Every Thought Counts

Right now as this New Year is still shiny with possibility, many of us are turning to our interior skies to commune with what we know is our internal power that helps to create our reality.

When Ernest Holmes, the founder of what would become the Centers for Spiritual Living, completed his seminal work The Science of Mind, he chose to call this power “The Thing Itself”.

This was Holmes answer to the age-old question about who and what exactly is God. Each and every religion had for centuries claimed god as its own. A scholar of a variety of faiths – from Christianity to Hinduism – Holmes chose as his starting point not the interpretations of God that religions gave us, but an examination of the mind itself that gave rise to religion.

He called this examination spiritual psychology and it set the reader on a course to imagine and consider what exactly we are doing when we use our mind – and the power of using both our conscious and unconscious (subjective) minds.

He summed it up this way: “Man’s thought, falling into his subjective mind, merges with the Universal Subjective Mind, and becomes the law of his life, through the one great law of all life.”

It is this Universal Subjective Mind that is the Thing Itself. So regardless of our particular faith, we are all using the same power, the same God. It is accessible to all, and individualized through each of us. Our religious expression doesn’t matter. Our culture doesn’t matter. Our personal story doesn’t matter. This “thing” works the same way – as a scientific principle – no matter what our personal circumstance.

So how can this help us in understanding what we can do to shape 2014?

Simply reminding ourselves that our mind is connected to that higher consciousness makes us aware of our greater responsibility. Our experience follows the tendency of our beliefs, so if want to manage our reality, we need to pay attention to what we are thinking – both consciously and unconsciously. The mind is a powerful thing.

Spend time these next few days considering deeply what you do when you use your mind. Examine closely the tendency of your thinking. Begin to distinguish between the times you use your critical mind, when you are on auto-pilot, and when you are analyzing. That’s your objective mind at work.

Now, during your spiritual practice, notice and feel the subtleties of when you are using your conscious mind and when you are tapping into that Universal Subjective Mind. Pay attention to how that feels. If music helps settle your mind, use it. If it’s going out for a run, then do that.

Now make a conscious choice to bring that awareness forward into your daily activities and you will discover you have expanded your experience of peace, love and clarity.

As Holmes said: “The mind which we discover within us in the Mind that governs everything.”