Tag Archives: manifest

It’s the Law! Spiritually Speaking, That Is

I am recently coming into a deeper fascination with the spiritual law of cause and effect, and the absoluteness of it in producing a result. Ernest Holmes, founder of the Science of Mind philosophy, said, “Our belief sets the limit to our demonstration of a Principle which, of Itself, is without limit…As much as we can believe will be done unto us. When the consciousness speaks, the law receives and executes.”

This to me is really the beauty of the Science of Mind teaching – its emphasis and clarity on the absoluteness of spiritual law. The Law will always produce something of like kind to what is in our consciousness.

What we set in motion with our consciousness, through belief and our speaking it forth, is a cause, not an effect. I think this is why we can sometimes get frustrated and think we are less powerful than we are. The cause we set in motion always produces something like itself, although it may not always look like the effect, or outer manifestation, that we thought it would.

Nonetheless, our word is powerful, and our word is especially powerful when backed with strong belief, conviction, and trust in the Law. That this is true is less subject to debate than it is to experimentation. Why debate it? Try it out and see if it’s true. See if what you constantly dwell on or what you open yourself to and claim for yourself with feeling and trust begins to manifest in your life in some form. In trying this in earnest, we quickly see that it does.

Ernest Holmes also said, “trained thought is far more powerful that untrained.” When we understand that spiritual law is at work and we begin to practice our cooperation with this law, we begin to train our thought. We begin to only think on those things we want to create in our experience.

I recently found that I had allowed my thought to be a bit out of training, sort of like going through the motions at the gym rather than really working out. To digress for a moment, I remember a man at a gym I belonged to who used to show up at the gym, get a towel (presumably to wipe off sweat), and then walk around the gym talking to people while carrying his towel, never touching any piece of equipment or doing anything strenuous. Clearly, over time his body began to reflect this behavior.

In training our thought to make use of spiritual law, it is also important to continue with the training and not just carry our spiritual towel around. For me, this has first meant remembering how powerful and unlimited our use of spiritual law is, and then getting refocused and reinvigorated in my use of it. It includes what some have referred to as “going to God for everything.” Put another way, it is speaking my word powerfully in all situations, rather than meekly muttering something like, “it’s all good.” It is all good and calling forth the good involves continuing to train our thought in the direction of our desired good.

The invitation this week is to speak your word powerfully and specifically around some area of current challenge. Call forth what you want to experience, let your thoughts be in the direction of having what you want, fully accept it, and trust that the Law is operating upon your word to make it manifest. Then report back on our Facebook group page about the demonstration or manifestation. Make it count – this is not a dress rehearsal!

Enjoy the journey.

See It, Feel It, Be It!

feel it, see it, be it!

Philosopher Ernest Holmes said, “The limit of our ability to demonstrate depends upon our ability to provide a mental equivalent of our desires, for the law of correspondence works from the belief to the thing.” By “ability to demonstrate” he meant our ability to manifest something or bring it forth in our lives.

A mental equivalent can also be described as an inner embodiment that corresponds to what we want to manifest. We start with the end in mind and then we explore what would be an inner likeness to what we want to experience in the outer.

Before going too much further into it, let me share a personal story. This is a case where I manifested something I did not want to experience, and yet it highlights how what we become on the inner manifests in our lives. Years ago, I used to play basketball. I wasn’t the best player, but I enjoyed playing. One day as I was heading to the gym to play, I thought, with strong feeling, “Why am I even going to the basketball court? I’m not even any good.” Upon arriving at the gym, the first person I encountered quickly snapped at me, saying “Why are you even here? You’re no good.” My first thought was “how dare someone speak to me that way.” Before I could offer a retort, I remembered that I talked to myself that way. My own inner dialogue and feelings about myself had quickly manifested in the outer.

Manifestations don’t always happen this quickly, but this example shows how powerful we are. We manifest in our lives what we become within ourselves. What we become represents our predominant way of thinking and feeling, which in turn becomes our vibration. Our vibration is what attracts or brings forth what we experience in life.

The law of correspondence, to which Ernest Holmes refers, is the nature of life, and our experience of it, to correspond to what we become.

How Do We Build A Better Mental Equivalent?
A short way of thinking of it is: see it, feel it, be it. First, we begin to see ourselves having or doing what we want. Then we use our imagination to create the feeling we would have if we were experiencing what we want, and we allow ourselves to feel that right now, as the vibration that will create or attract it. Thirdly, we start to be the way we would be if our desire were fulfilled. We walk the way we would walk, and we talk correspondingly, and align all of our other actions and ways of being with how we would be were our desire fulfilled. In other words, we are becoming the thing before we even see it manifested.

By becoming the thing first, we draw it into our experience. Similar to how I created the undesired experience of receiving an unflattering comment at the gym, we also can consciously create the experience we want through the same law of correspondence.

If we want to manifest our perfect employment, we begin to get a picture in our mind of what that would look like. Would it be an office job, or outdoors, or one where we are working more independently? We see it. Then, as we see ourselves in this perfect employment, we allow ourselves to feel the joy, the sense of fulfillment and empowerment, the feeling of our creativity being expressed, and any other feelings that come forth as we engage our imagination while seeing ourselves in this perfect employment. Finally, we start to be all that the perfect employment entails. If there are particular skills needed, we acquire those skills. If there is a way of dressing, perhaps we begin to move our wardrobe in that direction. If there are publications commonly read by those in that employment, we begin to read those. We become it, before having the thing. And, soon enough, we do have it.

See it, feel it, be it. It’s yours!

Enjoy the journey.

How to Manifest Anything

Do the ideas around manifesting talked about in New Thought spiritual circles ever feel “woo woo” to you? They certainly did for me at one time. I remember meeting a woman named Lena when I first came into a New Thought community some 21 years ago. Lena spoke with absolute conviction about her prayers, so much so that at first I thought she was arrogant. “How could she be so sure?” I thought.

The beauty of affirmative prayer is that we learn the power of our words in prayer, and, even more so, the power of our words spoken with conviction and with a deep felt sense. We learn that there is a universal subjectivity that is always receiving our thought stream whether we are consciously praying or not. Who would have thought that Aunt Mabel was so right when she implored us to be mindful of what we say?

It turns out that our words are very powerful; creative, in fact. We are co-creators of our lives with universal spirit. How we look at life and talk about it, and what we believe about ourselves and life is utterly important in determining the overall content of our experiences in life. Those thoughts and beliefs that have strong feelings associated with them are the ones that have the most power to manifest in form in our lives as something that directly corresponds to the thoughts and beliefs.

The discovery that our thoughts, beliefs, and words have power is what led to the development of affirmative prayer. After all, if our words have power, then it behooves us to harness them for something good, rather than just allow our unconscious thought streams to create our experience.

Here’s how to consciously use your thoughts, words, and consciousness with affirmative prayer:

Step 1 (Recognition): Recognize that there is one power and intelligence that moves and creates everything. That one impulse is animated and expressed as love in action.

Step 2 (Unification): Know that you are one with the one power and intelligence. Allow yourself to feel the significance of the truth that infinite power and intelligence reside within you, that the love within you aligns you with divine creative intelligence.

Step 3 (Realization/Declaration): Speak your word affirmatively and in the present tense, accepting and claiming that which you want as an already accomplished fact in your life.

Step 4 (Thanksgiving): Give thanks for the one creative power that is operating in your life. Give thanks for your awareness. Give thanks for the manifestation of what you have declared in step 3.

Step 5 (Release): Release your words of prayer to the universal subjective creative medium that receives the words you have impressed upon it and makes them manifest.

The steps above are from the Science of Mind philosophy of Ernest Holmes and are the basic structure of Spiritual Mind Treatment, the type of affirmative prayer taught by Holmes.

Affirmative Prayer Example

I close by offering you a sample prayer that you can repeat to yourself. This is a prayer for prosperity. Speak it with feeling and conviction.

I recognize that there is only one power with no opposite. This one power moves with infinite intelligence. It is love in action. It is the creative intelligence that created the entire universe and all that is.

I am one with this infinite power, intelligence, and love. My very life and being is an expression of the one divine life that moves through and as all that is.

In the consciousness of oneness, I speak my word. I declare and know that there is no lack or scarcity in the infinite divine life, and that this is also my truth. I am one with the source of all abundance and prosperity and I now accept abundance in my finances and in all areas of my life. I am prospered in all that I do. Divine perfect action takes place through me and all around me. I am in the flow of life. I have money to meet my needs, to share, and to spare.

I am so grateful for this truth, for my awareness, and for all of the abundance I am experiencing in my life.

In gratitude, I release my words to the universal subjective medium of life, knowing it is done as I have declared. I let it be. All is well. And so it is. Amen.


Enjoy the journey.

Taming the Monkey Mind

waterfall at diamond lake, nederland, co

Buddhists describe the monkey mind as the restlessness of our minds, the mind that is continuously analyzing, worrying, vacillating, and otherwise jumping around. It can also refer to confusion in the mind and being double-minded, or having thoughts and beliefs that cancel one another.

I found a poignant example of the monkey mind running wild in 1994 when I traveled to South Africa to witness the first fully democratic elections there, which led to the election of Nelson Mandela as President. During the week before and the week after the elections, I journeyed around the various regions of South Africa as part of a delegation formed by a non-profit organization based in northern California.

It was an incredible trip where we encountered a country in the throes of great change, and its people doing their best to adjust to all the change. The example I cite is a person I engaged in conversation, an Afrikaner (descendant of former Dutch immigrants) who was caught up in the madness of the long history of racial segregation and discrimination that made up the former Apartheid system.

He was a friendly man, jovial and affable. With me being American, he seemed compelled to tell me how terrible the black population in South Africa was, seemingly oblivious to the color of my own skin. He would go on and on describing negative trait after negative trait, until I would ask him if it was fair or accurate to generalize about a whole group of people the way he was. At that moment, he would look incredulous and say “no, of course not,” agreeing with me that negative traits do not uniquely belong to one particular race.

In the next moment he would return to generalizing about the black population, again with negative descriptors. We did this dance back and forth a number of times with the same result each time. It was as if, even though he knew better, his old program and beliefs still ran on auto-pilot right alongside some newer beliefs. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen such a clear case of unconscious beliefs running right alongside contrary conscious beliefs.

While this example may seem a bit extreme, it is also indicative of the nature of the monkey mind. In different spiritual traditions the monkey mind is addressed in a variety of ways.

In the Hindu tradition, the chant “Chamundaye, Kali Ma, Kali Ma, Kali Ma, Kali Ma,” askes Mother Kali to bring transformation or clarity to all the confusion and random chatter of the mind.

In the Science of Mind and Spirit tradition of Ernest Holmes, teachers have utilized a concept called “second crop thoughts.” Second crop thoughts are those beliefs that we thought we had neutralized or dissolved that rise again to manifest some unwanted experience. A common notion is “I thought I already healed that.” It is likened to a crop that we previously planted, then uprooted, but some of it still sprouts the following year. A few seedlings were apparently still there. Old beliefs can be like that too, depending on how deeply rooted they previously were in us.

This kind of experience calls on us to be vigilant about old thought patterns so that as they arise we may consciously replace them with new ideas. My own practice is to respond to old thought patterns that arise by saying within myself, “No, I don’t believe that anymore,” and then to affirm what it is I do believe. I do this without resisting the old thought pattern and without trying to force the new one. It’s just a gentle, confident reminder to myself of where I am today.

Today is a good day to give thanks for old thought patterns, knowing that at one point they served us in some way. As we release them, we may also rejoice in our new more consciously chosen beliefs and thoughts that support us in being more fully who we are here to be.

Enjoy the journey.

What Is Your Vibration?

Microphone et baffles

by Gregory Toole

What is the vibration in which you are living right now? Knowing the creative universe that we live in and how it receives and responds to our vibration, the answer to this question is key.

Are you lamenting, regretting, or bemoaning what is on your plate today? Or are you excited, embracing, and welcoming of what this day brings? It makes a difference.

It is not to say that the only worthy emotions are the happy ones. Rather, it is simply important to recognize how we are holding the events and activities of our lives. To feel sadness, for example, is natural in many situations and can take us to depths of ourselves that other emotions cannot.

Often, however, it is our unconscious feelings that can work against us. Philosopher Ernest Homes wrote that “trained thought is far more powerful than untrained” thought. The more conscious we become, the more responsibility we have for consciously choosing our state of being. When we are highly conscious we are harnessing more of our innate power.

As conscious beings, the way we look at things and the energy we exert towards them matters even more. In my own case, I experienced a situation over and over again some years ago that made this really obvious to me. I found that whenever I had a meeting to attend, if I would begin to have any feelings of not really looking forward to attending the meeting, the meeting would get canceled. This happened enough times that I duly noted it and began to make sure that I am choosing my state of being around situations, events, people, and all things.

For example, I make sure that whenever I agree to a meeting, regardless of whether I’d rather be doing something other than being in a meeting, I consciously embrace it and welcome it. And of course, I am only choosing those meetings or activities that represent the highest good, so I am simply honoring my choices, even when in the moment I may have a moment of resistance.

With everything in life, we are either repelling or attracting things, people, and events. It is well and good to repel things by choice, but often what we repel is something we really want, but we have some fear or discomfort around it. So unconsciously we begin to align with a vibration that repels the very thing we want.

Here are three ways we can consciously choose how we hold the experiences of our lives:

  1. Ask yourself whether the person, event, or situation is one that you want to experience more or less.
  2. If you want to experience it more, be sure to consciously choose to welcome it, embrace it, and give thanks for it. You might affirm it out loud or write it in your journal: “I welcome this. I embrace this. I give thanks for this.”
  3. If it’s not something you want to experience more, give thanks for it, bless it, and release it. You might say it out loud or write it in your journal: “I give thanks for this. I bless this. I release this with love.”

The invitation this day is to consciously choose how we hold everything in our lives, remembering that how we hold it matters, determining whether we repel it or attract it. So choose wisely!

Enjoy the journey.

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