Are You Truly Applying the Principles of Science of Mind?

One of my favorite sayings is, “It is very simple, but it’s not easy.”  Sometimes the simplest things in life seem to trip us up.  Anyone who has ever mastered any kind of craft from woodworking, to needlepoint, to diamond cutting knows that the main principles of the craft are easy to explain in words, but very difficult to do—until one has put hours of practice and study into the Doing!

Ernest Holmes, the founder of Science of Mind, knew that the same thing was true about applying the wondrous principles that underlie man’s existence on this human realm.  The spiritual principles, known as the Law, are so very simple—they are almost hard to grasp.  Most of us who love and embrace Religious Science have a clear memory of when we first began to grasp that Life responded to our thoughts.  Each of us has a story of one significant moment when we claimed and affirmed through thought, through prayer, through our words, through our inner awareness—a significant, palpable Good in our daily life—and it materialized with ease and grace….almost magically.  For some people in Religious Science, they go through a giddy stage of manifesting and demonstrating that thoughts create things and easily seem to create a life of joy, abundance, and happiness.

Others of us grasp the principles of Science of Mind, and we see our occasional prayer or treatment being responded to immediately, but other prayers and treatments go unanswered.  We seem to lose our way; we lose faith in this teaching that offered us so much certainty and wisdom when we first discovered it.

Where do we go?  What is wrong with our thinking?  What have we misunderstood?  What have we failed to grasp?

In the vaults of the Science of Mind Archives is a great little booklet.  In 1962, Willis Kinnear, the editor of Science of Mind magazine went back through the vaults of the magazine looking for the best of Ernest Holmes’ writings that had not been incorporated into the main textbook or released in some other form.  The years from 1927 to 1940 are some of the best years of Ernest Holmes’ lectures and writings—he was educating the world about what Science of Mind was, what the principles and mechanics of the process were, how to use it, how to apply it, how to co-create with Spirit a more joyous life.  And Ernest identified that there are always two main factors influencing our daily life and our use of Science of Mind teachings:  fear and faith.

“Worry, crisis, and anxiety seem to plague most people, often to the extent that life is something to be suffered through rather than to be lived with joy. This does not mean that we shall ever be free of all problems, but rather that life and living present a continual challenge, which we should learn to master instead of allowing it to master us. No one imposes fear upon us; rather we create it for ourselves in our own thoughts and emotions. What we need to realize is that we have just as much freedom to eliminate fear as we have in creating it. That there is an obvious need to secure our freedom from our self-created and self-imposed fears is found in those sciences which deal with the mind and the body. Any evidence of fear in our thought, whether it is large or small, can have subtle and far-reaching consequences. You can find a freedom from fear, and you can discover the ways and means to achieve more of what your heart desires. The journey can be made, the goals can be achieved. But it is something that no one else can do for you, for the attainment rests in the processes of your own thought.” (pgs.3-4)

This booklet, Living Without Fear, is a really methodical guide to dealing with some of mechanics that seem to trip each one of us as we apply and live Science of Mind principles.  In one of the first parts of the book, Ernest examines the ‘science’ of Science of Mind by looking at how science comprehends knowledge—scientists comprehend all that Life is by observing effects and reasoning out what must be the cause of all that Life is.  Ernest suggests to each one of us, Religious Scientists, that we have the same task ahead of us.  We must reason how the cause of why the spiritual Law does not seem to be working in our daily lives by exploring and going ever deeper into our understanding of the effects demonstrated all around us…..to see and understand the ultimate truth of First Cause.

I know when I first read Ernest Holmes about seven years ago—his discussion and ideas seemed hard to grasp.  I am always surprised when I remember my first reading of his ideas because now they make so much sense and illuminate spiritual principles, actions, and reactions so clearly.  Like this example on pg. 43:

“Just as there are laws of matter, so there are laws of mind, for what is true on one plane is true on all. This, no thinking person can deny. If certain factors in physics produce certain results, then certain mental factors will produce certain results. This is a field for exploration and experiment as yet almost entirely untouched; and yet in the laboratory of mind lies a possibility of research as fascinating as that in the laboratory of matter, with undreamed of potentials awaiting discovery.

“If we mix the concept of good with the concept of evil, the result will fluctuate between the two. If we mix a concept of peace with one of confusion, the result will be both peace and confusion. If our thought fluctuates, our external world will fluctuate also. Suppose we should try this experiment with our self, saying: I am now convinced that the ultimate Power is Goodness. I am equally convinced that anything in my present experience which is not of the mixture of this Goodness is the result of misconceptions on my own part. Furthermore, I am convinced that through the reversal of my thought and the changing of my concepts my whole external life can be rebuilt, re-created. From now on I only affirm the positive; and disclaim and repudiate, but not combat, the negative. I shall no longer resist evil, but I shall embody only Good which overcomes all unlike it. I have neither enemy nor enmity; I shall entertain neither in my thought. There is nothing working against me. Everything is for me and all apparent contradictions to this Truth shall vanish as the mist before the sun.”

That is one of the things I love and embrace most about Ernest Holmes and Science of Mind.  It asks each of us to go within our own mind and prove these principles for ourselves.  Our life is our laboratory; our daily life is our experiment; we are the scientist uncovering the Truth in the sanctity and freedom of our mind. Each of us is called upon to make this great experiment, and to share with the world what we uncover and discover.  When enough of us do this and boldly proclaim what we have demonstrated and manifested as we conduct these controlled and directed ‘prayer experiments’ than the greatest advancement and revolution for mankind on the planet will be just beginning.

This booklet can be downloaded for $8; I think it is a worthwhile investment in discovering and applying the principles of Science of Mind and living a life free from fear!

Follow this link to download “Living Without Fear”: http://scienceofmindarchives.org/e-store/item/883-living-without-fear