power and we do not receive. Life externalizes at the level of our thought. 

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Creative Mind,

Ernest Holmes

The Reason For The Universe

The Reason For The Universe

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This Universe is the reason, first of an Infinite intelligence which speaks or thinks and as this thought becomes active within itself, it creates from itself, at the power of its own word, the visible Universe. We are living in a Universal activity of mental law, we are surrounded by a Mind which receives every impression of our thought and returns to us just what we think. Every person then, is living in a world made for him from the activity of his thought.

It is a self-evident proposition that Mind must create out of Itself and this Self being Limitless, it follows that its creative power is without limit. 

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Creative Mind,

Ernest Holmes

Individual Ideas

Individual Ideas

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We find that in the Universe every separate idea has a word, a mental concept behind it and as long as that word remains the thing is held in place in the visible world. When the concept is withdrawn the idea in the visible melts away, disappears. It ceases to vibrate to the word, which is the law behind it, for when the word is withdrawn the condensation of the ether that forms the word melts again into the formless. There was a time when the world was without form and from the word alone all things were made that are made. When our word says that there is no longer life in our bodies, the life principle withdraws and our bodies return to the substance from which they came. Here is the great mystery of life that we are able to use this creative word for whatever purpose we may desire and that word becomes the Law unto the thing for which it was spoken.

And so in our lives we might say that without our word was not anything made that was made. For we are given the power to sit in the midst of our lives and direct all their activities. There is no struggle and no strife necessary. All that we have to do is to know. We must awake and with the glorified consciousness of an emancipated soul use our God-given power. 

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Creative Mind,

Ernest Holmes

The Power We Have Within Us

The Power We Have Within Us

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We have within us a power that is greater than anything that we shall ever contact in the outer, a power that can overcome every obstacle in our life and set us safe, satisfied and at peace, healed and prosperous, in a new light and in a new life.

Mind, all Mind is right here. It is God’s Mind, God’s creative Power, God’s creative Life. We have as much of this Power to use in our daily life as we can believe in and embody.

The storehouse of nature is filled with infinite good awaiting the touch of our awakened thought to spring forth into manifestation in our life but the awakening  must be on our part and not on the side of life. We stand at the gateway of limitless opportunity in the eternal and changeless Now. Now is the day in which to begin the new life that is to lift us up to the greater expression of all that is wonderful. The word that we speak is the Law of our life and nothing hinders but ourselves. We have through ignorance of our real nature misused the power of our word and behold what it has brought upon us, “the very thing that we feared.” But now it shall produce a new thing, a new heaven and a new earth.

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Creative Mind,

Ernest Holmes

The Man who has Arrived

 The Man who has Arrived

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The man who has arrived will realize that he has done so in the midst of an outer confusion. He will be the one who has gone into the silence for strength and has come out into the world equipped with power from on high but that light which he has received must be kept burning.

Not alone in the silence but in the busy throng must all of us find the way of life. Our every thought creates. For the majority of us these thoughts come in every-day affairs, some of which are very trivial but these too will be demonstrated.

We have missed the whole point unless we have learned so to control our thought that time and place make no difference. 

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Creative Mind,

Ernest Holmes

The Word

The Word

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"The Word was with God and the Word was God. The Word is nigh thee, even in thy own mouth that thou shouldst know it and do it.” What does this mean? It clearly states that whatever power there is in the Word (and it says it is All Power) is also in our own mouths. There is no avoiding the fact that the Bible claims for man the same power in his own life and his own world that it claims for God. In the lives of the majority, men do not realize that the Word is in their own mouths. What Word? Little do we realize that this Word which they are so earnestly seeking is every word they hear, think or speak. Do we who are endeavoring to realize the greater truths of life always govern our words? If any word has power, it follows that all words have power. It is not in the few moments of spiritual meditation that we demonstrate but we bring out the possibilities of the hidden word when we are allowing our thoughts to run in any direction. Not in the short time spent in silence but in the long hours stretching themselves into days, months and years, are we always using the word. An hour a day spent in silent meditation will not save us from the confusion of life. The fifty-one percent of a person's thinking is what counts. It is easy when we are alone to brave the storms of life, surrounded by our own exalted atmosphere we feel the strength of the Infinite, we rise in Spirit, we think we are experiencing the ultimate of truth, that all things are ours. These moments in a busy life are well spent but must unavoidably be brief. But what of the rest of the day, what of the busy street, of the market place and of all the daily contact with life? Do we then obtain? Do we keep on in the same even way? Or do we fall before the outer confusion of our surroundings? We are still creating the word and setting it afloat in the great ethers of life. Are these words creating for us? Yes!

How necessary then,

to “keep the independence of the solitude”

how seldom we do this!

“God sent an angel to speak to me –

A word He was fain I hear.

And the angel brought the message

And whispered it in my ear.

 

“God knew I needed the word He sent –

I had lost the zest of fight;

And the right was all but beaten;

The wrong it was all but right.

“Simple the word that He sent me –

But it soothed a spirit raw

With the pain of too much striving –

’Twas ‘Love fulfills the law.’ ” 

Few people indeed in the day in which we live are well poised. Where do we find the person who can live above his surroundings, who in his own thought can dominate all conditions and in the midst of the crowd keep his own even way and his own counsel? When we do meet with such a person we will know him, for we shall find on his face the image of perfect peace. 

We shall detect in his bearing the ease and independence that comes only to the person who has found himself and who is centered not in the outer but in the inner world.

Such a character as this has the power to attract to himself all of the best in the world. He is a center toward which all else must gravitate. The atmosphere which he creates and with which he surrounds himself is one of absolute calm and peace. The world at once sees in this person a master and gladly sits at his feet. And yet this person who has risen above the thought of the world cares not that other people should sit at his feet. He knows that what he has done all may do and he well knows that all the teaching in the world will not produce another such as he. He knows that it is not from the teaching but from the being that true greatness springs. So this person does not go around teaching or preaching, he simply is. 

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Creative Mind,

Ernest Holmes

Bondage and Freedom

Bondage and Freedom

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Never get away from the fact that you are surrounded by such a power, it is the principle of demonstration. It knows every thought. As we send forth our thought into it, it does unto us. The person who is ignorant of this law must by that ignorance be bound by his thought, by his human beliefs. One who understands will begin to break these ties that bind him. One by one he will destroy every negative thought until at last he is able to think what he wants to think and so he frees himself by the use of the same power that at one time bound him. We must destroy all thought that we would not see manifest and hold to that which we would see, until we receive the affirmative answer.

Never struggle, Mind makes things out of Itself, there is no effort made. Don’t think that there is so much to be overcome. Have only a calm sense of perfect peace as you realize that God is all and that you are using the perfect law and that nothing can  hinder it from working for you. Many people are learning to do this and no one has yet failed to demonstrate who has been steadfast, using the law in a consistent and persistent trust.

All that we have to do is to provide the right mental and spiritual attitude of mind and then believe that we already have and the reward will be with us. We shall see it. The time will come when we will not have to demonstrate at all because we will be always living so near to the law that it will do all for us without much conscious thought on our part.

So when you say, “I am poor, sick or weak. I am not one with the Creative Mind,” you are using that creative power to keep yourself away from the Infinite and just as soon as you declare that you are one with God, there is a rushing out to meet you, as the Father rushed out to meet the prodigal son. “The Spirit seeketh” but as long as your mind thinks in the terms of conditions you cannot overcome. The difficulty comes from our inability to see our own Divine nature and its relation to the Universe. Until we awake to the fact that we are one in nature with God, we will not find the way of life until we realize that our own word has the power of life we will not see the way of life and this brings us to the consideration of the use of the Word in our lives.

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Creative Mind,

Ernest Holmes

Man's Part

Man's Part

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Creative Mind cannot force itself upon us because we have the power of self-choice. It recognizes us when we recognize it. When we think that we are limited or have not been heard, it must take that thought and bring it into manifestation for us.

When we look about us and see nature so beautiful, so lavish and so limitless, when we realize that something, some power, is behind all and sees to it that plenty obtains everywhere, so that in all things manifest there is more than could be used and when on the other hand we see humans so limited, sick, sad and needy. We are disposed to ask this question “Is God good after all? Does He really care for the people of His creation? Why am I sick? Why am I poor?” Little do we realize that the answer is in our own mouths, in the creative power of our own thought. The average person when told the Truth will still seek some other way.

God has already done for us, in a mechanical way, all that He can do and having been given the ability, we will have to do for ourselves the rest. Yet the Great Power is always near, ready at any time to help but we must use it according to its own nature in harmony with its laws. We should learn that we ourselves are the center of this Divine activity. Realizing this, we must seek more and more to utilize our own Divine nature and by so doing we will come more fully under the protection of the great laws that govern all life, manifest and un-manifest. Whatever man is, he must find that because he is made out of God, he must be of the same nature. This Infinite One cannot know anything outside of itself, anything that would be a contradiction of its Divine  nature. The human ignorance of his real nature binds him with his own freedom until he comes to see things as they really are and not as they appear to be.

In the Infinity of mind, which is the principle of all metaphysics and of all life, there is nothing but mind and that which mind does. That is all there is in the Universe. That is all there ever was or ever will be. This mind is acted upon by our thought and so our thought becomes the law of our lives. It is just as much a law in our individual lives as God’s thought is in the larger life of the Universe.

For the sake of clearness, think of yourself as in this Mind, think of yourself as a center in it. That is your principle. You think and Mind produces the thing. One of the big points to remember is that we do not have to create, all that we have to do is to think. Mind, the only Mind that there is, creates.

Few people seem to understand the nature of the law and so think that they have got to do something, even if it is only holding a thought, thinking or knowing is what does the thing. It will make it much easier for us when we realize that we do not have to make anything, just to know that there is something back of the knowing which does the work for us.

That person gets the best results who realizes that he can use this divine principle, he who can get the clearest concept of his idea and who can rely on mind to do for him, keeping everything out of his thought that would contradict the supremacy of Spirit or Mind. By simply holding a thought we could not make anything but by knowing in mind what cannot we do? 

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Creative Mind,

Ernest Holmes

The Law of our Lives

The Law of our Lives

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Spirit creates through law. The law is always mind in action. Mind cannot act unless intelligence sets it in motion. In the great universal mind man is a center of intelligence and every time he thinks he sets mind into action. What is the activity of this mind in relation to man’s thought? It has to be one of mental correspondence that is, mind has to reflect whatever thought it casts into it. Wonderful as Universal Mind is, it has no choice but to create whatever thought is given it; if it could contradict that thought, it would not be a unit, since this would be recognizing something outside itself. This is a point in Truth which should not be overlooked. The One Mind knows only its own ability to make whatever is given It. It sees no other power and never analyzes or dissects. It simply knows and the reason why people do not understand this is that they have not realized what mind is. The ordinary individual thinks of mind only from the limitation of his own environment. The concept he has of mind is the concept of his own thinking, which is very limited.

We are surrounded by an All Seeing, All Knowing Mind, which is One and runs through all. The belief in the dual mind has destroyed practically all philosophies and religions of the ages and will continue to do so until the world comes to see that there is but One. Whatever name is given it there is but One. It is this One that creates for us, whatever we believe. Our thought operative through this One produces all our affairs. We are all centers in this Mind, centers of creative thought activity. There is nothing which appears in the manifest Universe other than an objectified thought, whether it be a bump on your head, a growth on your foot or a planet. It could not be there were it not made out of Mind, for mind is all there is to make anything out of. Whatever is made is made out of it. Nothing exists or can exist without a source from which it springs.

We are not dealing with a negative as well as a positive Power not two powers but one, a power that sees neither good nor evil, as we see it. It knows only that it is all, and since it is all, it creates whatever is given it. From our limited standpoint we often think of good and evil, not realizing that, as yet, we do not know the one from the  other. What we call good today, we may call evil tomorrow and what we think to be evil today, we may tomorrow proclaim as the greatest good we have known. Not so with the Great Universal Power of Mind, It sees only Itself and Its infinite ability to create.

To the thinking person this will mean much, he will see that he is no longer living in a limited universe, a world of powers but that he is immersed in an Infinite Creative Medium which because of Its Nature, has to create for him whatever he believes. Jesus understood this and in a few simple words, laid down the law of life. “It is done unto all people as they believe.” This is a great thing to keep in mind. It is done unto us, we do not have to do it, for it is done unto us of a power that knows itself to be all there is. Could we even believe that some material mountain would be moved, the power is there to do it. Without this belief there is no real impulse for the Creative Mind and we do not get an affirmative answer. We must realize more clearly that this Great Power has to operate through us. 

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Creative Mind,

Ernest Holmes

Why and What is Man?

Why and What is Man?

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We find in the physical universe that automatic laws govern everything. For instance, the tree cannot say “I will not” because of the law that holds it in place. It grows without any volition of its own. So it is with all nature but when we come to the human we find a different manifestation of the Spirit, a being who can say “I choose.” In all creation, the human alone is an individual, the human alone is free and yet man alone wants, is sick, suffers and is unhappy. “Man marks the earth with ruin,” why? Because he has not found his true nature. The very thing that should free him and eventually will do so, now limits him. God could not make an individual without making him able to think and he cannot think without bringing upon himself the results of his thought, good or bad. This does not mean using two powers but using the One from two standpoints. Nothing in itself is either good or bad. All things exist in mind as a potentiality. Mind is eternally acting upon thought, continually producing its own images from mind and casting them out into manifestation. Man must be the outcome of the desire of the Spirit to make something which expresses the same life that It feels. Man is made to be a companion of the Infinite but to arrive at this exalted plane of being, he must have his freedom and be let alone to discover his own nature; to return love to his Creator only when he chooses to do so. At the doorway then, of the human mind this wonderful God has to wait. “Behold, I stand at the door and knock,” the opening must be on the part of the individual.

Man lives in a mind that presses in upon him from all sides with infinite possibilities, with infinite creative power. The divine urge of infinite love crowds itself upon him and awaits his recognition. Being the image of this Power, his thought also must be the Word or cause in the life. At the center of his being is all the power that he will need on the path of his unfoldment. All the mind that the human has is as much of  this Infinite Mind as he allows to flow through him. We have often thought of God as far off and of man as a being separate from the All Good. Now we are coming to see that God and humanity are one and that that One is simply awaiting man’s recognition, that he may spring into being and become to man all that he could wish or want. “As the father has inherent life in himself, so hath he given to the Son to have life within himself.” It could not be otherwise. We are all in Mind and Mind is always creating for us as we think and as we are thinking creatures, always thinking, our happiness depends upon our thought. Let us consider the law of our life. 

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Creative Mind,

Ernest Holmes

The Word going Forth

The Word going Forth

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Since this is true, everything depends upon our mental concepts. “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he,” the Bible reiterates this statement telling us many times of the creative power of thought. Jesus taught nothing else. He said “the words which I speak unto you, they are Spirit and they are life.”

The Centurion coming to Jesus recognized the power of the word spoken by the latter. He said, “I also am one in authority” but his authority was on the physical plane and he saw that Jesus had authority on a Spiritual plane, for he said, “Speak the word only.”

The Bible also tells us that the word is not afar off but in our own mouth. It is neither here nor there; it is within every living soul. We must take the responsibility for our own lives. All must awake to the facts that they have absolute control over their lives and that nothing can happen by chance. Then they will have a broader concept of God, a greater tolerance for their neighbor and a greater realization of their own divine nature. What a relief from strenuous labor, no more struggle or strife. “Be still and know that I am God and beside me there is none other.” The Spirit being all there is, we cannot conceive of anything that can hinder its working. When the Spirit has spoken, the Word becomes Law, for before the Law is the Word, It precedes all else. First is Absolute Intelligence, All-Power, All-Presence, All-Causation, then the movement upon itself through the power of the Word, then the Word becoming Law, the Law producing the thing and holding it in place. 

So long as the Word exists the thing will exist, for since the Word is All-Power there is nothing beside It. “I Am that I Am and beside me there is none other.” This “I Am” is Spirit, God, All. There is no physical explanation for anything in the universe, all causation is Spirit and all effect spiritual. We are not living in a physical world but in a spiritual world peopled with spiritual ideas. We are now living in Spirit.

God or Spirit governs the universe through great mental laws that work out the divine will and purpose, always operating from Intelligence. This Intelligence is so vast, and the power so great that our human minds cannot even grasp it. All that we can hope to do is to learn something of the way in which it works and by harmonizing ourselves with it, to so align ourselves with Spirit that our lives may be controlled by the great harmony that obtains in all the higher laws of nature but has been very imperfectly manifested in us. This brings us to the second point of consideration. 

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Creative Mind,

Ernest Holmes

A Principle that Can be Proven

A Principle that Can be  Proven

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Knowing that Mind is, we have a principle that is absolute, it is exact, it is going to correspond to our thinking about it. The first great necessity is to believe this, without belief we can do nothing. This is the reason Jesus said, “It is done unto you even as you  have believed.” Always it is done unto people as they believe and there is something that does it which never fails.

We must believe that our word is formed upon and around by this creative Mind. For instance, we wish to create activity in our business, we believe that our word is law about that thing and there is something that takes our thought and executes it for us. If we have accepted the fact that all is mind and that the thought is the thing, we shall see at once that our word is the power behind the thing and that it depends upon the word or thought that we are sending out.

So plastic is mind, so receptive, that the slightest thought makes an impression upon it. People who think many kinds of thought must expect to receive a confused manifestation in their lives. If a gardener plants a thousand kinds of seeds, he will get a thousand kinds of plants, it is the same in mind. 

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Creative Mind,

Ernest Holmes

In The Beginning

In The Beginning

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In the Beginning, God!” Clear and expressive are these words. In the beginning, God only. No manifest universe! No system of planets! Nothing of form or life, of brute or humanity! God was the Spirit of All that was to be but He had not yet moved upon the waters. Then this All-Being moved or began to create. Where did Spirit move, upon what did It move to create; where did It get a pattern; what means or power did It employ; through what agencies did It work? In short, what is the world, ourselves included, made out of and how did we and all else come into being? These questions correctly answered would solve the problem of being and set humanity free. Let us consider.

The Spirit was all, there was nothing else but Itself. All-Inclusive, Everywhere, Infinite. This All-Spirit could not have had the impulse to move unless It were self-conscious, therefore the Spirit is the Power that knows Itself; It is accordingly All-Knowing as well as All-Present. Being one, undivided, whatever It knows, It knows all over instantly. We find then that the Spirit operates through self knowing. It moves and that inner movement must be one of Infinite power moving upon Itself since It is all and with a definite purpose. The Spirit then, moves upon Itself and makes out of Itself all that is made. In other words, what we see comes from what we do not see, through some inner intelligence at work, which knows there is no power but Itself. “The things that are seen are not made of the things that do appear.” The only possible operation of intelligence is thought or “The Word.” So all things were made by the Word and “Without the Word was not anything made that hath been made.” How simple the process of creation when we understand it. The Spirit speaks and since there is nothing but the Spirit and it is All-Power, it has only to speak and it is done. “The Word was with God and the Word was God.”

From the Word then, comes forth all that appears. Each life, human or divine, each manifestation is a different kind of word coming into expression. The great fact to dwell upon is that Spirit needs nothing to help It. It is self-conscious and has all power and all ability to do whatever It wishes to accomplish. It operates simply by speaking.

It is hard to get a clear concept of this great Ceaseless Cause, this something from which all things come, at times we get into a maze of confusion when we attempt to realize what the Spirit means. It is then that we should think of It as the great reason behind everything. Being all-knowledge It must know Itself and must know everything It creates so It knows us and It knows everyone. Since It is All-Presence we can contact It anywhere and will never have to go to some particular spot to find It. As It is All-Knowing and operates through the power of the Word, It knows everything we think. Just how It creates we cannot know and need not attempt to understand, for whatever this process of creation is, we find it is always an inner thought process. We  should keep this in mind, the Spirit makes all things out of Itself. Everything comes into being without effort and when we exert ourselves we are not in accord with the Creative Spirit in the way in which It works. The impulse of the Spirit to move must be caused by a desire to express what It feels Itself to be – Beauty, Form, Color, Life, Love and Power. All things else we find in the manifest universe are attributes of the Spirit and are caused to spring into being through the Word, because the Spirit wants to enjoy Itself.

We find then, that the Word which is the inner activity of thought comes first in the creative series and all else comes from the effect of the Word operating upon a universal substance. If the Word precedes all else, then the Word is what we are looking for and when we get it we shall have what the world has sought from time immemorial. We must, if we wish to prove the power of the Spirit in our lives, look not to outside things or effects but to the Word alone. The human eye sees and the human hand touches only that which is an effect. Unseen law controls everything but this Law also is an effect. Law did not make itself, the Law is not intelligence or causation. Before there can be a Law there must be something that acts and the Law is the way it acts, it is intelligence. “In the beginning was the Word.” This Word or the activity of the Spirit is the cause of the law and the law in its place is the cause of the thing and the thing is always an effect, that is it did not make itself, it is a result. The Word always comes first in the creative series. “The Word was with God and the Word was God” and the Word still is God.

When we realize that we are like God (and we could not be otherwise, being made out of God) we will realize that our word also has power. If there is but One Mind then it follows that our word, our thought is the activity of that One Mind in our consciousness. The power that holds the planets in their place is the same power that flows through each of us. We must place the Word where it belongs, whether it is the word of God in the Universe or the word of a person in the individual. It is always first, before all else, in the beginning. The real sequence is this; Cause, Spirit, Intelligence, God, the Word, the activity of Intelligence, the effect or the visible thing, whether it is a planet or a peanut. All are made out of the same thing.

What we need to do is to learn how to use the word so that all will come to see that they are creative centers within themselves. 

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Creative Mind,

Ernest Holmes

Mental Equivalents

Mental Equivalents

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ONE of the most necessary things to remember is that we cannot demonstrate life beyond our mental ability to embody. We give birth to an idea only from within ourselves. What we are, we put into our thinking. What we are not, we cannot put into it.

If we are to draw from Life what we want, we must first think it forth into Life. It always produces what we think. In order to have success, we must first conceive it in our own thought. This is not because we are creators, but because the flow of Life into manifestation, through us, must take the form we give to it, and if we want a thing we must have within ourselves the mental equivalent before we get it.

This is what Jesus meant when he said that we must believe when we pray. This belief is providing within us that something which knows before it sees what it asks for.

For instance, suppose a man is praying for activity (our idea of prayer is the accepting of a thing before we get it) in his affairs. First, before this activity can come, he must have it within himself; he must come to see activity in everything; there must be something that corresponds to the thing that he wants; he must have a mental equivalent.

We find that we attract to ourselves as much of anything as we embody within. As water will reach only its own level, so our outward conditions will re-produce only our inner realizations.

A man will always draw to him just what he is. But we can learn to provide within the image of what we desire and so in a definite way use the law to get just what we need. If at first we do not have a great realization of activity we will have to work on what we do have, and as our outer conditions come up to meet the inner cause, we will find that it will be much easier to enlarge the inner receptivity for something greater and more worth while. Of one thing we may be assured--we must all start somewhere, and that somewhere is within ourselves. In this within we must make the affirmation, and there, too, we must do the real work of realization. At the first the way may seem hard, for we are constantly confronted with that which seems to be, and we are not always sure of ourselves nor strong enough to overcome, but we may rest content in the assurance that we are growing. Every day we will be providing a bigger concept of life, and with the inner growth we will have an enlarged power to speak forth into the Creative Mind, with the result that we shall get a fresh impulse and be doing a bigger thing for ourselves. Growth and realization are always from within and never from without.

The old race suggestion of fear and poverty and limitation must be done away with and daily we must clear our thought from all that limits the One from showing forth in our life.

Remember that you are dealing with One power, and not with two. This will make it easier, for you do not have to overcome any condition, because conditions flow from within out, and not from without in.

A man going to a new town will at once begin to attract to him just what he brings in his thought. He should be very careful what he thinks. He should know just what he wants and daily give it over to the Supreme Mind, knowing that It will work for him. Old thoughts must be destroyed, and new must take their places. Every time the old thought comes look it squarely in the face and declare that it has no part in your mind. It has no power over you. You state the law and rely on it to the exclusion of all else. Daily try to see more and to understand more, feel every day that you are being especially looked after. There is no special creation for any individual, but we all specialize the law every time we think into it. For all our thought is taken up and something is always done with it.

A good practice is to sit and realize that you are a center of Divine attraction, that all things are coming to you, that the power within is going out and drawing back all that you will ever need. Don't argue about it, just do it, and when you have finished leave it all to the Law, knowing that it will be done. Declare that all life, all love and power are now in your life. Declare that you are now in the midst of plenty. Stick to it even though you may not as yet see the result. It will work and those who believe the most always get the most. Think of the Law as your friend. always looking out for your interest. Trust completely in it and it will bring your good to you.

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Creative Mind and Success,

Ernest Holmes

Causes and Conditions

 Causes and Conditions

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WHEN we realize that life is not fundamentally physical, but mental and spiritual, it will not be hard for us to see that by a certain mental and spiritual process we can demonstrate what we want.

We are not dealing with conditions but with causes. Causes originate only from the unseen side of life. This is not strange as the same might be said of electricity, or even of life itself. We do not see life, we only see what it does. This we call a condition. Of itself it is simply an effect. We are living in the outer world of effects and in the inner world of causes. These causes we set in motion by our thought, and, through the power inherent within the cause, expresses the thought as a condition. It follows that the cause must be equal to the effect and that the effect always evaluates with the cause held in mind. Everything comes from One Substance, and our thought qualifies that Substance and determines what is to take place in our life.

The whole teaching of the Bhagavad Gita is that there is but One and that it becomes to us just what we first believe into it. In other words we manifest the unmanifested. This in no way takes away from the omnipotence of God, but adds to it, for He has created something that is able to do this. God still rules in the Universe, but we are given the power to rule in our lives.

We must realize, then, absolutely that we are dealing with a Substance that we have a right to deal with, and by learning its laws we will be able to subject them to our use, just as Edison does with electricity. Law is but we must use it.

The substance that we deal with, in itself, is never limited, but we often are, because we draw only what we believe.

Because we are limited is no reason why the Universe should have limitation. Our limitation is only our unbelief; life can give us a big thing or a little thing. When it gives us a little thing, it is not limited, any more than life is limited when it makes a grain of sand, because it could just as well have made a planet. But in the great scheme of things all kinds of forms, small and large, are necessary, which, combined, make a complete whole. The power and substance behind everything remain Infinite.

Now this life can become to us only through us, and that becoming is the passing of Spirit into expression in our lives through the form of the thought that we give to it. In itself life is never limited; an ant has just as much life as an elephant though smaller in size. The question is not one of size but one of consciousness.

We are not limited by actual boundaries, but by false ideas about life and by a failure to recognize that we are dealing with the Infinite.

Limitation is an experience of the race, but it is not the fault of God, it is the fault of man's perception. And to prove that this is so, let any man break the bonds of this false sense of life and he at once begins to express less and less limitation. It is a matter of the growth of the inner idea.

People often say when they are told this, "Do you think that I decided to be poor and miserable; do you take me for a fool?" No, you are not a fool, but it is quite possible that you have been fooled, and most of us have been. I know of no one who has escaped being fooled about life; you may not have had thoughts of poverty but at the same time you may have had thoughts that have produced it. Just watch the process of your thinking and see how many times a day you think something that you would not want to happen. This will satisfy you that you need to be watchful, that your thought needs to be controlled.

What we need to do is to reverse the process of our thinking and see to it that we think only positive, constructive thoughts. A calm determination to think just what we want to think regardless of conditions will do much to put us on the highway to a greater realization of life.

Of course we will fall, of course the road is not easy, but we will be growing. Daily we will be giving to the Creative Mind a newer and a greater concept to be worked out into the life around us. Daily we will be overcoming some negative tendency. We must stick to it until we gain the mastery of all our thought and in that day we will rise never to fall again.

We must be good-natured with ourselves, never becoming discouraged or giving up until we overcome. Feel that you are always backed by an Omnipotent power and a kind Father of Love and the way will become easier.

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Creative Mind and Success,

Ernest Holmes

Statement of Beliefs

Statement of Beliefs

In the 1920s, Ernest Holmes published the following statement of beliefs

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I believe in God, the Living Spirit Almighty; one, indestructible, absolute and self-existent Cause. This One manifests itself in and through all creation, but is not absorbed by its creation. The manifest universe is the body of God; it is the logical and necessary outcome of the infinite self-knowingness of God.

I believe in the incarnation of the Spirit in all, and that we are all incarnations of the One Spirit. I believe in the eternality, the immortality, and the continuity of the individual soul, forever and ever expanding.

I believe that Heaven is within me and that I experience It to the degree that I become conscious of it.

I believe the ultimate goal of life to be a complete emancipation from all discord of every nature, and that this goal is sure to be attained by all.

I believe in the unity of all life, and that the highest God and the innermost God is one God.

I believe that God is personal to all who feel this indwelling Presence.

I believe in the direct revelation of Truth through my intuitive and spiritual nature, and that anyone may become a revealer of Truth who lives in close contact with the indwelling God.

I believe that the Universal Spirit, which is God, operates through a Universal Mind, which is the Law of God; and that I am surrounded by this Creative Mind which receives the direct impress of my thought and acts upon it.

I believe in the healing of the sick through the power of the Mind. I believe in the control of conditions through the power of the Mind. I believe in the eternal Goodness, the eternal Loving-kindness and the eternal Givingness of Life to all.

I believe in my own soul, my own spirit, and my own destiny; for I understand that the life I live is God. Amen. And So It Is.

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Ernest Holmes, 1920

Why You Will Live Forever

 Why You Will Live Forever

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Thousands of years ago, Job asked, "If a man die, shall he live again?" God is Life, and Life cannot die. Life cannot die. Life has no beginning and no end. Every person walking the earth is God or Life in manifestation.

Your body is an instrument or vehicle through which the life-principle is expressed. You will always have a body of some sort, no matter in what dimension of life you function.

So-called death is not the end ; it is only a beginning. You will arrive at your new destination, actually, when you pass on from this three-dimensional to a fourth-dimensional existence, and you will look upon it as a new birth. You will possess a new, fourth-dimensional body which is rarefied and attenuated by our standards, enabling you to go through closed doors, to collapse time and space, and to be where you want to be through the medium of your thought.

Milton said, "Death is the golden key that opens the palace of eternity." The journey of every man is from glory to glory, from octave to octave, and through the many mansions of our Father's house.

When you pass to the next dimension of life, you will see and be seen. You will recognize loved ones. You will possess all your faculties as an individual. When you came into this world, you were met by loving hands, who took care of you; you were fondled, coddled, and cosseted. And what is true on this plane is true on all planes. You will meet loved ones who will care for you and who will initiate you into the activities of the next dimension of life.

Life Is Progression

Your life is an endless unfoldment-ever onward, upward, and God ward. You can't go backward, for the urge of life is progression, expansion and growth. God is Infinite Life. This Life is your life now ; therefore, there is no end to your newness, freedom, and spiritual awareness. Never in all eternity could you exhaust the wonders and glories that are within you.

In the 15th Chapter of the First Book of Corinthians, Paul says: There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial: but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. And as we have borne the image of the earthly, we shall also have the image of the heavenly.

You Live Forever

In the above-mentioned Biblical quotation, Paul is saying that there really is no death and that all men and women are immortal. Every child born in your home is simply Life taking on that form. This in scriptural language is God (life-principle) coming down from Heaven (invisible state) and appearing on earth, or being made manifest. When your present body ceases to function perfectly, you will put on a fourth-dimensional body, referred to frequently as an astral body, subtle body, celestial body, subjective body, etc. You can't take any earthly possessions with you, but you do take all that you have ever learned and believed about God, life, and the universe ; in other words, you take the sum total of your beliefs, convictions, impressions, and awareness.

Fourth-Dimensional Teachers Attend Lectures

Frequently some psychics, clairvoyants, and similarly gifted people speak to me following lectures on Sunday mornings at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre in Los Angeles. They describe men sitting on the platform while I am speaking. I have asked them to describe the men they purportedly saw, and in each instance they have accurately described the following teachers in the next dimension : Dr. Emmet Fox, author of Sermon on the Mount; Judge Thomas Troward, author of six books on Mental Science ; and Dr. Harry Gaze, author of Emmett Fox, the Man and His Work. They have also accurately described my father, who passed on many years ago, as well as my sister and other relatives and teachers. In no instance had these sensitives ever met any of my relatives or the teachers referred to in this chapter; neither had they read any of their works or seen photographs of them.

I do not look upon their perception and experience as unusual, as there is no reason whatever why men and women who are spiritually developed can't attend spiritual gatherings whenever they wish and appear and reappear at will. I have not seen the men and women mentioned on the platform, but several people present who are highly sensitive and clairvoyant see these fourth-dimensional beings frequently on the platform Sunday mornings and sometimes at my classes on the I Ching, Tarot Symbolism, and the esoteric meaning of the Bible..

From the above paragraphs, you will glean that an individual who is highly advanced spiritually and who senses his oneness with the universal Life-Principle can project himself to any country or even other planets at will ; and the Life-Principle, which is all-wise and all-knowing and which is the only cause and substance, will project a body in harmony with the density of atmospheric pressure of the particular planet ; in other words, he would be able to appear and reappear at will.

For example : If you melt ice, you have water. If you continue heating the water, you will have steam, which can be invisible. But steam, water and ice are all one, vibrating at a different molecular wave length. The functions and physical properties of each are different. Likewise, you are spirit, mind and body. They are all one, but each has a separate function. There is nothing illogical about a spiritually developed man living, let us say, in New York City and contemplating himself as being in Johannesburg finding himself in the latter city instantaneously . He is a mental and spiritual being and knows that mind and spirit are omnipresent and that when he focusses on a certain location and decrees he is there, automatically he dematerializes his body, which is composed of atoms and molecules, which now appear invisible like the steam we mentioned. He then condenses down the high molecular vibration to the three-dimensional body and appears walking the streets of Johannesburg. This type of man would also be able to go to the next dimension at will as well as to other planets and to return when he wished to do so.

Your Departed Loved Ones Are Right Where You Are

Your so-called dead relatives are all about you, and you must cease believing that they are "dead and gone." They are alive with the life of God and separated from us by frequency only. You do not see cosmic rays, gamma rays, beta rays, alpha rays, ultraviolet rays, or infrared rays. Your physical eyes are blind to the great invisible reality that lies around you. You would see a different world if you began to see through your inner eye of clairvoyance; and in similar manner, what a vastly different world you would see if you were as sensitive as the x-ray machine or infrared rays.

You might say to the writer that there is no one in your room as you read this chapter, but tum the dial of your radio or television set and, lo and behold, you see, or hear, people talking, laughing, and dancing. You hear music, singing, and the voices of men and women perhaps thousands of miles away. All these programs fill the room where you are seated. Man is a broadcasting and receiving station himself; that is why he was able to invent a radio and a television apparatus, because all these powers and faculties are within him, submerged in most people, but still quite active in others who walk the streets of your own city.

Eradicate That Hypnotic Spell

The average man is under a sort of hypnotic spell of belief in death; but when he opens his spiritual eyes and lets the accumulated scales of centuries of false beliefs fall away, he will realize that he has an existence beyond time and space as we know it, and he will see and feel the presence of those whom he now calls "dead."

I have been at the bedside of many men and women during their transition. They have shown no signs of fear. Instinctively and intuitively, they feel they are entering into a larger dimension of life. Thomas Edison was heard to say to his physician before he died, "It is very beautiful over there." All of us have a natural wistfulness regarding the state of our loved ones after they leave this plane of life. We must realize that with the dawn their happy faces smile which we have "loved long since and lost a while."

How to Give the Oil of Joy for Mourning

You must never grieve nor mourn for departed loved ones. Radiate the qualities of love, peace, and joy to the friend or relative who has passed over to a larger dimension of life. Lift the other up in your mind and heart and rejoice in his new birthday, knowing that Divine love and Divine life are where he is. Realize that the dear ones who have passed on are dwelling in a state of beauty, peace, and harmony. You make the loved ones happy by this attitude of mind. Instead of feeling that they are dead and gone and that they are where their graves are, feel that the wisdom, intelligence, and love of God are flowing through them in transcendent loveliness. Whenever you think of a departed relative or friend, silently bless him by affirming, "God loves you and cares for you." The attitude of mind heals all grief and sorrow for you and yours.

Entering Into a Higher Vibration

There is no one buried anyplace, whether in the soil or far away at sea. The body is interred and undergoes dissolution, returning to its primordial elements. Modern, up-to-date, scientific thinkers never visit graves, as there is nobody there. To identify with the body in a grave and to put flowers on the grave is to identify with limitation and finality, which brings on disease and all kinds of loss to the person who indulges in this custom. In the modern funeral, there is no body in evidence, and the relatives meet for prayer and meditation, celebrating the loved one's new birthday in God as he moves onward, upward, and Godward.

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Psychic Perception, Chapter Seven (Edited)

Dr. Joseph Murphy

Joseph Murphy - Silent Prayer

Joseph Murphy - Silent Prayer

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I forgive myself for harbouring negative thoughts of any kind. If there's anyone who's ever hurt me or injured me in any way, shape or form, I fully and freely forgive that person or persons now. I am sincere; I mean this and I decree it. I wish for them all the blessings of life.

When anyone of them comes into my mind, I will say, I've released you to God. God be with you. After a while, I can meet that person in my mind and there will be no sting there, I will rejoice at hearing good news about that person.

Now, if I can't rejoice in hearing good news about the person who wronged me, it means that's my problem, it's a poison pocket in my subconscious. Therefore, you continue blessing the other and forgiving yourself. And you know very well that love cast out fear, hate, jealousy, everything unlike itself. We have no alibi; we have no excuse.

Now having forgiven ourselves and others, then we can pray. Because when you stand praying, forgive, if you've wrath against any. Common sense tells you, you can't pour distilled water into a dirty vessel and have clean water. Likewise the holy spirit cannot flow through a contaminated mind. How can a person get a healing, who's full of resentment, self-condemnation, antagonism, criticism, ill will? That's their sickness; you  must get rid of the cause, then the effect passes away.

So now, no matter what your problem is, having forgiven everybody and having forgiven yourself for harbouring negative thoughts, to forgive is to give for, forgive and forget mean the same thing; Alright now you say, I have forgiven myself for harbouring negative thoughts and I resolve not to do that anymore.

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Then I remind myself of the great truths of life...

I am the lord that healeth thee, I am the lord thy god, I will come and heal thee. I will restore health unto thee and heal thee of thy wounds saith the lord my god.

 (Exodus 15:26, Isaiah 41:13 & Jeremiah 30:17)

God is guiding me now, there's right action in my life.

God's healing love saturates my whole being.

God's healing love dissolves every single thing unlike itself.

God's river of peace flows through my mind and my heart. The healing light of God flows through every atom of my being, making me whole, pure, relaxed and perfect.

The love, the light and the glory of God flow through me in transcendent loveliness, saturating my whole being so that my whole body dances to the rhythm of the eternal God.

My mind is full of peace and poise, balance and equilibrium. I am full of faith in God, in life, in the universe and all good things.

Whatever the problem is right now, do not dwell on the problem but realize the infinite healing presence which made you from a cell is the only healing power there is...It knows all the processes and functions of your body....And you quietly say to yourself, 

This healing power of God is focused at that point in my subconscious mind, where the problem is, and God's healing light dissolves it and neutralizes it, making way for the holy spirit to flow through me, making me whole and perfect now.

Now, in the silence of your soul, you imagine you're talking to your higher self, the God in you. And then you're very humble and you say,

Father, thou know all things. You are wise. You are the only healing power there is. I am your son. I am your daughter. I know you love me and I know you care for me. And this very moment, I'm giving thanks for the miraculous healing power flowing through me now.

The grateful heart is always close to God. The grateful heart lacks nothing. The grateful heart is never sick. Never impoverished. Never frustrated. never lonesome.

That's why silently you say, father I thank thee that thou hast heard me now and I know thou hearest me always.

(John 11:41-42)

Then silently repeat to yourself, thank you for the miraculous healing, over and over again. Lull yourself to sleep with the word Thank you.

The peace of God fills your soul and according to your faith is it done unto you. Let wonders happen as you pray.

(Matthew 9:29)

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From a Joseph Murphy Lecture (edited)

Challenging Conceptual Dominance

Challenging Conceptual Dominance

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6:41 To create the possibility of recognizing things unseen, we begin by more clearly noticing what’s there. If we can’t see that our experience is largely made up of concepts, how can we address this condition intelligently or effectively? When something exists as one thing but is perceived to be something else, our ability to interact with it or change it is extremely limited. Yet our experience just seems to be our experience. There’s a reason that people look everywhere except into their own experience when they want to change. They assume their perceptions are simply an accurate reflection of reality, not noticing that there is a difference between what is experienced and what is true. To adjust this mistaken impression, we need to fully perceive and acknowledge the dominating influence that concepts have on our moment-to-moment experience.

6:42 Have you ever tried to stop your thinking for even a minute? Try it now. (Even if you have, try again, and try to keep it up longer than normal.) Sit for a few minutes (set a timer if you like) and stop all thinking of any kind. Keep a vigil on your experience from moment to moment. You may seem to have shut off your thinking, but begin to notice a subtle background kind of thinking, a sort of “talking quietly to yourself.” See if you can shut that off too. Perhaps you notice that your mind continues to work even when you perceive no internal speaking or chatter; see if you can shut that down also. Don’t even form mental images or engage in any other conceptual activity. Can you do this for a few minutes? Try. I’ll wait here while you do.

6:43 Couldn’t do it, could you? If you indeed tried to stop all thinking for several minutes at a time, you experienced an inability to do so. If you didn’t attempt it, then please do. Experiencing this inability is far more valuable than taking my word for it. It won’t become clear, however, unless you attempt it in earnest.

The composer Stravinsky had written a new piece with a difficult violin passage. After it had been in rehearsal for several weeks, the solo violinist came to Stravinsky and said he was sorry, he had tried his best, the passage was too difficult, no violinist could play it. Stravinsky said, “I understand that. What I am after is the sound of someone trying to play it.”

—Thomas Powers

6:44 Why do you think it’s so difficult for us to suspend our thinking? I propose it’s because something needs to happen that can’t occur without constant mental activity. (It might have something to do with the creation and maintenance of a conceptual self and the management of that self in relation to everything perceived, but we’ll look into that possibility later.) What’s important to recognize right now within your own experience is the power and dominance of concepts. The ceaselessness of our thinking is one place we can clearly see the drive to conceptualize.

6:45 Another area where we find conceptual dominance is a place few people would expect. Our culture’s way of holding thought as distinctly separate from emotion sets up the assumption that they are of two completely different natures, or at least that they are independent activities. There is certainly something about a thought that is very different from a feeling, no doubt about it. But there is also something quite similar in how they each arise, and this we overlook. Emotions and thoughts are both produced through mental activity. It’s easy to recognize the conceptual nature of thinking, but we prefer not to acknowledge that emotions—and the many feeling-reactions and impulses too subtle or obscure to be labeled as emotions—also occur within the mind.

6:46 Now, the moment I say that emotions are concepts, I suspect more than one reader will object. Clearly emotions have a charge to them; our feelings have gusto and passion. They aren’t “dry” like intellect, or mere thought. We’re moved by our emotions. It seems as if we’re in charge of our thoughts, but emotions seem to arise without our bidding. If we recall our attempt to stop thinking, however, we might hesitate to conclude so boldly that we indeed control our thinking.

6:47 The activity of thinking appears to be less than completely under our control. Conversely, we must admit that we do have some say in our emotions. We’ve all experienced being a little angrier than was called for—found ourselves actually pumping it up a bit because we liked the effect it was having on ourselves or on others. We might pout or fan the flames of our hurt so as to elicit more sympathy, or perhaps nurture feelings of love even though we perceive that the circumstances don’t really warrant such romantic feelings. So we have to admit, even if only to ourselves, that we influence our emotions also.

6:48 What most of us don’t realize, however, is that the basic nature of all emotions is conceptual. A feeling-reaction occurs as a result of a complex mental stimulus that is conceptual in nature. This is what we experience as an emotion. A fuller explanation of the phenomenon of emotion will emerge as we proceed, but for now I’d like you to take my word for it that emotion is conceptually based. It’s important for you to recognize the full scope of our conceptualizing so that you can see just how dominated we are by it. Usually, the strong influence that our feelings have on us is more readily apparent and acceptable than the fact that we’re dominated by our own thinking.

6:49 It’s not difficult for us to look back and recall the many emotions we’ve had over our lifetime, including those that were painful or undesirable. Even in our more recent past we can count a large number and variety of emotional feelings that have passed through our experience. More difficult perhaps is to be aware of the ever-present activity of feeling-states that pulse through the body and mind as steadily as a heartbeat. If you take a moment to check out your feelings right now, you can probably identify some mood or emotional feeling that occupies your background awareness. Unless you are particularly moved by what you’re reading or your sister has just poured cold water down your shirt, you may not have a clear and “loud” emotional experience at present. But you do have feelings, right now and always.

6:50 Begin to increase sensitivity to your current feeling activity by doing the following exercise:

Put your attention on the sensations and feelings in your body and mind in this moment, and see how many you can identify as not physically produced. In other words, what feelings can you find that aren’t something like an itch on your foot, or a sense of the room temperature? How you feel about the itchy foot or in reaction to the warm room are not in themselves physiological sensations. Perhaps the itching bothers you, or maybe you enjoy scratching it. The warm room might feel cozy and safe to you, or perhaps it’s uncomfortably stuffy. These background reactions may not occur to you as clearly as some emotions, but they are emotional in nature. 

Other feelings you have are not even that clear. If you pay close attention, you can begin to pick up more subtle moods and feelings, some of which would normally pass for sensations. Upon inspection, they turn out not to be physically based, but rather subtle emotional reactions to certain background ideas and mind states. You might notice that feeling energized is really an underlying excitement, or discover that the slight discomfort of wearing a tie is actually impatience making you a bit hot under the collar. Feelings like these remain obscured in the background. Either they’re so familiar that we take them for granted, or so subtle or insignificant that we fail to become conscious of them.

See how many feelings and varieties of feeling you can identify just as you sit there. Over time, watch them shift and change. Merely putting your attention on them and increasing your sensitivity will create a marked change in the feelings that you have. Regardless what you do with them, notice that these subtle and not so subtle emotional feelings are a constant activity.

6:51 Having noticed that feelings—various moods and attitudes, reactions and emotions, impulses and urges, dispositions and mind states—are constantly a part of your overall experience, it is time to acknowledge their influence.

Just as you did with your thinking, take a few minutes, perhaps a few more than you did with thinking, and attempt to suspend all feeling of any kind. Stop feeling any emotion or even having an attitude toward anything. This means you must give up all dispositions and judgments because all judgments are emotionally charged. Try to have no impulse, no desires, fears, drives, or urges of any kind. Be completely free of any possible reaction or upset, no matter what may occur. Know that suppressing or ignoring what you feel is not being free of it. Try to remain aware and receptive but without a hint of feeling for several minutes. Do this now.

6:52 Difficult, isn’t it? Actually you’ll find that it is as difficult as suspending your thinking. This is because thinking has an interrelationship with feelings, and vice versa—they evoke and provoke one another. There is a reason for this, which, once again, you’ll look at later. For now, focus on increasing your awareness of the influence that concept has on your experience and perception. If all thinking and all emotional feelings are conceptual in nature, consider how much of your experience is dominated by these activities.

6:53 The task of directly experiencing the real nature of Being requires that we recognize and free ourselves of any and every concept we have—even the subtle and hidden ones—about who we are. This can be as immense and difficult a task as it is a worthy one. In the next chapter we’re going to take this notion of conceptual domination and apply a more grounded look at how it operates in our daily lives. Proceeding in steps and stages, we can begin to uncover and detach ourselves from the dominance and confusion of the conceptual domain and take steps to return our consciousness to a more genuine sense of self.

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The Book of Not Knowing, Chapter Six

Peter Ralston

The Solidification of Concepts

The Solidification of Concepts

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6:35 When something is held to be true or real—existing outside of our imagination—we hold it in a different category than something that’s known to be just a concept. In the hierarchy of perceptions, we relegate abstract ideas to a lower rung of importance than objective reality. We may not like what the bus driver thinks about us, but we’ll be sure to get out of the way of the bus. Experience tells us we need to take that solid objectivity seriously. Even if we had the belief or fantasy that we could fly, when the bus bears down and flying isn’t an option, we will jump aside instead. We respect the uncompromising aspects of objective reality, yet often blur the line of distinction between it and our mental activities. In so doing, each of us frequently perceives an idea as if it were a self-evident truth.

6:36 For example, someone might imagine that sex is somehow evil, or that his political party embodies the only correct view of human relations, or that her religion defines the nature of reality, or that science has the only real description of the universe, or any number of notions, many of which are far too subtle or ingrained to recognize easily. But all of these are simply concepts that are believed to be representative of what’s true.

6:37 We stand just as firmly on many assumptions about ourselves. When someone says that he is worthless, we may know clearly that he is not, but for him, this self-description is a fact of his existence. The assumptions surrounding this “truth” are so ingrained in him that he can’t see it as merely a powerful concept that influences his every thought and action. This trap makes what is only imagined in our minds seem like something objectively so.

6:38 Such a distinction is significant because what we can and can’t do in relation to objects is different from what we can and can’t do in relation to concepts. For example, if you have no legs, there is little you can do to change it. Pretending you have legs doesn’t improve your running skills. If you think you are bad or stupid, clumsy or worthless, and that these assessments exist in the same category as having no legs, then you are just as stuck with them as you would be with a wheelchair. Although they are only assumptions that you’ve adopted, or have been trained to believe, they are deeply programmed and are perceived as if they are permanent traits. On the other hand, if you realize that these attributes are conceptual in nature, immediately you will experience the possibility that you can change them, or get free of them altogether.

6:39 Shifting your self-concept in some way does indeed change your perception of yourself, but if this is something you desire, it’s ineffective to rush ahead without a proper foundation. Such a change is rarely easy because our presumptions run deep, not just personally but culturally. Our self views are based on conceptual fabrications that are deeply rooted in the values, beliefs, and assumptions of our culture and personal history. We observe that cultures don’t seem to change overnight, and we observe the same thing about individuals.

6:40 The beliefs upon which self and culture stand are not easily recognized, nor are they easily discarded once we identify them. Remember that both culture and self are created in much the same way—they’re the products of many foundation assumptions. These assumptions—accepting particular ideas to such a degree that they become taken-for-granted realities—give structure to our lives. They are the backdrop for our sense of self and reality, and they offer what seems like solid ground in a world of uncertainty. We may benefit from such structure, but we need to recognize that our assumptions are also responsible for most of the limitations and suffering that we experience. What generally goes unnoticed is that they are not facts but merely beliefs, and since they are conceptual in nature, they are not necessary in and of themselves.

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The Book of Not Knowing, Chapter Six

Peter Ralston

There's more to Perception than Meets the Eye

There's more to Perception than Meets the Eye

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6:28 Boiling down what I said above: any perception we have is only understood through concept. This is a very dominant aspect of experience. Seeing an object doesn’t give us much until we recognize it as a chair that we can sit on, or a dog that might bite our leg, or a rotten apple that is best thrown away. Along with every perception is an automatic mental association with many concepts.

6:29 But don’t take my word for it; take some time to look around you.

Gaze at different objects and try to ascertain what each object means to you. What do you believe about it? What feelings come up immediately when you look at it? What is the object called? Do you like it or not, or don’t you really care either way?

6:30 For example when you look at a red sports car, a certain lifestyle association immediately pops up along with commensurate feelings and attitudes. Glancing over at a minivan reveals through contrast the many reflexive associations made with the sports car, since very different meaning is placed on the van. A rock may have a rather lackluster set of mental connections, unless you need one to throw at the dog who wants to bite your legs. A bar of pure gold usually conjures up associations that evoke much more exciting reactions, while an old rocking chair might elicit many fond and comforting memories.

6:31 Once you’ve done a few of these, try another practice.

Just as you did in the exercise in Chapter Four, look at an object and try to see it without knowing what it is. Knowing is automatic and immediate and difficult to stop, so you’ll need to put some real effort into it. Keep your attention on whatever you perceive and try to not-know anything about it—like what it’s used for, what it can or can’t do. Attempt to throw out any and all reactions, associations, and feelings you have about it. Don’t know what it “is” for a moment—not even what it’s called. Focus on the object until everything familiar about it has dropped away from your awareness, until you can see it without all the normal mental applications in attendance.

6:32 What happened when you did this? Among other things, you should have noticed that what you perceive has many concepts attached to it, without which the perception falls into a very different category of awareness. Apply this technique to other objects or people. With this simple exercise, you become more apt to recognize how much concept influences your entire experience.

6:33 This kind of conceptual influence is equally present in the experience of one’s self. Our experience and perception of ourselves are found within and dominated by concepts—thoughts, feelings, beliefs, images, memories, assumptions, and programming. Yet this entire conceptual makeup cannot, as a matter of fact, bring us to, or even represent, an experience of our real being. Why this is so will unfold more clearly as we go.

6:34 Examining the relationship between concept and experience may not seem very important except for one frequently overlooked fact. The very concepts that dominate our experience, attention, and awareness are strongly influenced, if not outright determined by, unconscious personal and cultural beliefs and assumptions. This in itself perhaps wouldn’t be a problem either, except for another overlooked but very important point: many of these are wrong.

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The Book of Not Knowing, Chapter Six

Peter Ralston