Being and becoming; a book of lessons in the science of mind showing how to find the personal spirit

Foreword

THIS book is written to show how we know that there is a universal intelligence ; how that intelligence or being becomes manifest, or the passing of spirit into form; the method by which we can control the form it shall take for us as individuals ; the way in which we can harness cosmic forces ; and above all it is written to make plain the personal relation of our own self with the Greater Self whose life we share.

The highest purpose of this science of thinking is to develop a conscious feeling of our oneness with Spirit. By Spirit we mean the absolute of Life, Love and Wisdom. "Thou hast made us for Thyself; and our hearts are restless 'til they rest in Thee." This, therefore, is the Book of Love and explains fully the nature of the feeling-life.

Without detracting from the essential teaching of the new science, that man is endowed with perfect freedom and can make his life what he will by his conscious choices, I have shown here how we may still keep the delightful fellowship of the Personal Spirit and the sense of a Presence that guides us in all the affairs of life.

Fenwicke Lindsay Holmes.

Los Angeles, Calif.

Feb. 6, ip20.

Part One Being As The Impersonal Life

I. Being or the Changeless Life .... 3

A study of the universe reveals the fact that back of every visible thing is the invisible force or energy that sustains it in form. What this energy is in itself, we do not know; but as it acts with intelligence and betrays the fact that the base of all things is one, we call it "That-Which-Is," that is, Being or Mind.

II. Becoming or the Changing Form ... 10

Being is always seeking expression; and as it is Mind, its mode is thought and feeling and its manifestation idea and form. Creation is therefore the form which God's thought is taking; and the process goes on forever, so that if we once place ourselves in the current of divine consciousness we can be prospered and healed without personal struggle.

III. Being Is Becoming Through Us ... 14

Being thus acts through us; and the attitude we assume toward it determines the character of its manifestation for us. The best results are therefore secured by relying upon the power within, while at the same time^ making sure that we choose what we most want it to become.

IV. The Mental Universe — Why We Call Things Ideas ' 20

We see from the foregoing that Life or Being is intelligence; and since I know that I, too, am being and a self, I can but conclude that all things which have intelligence may also be selves. Trees, rocks, etc., may^ be thought of as Being expressing itself through its idea. Thus all nature is directly related to us and cannot have its fullest meaning without the cognizing mind. _ Color, odor, and such qualities exist not so much in the thing as in our idea about the thing. This shows the unity of all, since each thing depends on every other thing and self for its own complete manifestation, vii viii Contents

V. If "Things Are Ideas," What Is "Real"? . 27

The question naturally arises: If things are ideas, do they not exist entirely in the mind of the individual? Do I ever "see" anything? The answer is that we each do see things in a different way, yet there is with each thing a certain fixity of idea which is common to all and which awakens the attention of all to the presence of the thing. This common factor is vibration. But vibration is an idea* for it is thought. Vibration ancTtnoughf areime, simply Hie functioning of mind. Things can exist apart from my own thought for they are thoughts of God. My consciousness is aroused by the presence of thought or vibration which exists as a . "real." As God may "see" things clothed in color even as we see them, the idea may conceivably be complete without my mind at all. The theory of , illusions is necessarily, therefore, a violation of philosophic as well as common sense. Since things are thoughts, our own superior understanding enables each of us to control his life through his thoughts and ideas.

VI. Personal and Impersonal Mind .... 36

As each idea or thing is a definite thought and is sustained by the presence of Being or Intelligence, Being is, as we have seen, a self to that extent. This reveals the great personalness of the universe. Further study shows the fact that Being acts both personally and impersonally. This is well illustrated in the case of man's own mind. It is two-fold: the objective or personal mind chooses, wills, and initiates action through the selection and formation of ideas; the subjective or impersonal mind is the storehouse of memory, the foundation of the sensational life and the soil in which all thoughts grow into form and expression. It is the creative life within each of us.^ It does not originate ideas, but takes the model given it by the personal mind and creates accordingly. The Universal Mind can be shown to have the same characteristics; in the larger aspects it is a Self, for it chooses the lines of its activity; but in the affairs that concern us as individuals it acts as law or impersonally. Thus, through our unity with it, we can choose what it shall do for us; and it becomes manifest as that thing which we think.

VII. The Part "I" Play in Cosmic Mind . .51

Man individualizes God. There is but One Mind; and as "I am," I must be related to it and share its resources and power. Then my choices become the choices or ideas of the impersonal mind; and it creates accordingly. This explains evil as well as

Contents ix good, since Being becomes manifest either for good or ill according to the idea or thought which forms the mold for its expression. This truth does away with any concept of a dual mind.

VIII. Man's Greater Body and the Feeling-life 57

Being is not only a thinker but also a lover. While feeling is indeed a fine form of thinking, yet we may speak of Being as the Feeling-life. Each of us has a well-developed feeling nature which we derive from Original Feeling or God. This feeling-life operates not only within the area of what we commonly know as the physical body, but also functions through an area of fine vibration all about us which is so sensitive that it takes the impression even of thought forces. We are thus constantly directly in contact with others through the very atmosphere. This is illustrated in the aura and in the odic fluid. Through both the greater body and the lesser, there run the finer feeling forces which lie between man's conscious thought and his body. The body is profoundly affected by whatever affects the feeling-life; and as the latter is impersonal, every thought and feeling we experience is registered directly on the body and affairs. Thus our bodies are subject to all mental influences that come to us; and unless we protect ourselves, we may even suffer from malicious influences. The law works in either direction. We are therefore told in this chapter how to control life through the control of thoughts and emotions.

IX. The Emotional Self and the Causes of

Disease 68

It has become plain, then, that through the avenue of thought and feeling man controls his destiny or is subject to control from without if he allows it. Disease can be directly traced to unguarded emotional life. The fatal effect of harsh and careless words is thus revealed especially in the life of women. Calamity-howlers should be fined or imprisoned as awakening the fear-thought which produces the disease or disaster. Yet we must never blame our troubles on others, as the power is given us to control these things by conscious choices. We must refrain from emotions that poison the blood, etc. We therefore study what attitude of mind to assume in the case of psychic disease and the subtle pains' of abused love nature. Thus man is shown his power to control life and happiness by the thoughts he thinks and the emotions he entertains. He can heal himself of every disease through these laws.

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X. Choosing What We Want 80

Instruction is now given as to the direct way in which choice governs our life and destiny and how we may use impersonal creative mind in securing the objects of our desire. Every thought, word and idea is found to be matched by reality; and life is a magic mirror which gives to us created what we present to it in concept and ideal.

XL Picturing Our Good 87

We are therefore taught to give conscious thought to our ideas and deliberately to brood upon those things which we wish to have come forth. > One of the best ways to do this is to picture in imagination just what we would like to have come forth into the world of reality. This is the way in which Cosmic Mind creates; and we cannot improve on the method. Whatever God thinks, becomes; and, since man uses the same power he can pass the substance of spirit out into any form by imaging that form and then expecting it to appear. This relieves us from all necessity of struggle. It is not will, but faith. Thus in "ideation," rather than "will," do we find the secret of life's control. Yet this throws vast responsibility on the individual, for he must do the choosing. He may make mistakes; but he will learn from their consequences; and ultimately he will turn to Spirit for guidance in his choices, by intuition. (See XX.) Whatever comes, therefore, must be recognized as real, whether good or bad; and the effect cannot be removed by simply denying that it exists. It must be removed by changing the cause or choice. "Denials" do not create; but we are after a new creation, so we affirm or rather select the things we do want. Thus the determining factors of life are choice and idea.

XII. A Definite Method for' Realization ^ . . 98

\ Man cannot change the law of cosmic forces.' He lives in a world of constant movement; and cataclysms are bound to occur in the process of evolution or unfoldment. But his escape is through that divine guidance which will free him personally from peril. To have a well-regulated and happy life, therefore, we must learn how to turn to Divine Mind and bring forth the good that we desire. Thus we realize the law of life; and then,* without any sense of struggle, we turn to the Law and ask for what we want. The process is simple: selection, anticipation. One can get good results by lying down; and, after centering the thought,! one simply dwells on the fact that spirit is now, passing through into expression; being is in us becoming. The realization of spirit, myself, as spirits

Contents "xi".

chapter Students' Outline x page'

my body, my conditions, my world, this is the whole aim of mental science. ^When this is accomplished, our "demonstration" is made.

XIII. Using the Law of Impersonal Mind in the Case of Prosperity 103

As for health and happiness, so for prosperity: we realize that the work that is to be done is not performed by us, but by cosmic mind and forces; we are one with the Universal Impersonal Creative Mind; and It does the work for us. So I must first establish my sense of union with it; I must know that I am speaking into the only mind there is and backed by the only power there is. My mental equivalent is my thought of perfect faith: it will be matched by the perfect reality from the Father. Thus to secure a position, to sell a house, to obtain a home, to secure money, one acts in the silence of thought, declares his faith and his choice and BELIEVES.

XIV. Summary of Law of Impersonal Mind . Ill

The law by which spirit passes into form is like the law of light in a stereopticon. The light is the spirit; the slide is the thought; the lens is the will; the screen-picture is the form. Light is therefore both energy and substance. Spirit is always spirit no matter what form It may assume. All we

have to do is to propose to ourselves that Divine^ .

Mind shall work out our problem, and then leave !*""" the issue^ with God. Nor'must we think that the moment in the silence is the determining factor: it is the constant attitude of expectancy that rules our creations. Nor must we always approach Mind for things. This deadens the spiritual nature: God is greater than an impersonal, creative force. There cannot be an impersonal life without a personal. The highest instincts of life will never be satisfied without the discovery of the Personal Spirit.

Part Two

BEING AS THE PERSONAL SPIRIT XV. The God Who Hears Us .119

Every one experiences God as personal. Yet God's personal nature is not entirely like our own. In brief, He has personality as we have it, with the exception that^ no quality should be attributed to Him that denies His absoluteness. His freedom is perfect; His knowledge is complete. We often are entangled in the toils of our mistakes; He never, xu

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We suffer from pain and hardship through the incompleteness of our knowledge; He never. g We have a sense of time and space; these are not ideas with God. Yet, with us, God shares the power to think, will, and feel. He is therefore personal in three ways: first, He is an Absolute self, for He planned, initiated, and chose the area of all the worlds in space. These are qualities of personality. Impersonal mind cannot work without a plan. As Personal, God makes the plan; He purposes. The pronoun "He" must be thought of as indicating person, not gender. Yet so vast is the plan of the Cosmic Mind that, so far as we are concerned, He works by law, and never interferes with our choices. Nothing in the personality of God shotild ever be construed as denying personal choice to the individual. Second, in "God are all the personal qualities, which Troward calls the "personalness," from which the individual derives his personal nature. Third, He is personal in us, as each individual is God individualized. There is but one substance and one source of all minds. We are purposes of Being, — His self-expression through love.

XVI. The God Who Loves Us

Since God seeks self-expression in love through us, He becomes the support of the highest efforts and reaches of our ambition to attain perfection and happiness. The height of attainment is therefore a sense of conscious union with Him while we pursue the pathway of self-unfoldment and expression. To secure this sense of union, we have but to let or allow spirit to flow through us as love.

XVII. The God Who Heals Us

XVIII.

Love thus becomes the great healing power since it is harmonious life and wholeness, for love is the union of kindred things. We are therefore shown cases of healing through the love-consciousness which is the greatest healing power. Wholeness is substituted for unwholesomeness. 'Feelings and emotions are shown directly to affect the health, because they are the medium through which Love or Spirit passes into expression. Yet love is not to be sought in order to obtain things but rather for its own sake. Disinterested affection is divine; life is fully realized only as we love. "Love is the fulfilling of the law.]' The question arises,— How may we cooperate with God in fulfilling His own purpose, self-expression in love?

The Mystic Union, or How to Realize the Presence 141

v Man is born for love, for He is a purpose of God in self-realization. He must therefore find God in

Contents xiii order to be complete. But he can reach God only through his own soul. "It is the flight of the alone to the Alone." Man moves to God, however, only on his own choice. He effects the union from within. Various steps mark his progress. First, he must learn to concentrate on the one purpose of approaching God. He must center his thought. Union is obtained only by determined desire. Second, through this control of thought he enters the quiet of the soul. From here, he presses on into direct contemplation of God as All. This is a vast experience and worth every effort. Joy and peace and ecstasy are its reward.

XIX. The Mystic Union — The Soul's Dark

Hour — The Light Eternal 151

Not content with contemplation of the ineffable sweetness of the All-Love, the spirit yearns for closer contacts or direct union. In his search, man often loses his bearings and plunges into a mental chaos. This is the soul's dark hour; but, with the determined mind, it presages the dawn. The final step in the mystic union is the "unified life" or the "deified life" of which Jesus spoke, "I and the Father are one." This is the final goal and brings L

to the soul the true consciousness of being. The great circle is thus complete, when man not only intellectually accepts the nature of all as being but perceives or realizes Being Itself. This is, then, the true basis of all becoming.

XX. Intuition, or the Higher Wisdom of the Unified Life 157

We have now reached a state of consciousness where the doors of the Divine Wisdom can be thrown open to us; and we are able by intuition to go in and discover the pathways we should take to secure all good and to avoid all ill. We thus learn how to escape wrong choices and to be free from the lash of the law through Karma. The purpose of living if not that we may learn what not to do, but rather what to do. Thus experience is not the best teacher. The intuitions occupy the first place. Intuition and ideation go together, for by our intuition we know what is the best idea to select. This is illustrated in the case of the treatment of disease. Identity with Spirit in consciousness will secure perfect results.

XXI. Does Death End the Process by Which Being Becomes? 165

Creation is an endless process and therefore the passing of being into expression will never be comxiv Contents pleted. We shall always be on the pathway of becoming. Proof of immortality lies here, for we cannot conceive of an end to the process any more than we can conceive of an end to numbers. Again, since impersonal mind creates and manifests exactly as we think, itrnust manifest immortality, for we never cease to impress the concept of immortality upon it. The first law of t nature is self-preservation; and, by a common instinct, we impress this idea on impersonal mind. Thus we impress the idea of life; and it manifests as life; of immortality and it manifests as immortality. Physical death must not be confounded with the experience of the soul. Thus death should be thought of, not as the end of things, but as the beginning. It is not a "taking off" but a taking on. Thus is death swallowed up in victory by the soul that "knows Him in whom it has believed."

We have thus discovered the law of life and mind and our control through knowledge. The one great need of human thought has been shown to be the distinct necessity of recognising Spirit as such from Alpha to Omega. Then being and becoming shall be found in their true relationship. To know God and the self is life eternal. Thus being has its perfect becoming. Our age demands that in our becoming we reveal the true nature of Being. The marriage of Being and Becoming is effected when the message and the messenger are one. Like Jesus, we may appear declaring, "I am he." "I am" is being: "I am he" is becoming. The new Messiah is he who embodies the truth of being; and thus man speaks while the Father dwelling in him doeth the works.

Chapter I. Being Or The Changeless Life

WE live in the midst of God and yet we do not know Him. Mysteries press in upon us on every hand and yet we fail to understand. A worm goes to sleep and wakes up a butterfly; an egg is warmed for three weeks in a drawer and a chicken breaks forth from its marble cell; a bullet cuts its way through shrieking flesh and internal agents restore every organ, cell for cell and nerve for nerve. A nut, an egg or a grain of ^/ sand hides within it the secret of life. To explain one of them is to explain everything. Yet how often it is looked upon either as a miracle or a fraud when a man turns the inspired eye of faith to an inner power and is lifted from the very bed of death itself, or in dire financial straits calls upon God and finds supply, or in peril by sea or land discovers a guardian angel who points out for him a star and a way. How rash we are in these days of mystery, when science has discovered that the ' more we know the less we know, to declare that with God any thing is impossible! And perhaps we are still more rash when we dare to pass critical judgment on the use of any power, whether we call that power God or mind or consciousness or truth. No power used to lighten the burdens of life or to inspire the soul to renewed faith and effort can be anything but good. Some day all men shall know this is true and that the first and greatest of all sayings is this, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God, the Lord is one and beside me there is none other." Then force, energy and life shall be found to come from a common source and whosoever shall lift the burden of another's woe and pain through the use of the forces at his command shall do the will of my Father who is in heaven.

What, then, is the wonder that lies back of a nut, an egg f or a grain of sand, a healed wound, the cure of a cancer, the demonstration of success, and the glory of an uplifted faith? We can at least get closer to the Causal Mystery even though our investigations show us more of what we do not know than what we know. And, even though ab^Shed by what he discovers, man may still feel that "haply he knows somewhat more than he knows ;" and even in the nut, the egg f and the grain of sand he may find a common factor which relates them to each other and perhaps to himself.

There is no beauty in a nut. It is simple and homely; and it would appear that a botanist could make a much finer one than nature provides. But he cannot ! He can stir up the chemicals that compose it, and mould them into the shape of a nut —

Being or the Changeless Life but he cannot make it grow. There is something in the nut which he cannot imitate; there is something in it back of which he cannot go with his analysis. We call it the life-principle. *

Where in an egg shall we find the secret of the chicken? Not one drop of blood, nor so much as the daintiest shadow of down would we surprise within the shell ; and were we to break through the frail door, we should render it but an open tomb, for even as we search its -shapeless form we find that the imprisoned splendor has escaped, carrying its secret with it. Where was that which might have been the tiny chick ; what was "it," where is it, what is it now ? And were we to have allowed it to grow into a body and then dissected flesh and bone, we should never have taken unawares the sleeping yet wakeful mystery. Life cannot be dissected.

The chemist dissolves the grain of sand and declares that he has solved the problem of the mineral kingdom and discovered its law by calling it "chemical affinity." But what is chemical affinity? *It is the name of a force. The chemist does not know what the force is; he knows only that it is. He has learned something about it, but like the botanist and the biologist, he has not learned it. The discovery of the supreme fact of its nature or law, however, has done much for us in solving the riddle, for it has betrayed intelligent activity. Indeed, something within minerals opens them to the influence of mind; and vibrations sent out at the will of the operator can magnetize them. What is that principle within, which is thus acted upon by mind and which acts with the intelligence of mind? It is something of which again we may say, "It is, and we know how it is ; but we do not know what it is." Yet because it betrays intelligence and because intelligence is a characteristic of mind, we may give to it a new name — life.

The greatest of scientists to-day are telling us that we live in a universe alive with intelligence; and the advanced investigator does not hesitate to declare that all nature is alive. But if we declare that our riddle is answered by the word life, what have we ? We have this — that we have reduced the universe to one; and we have found that it is related to us in some way. But what is "life"?

It is a curious thing that we should thus live in a living universe; and yet not be able to tell what life is. It is one of Nature's paradoxes.

For life we know, and knowing, do not know, Yet know we whence we come, and whither go:

For life is all, and plays the master role, It is its own true witness to its fact:

Illusive, subtle substance of the soul That ever gives of self, and yet remains intact.

All that we can say is that life is; and the absence of it is what men call death. But w r e can go on studying how it acts and the law by which it is

Being or the Changeless Life 7

governed or by which it governs, in order that by our knowledge we may control our body and affairs.

Life is Absolute or All.

Probably the most important discovery of the new science of life is that it is universally present. We no longer think of life as being found only in some entity, here in a lily, there in a dog; but we find it everywhere, here in the stone and there in the star. There are plenty of evidences of life manifesting itself in inarticulate nature ; of Life of which when we find It, we can but acknowledge the presence ; we cannot say what it is. We can only say, "It Is."

The great seer, Moses, perceived the presence of this life in the flaming bush. In himself and in nature, he discovered something more than form and beauty: he found "that Something" in nature that replied to a something in himself; and communing with It, he asked, "What is your name?" He could not define this Presence ; but it seemed to say, "I AM THAT I AM." "I AM" denotes life or existence; and "THAT I AM" shows that it cannot be defined in terms. But that which cannot be defined in terms must be the Absolute. Life, then, is Absolute. It is All. "The All" is found, therefore, not merely in nature and in man, but as nature and as man, and yet more than nature and man. All that we perceive is one and inseparable with it, for all is life. This Life is what we call Spirit.

Spirit is, therefore, Life, Mind, Intelligence, All. So anything or anyone, or all can say, "I am." "I am" comes from the verb "to be" and denotes "being." Being, therefore, indicates that which is, apart from time or space. It is "that which was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be." Nor is it something outside of us. It is rather something within us which makes us what we are. It is Spirit or First Cause in us; it is that "subtle substance of the soul" coming forth into expression and manifesting as things. The body accordingly is spirit. We see it as body from the outside or objective point of view. But if we view it from within, it is spirit or being. So all things are one in essence, for all are being ; and being is all or absolute.

Yet being takes "soul-form" or thought-form, so that within the lily is the eternal idea of lily which always gives birth to a lily from a lily bulb ; and a rose always gives birth to a rose. Each form of life gives birth after its own kind. This is interestingly illustrated in the example of a tree. At one time, the botanist supposed that sap is drawn through the trunk and branches of a tree entirely by capillary action, that is, mechanical force. Yet it is now known that a tree will die from a shock even while its pores are unimpaired, showing that