Some old negative patterns of thought have resulted in frustrations. They have made you feel that, at least in regard to some of your great desires, you are a failure. You may have been balked in every endeavor along certain lines. There may have been a tendency to become bitter in regard to such matters. Now all this is gone! You now know that all things are possible. Perhaps you see that the very disappointments you met forced you into something better, or that you can now use them as stepping-stones to greater results.

Perhaps some of the experiences of the past had hurt you cruelly; your emotional nature felt a deep, deep injury and you would never forget that event! Well, it doesn’t matter whether you have forgotten it or not. It is now healed and rendered ineffective for you have insisted, declared, and demanded and accepted that all negatives be cleared away; the obedient, willing, powerful Action of God-Mind within you has done it. Although you may feel you have been talking to yourself, remember that all mind is one, and you really have been committing this matter to the Action of Universal Mind. That is why the results are so sure and so eminently satisfactory.

Inferiority is No Part of God’s Plan
You may never have admitted that you were inferior to others, but there probably have been times when you felt timid, shy, inadequate, or fearful about attempting something. These are evidences of a thought pattern deep within you which silently suggested that you were inferior, and you accepted that suggestion even if you didn’t put it into words. Let’s give this matter a little more attention.

We are trying to follow the old Greek adage: “Man, know thyself.” Truly to know yourself is to realize deeply, sincerely, and constantly that you are made in the image and likeness of God. Therefore, all God-like qualities are inherent in you. How, then, could you be inferior to anyone? It would be impossible! You not only have but you are Life, Love, Wisdom, Peace, Power, Beauty, and Joy. If any previous ideas have made you feel otherwise, know that whatever they are, they are now being cleansed away and that from now on you are asserting your dominion over any negative thinking that would seem to keep you from your greater good. Reason it out and come to know that there is absolutely nothing that can deny God in you. Your conscious mind, however, must back itself up by the complete cooperation of your every thought —the continual implanting of affirmative ideas of good. This is how you are putting the Law to work in the right way every day and every night.

Emphasize Love and Righteousness
You cannot afford to live with a feeling of inferiority—you are God’s son! Automatically you get rid of the negatives by the implanting of positives. Negatives cannot exist when positives fill the space. When the sunshine of love and confidence fills your whole being, the darkness of the negatives has to disappear. The attitudes of your emotional nature—the feeling level—are what decide your conduct. The heart is the symbol of the deepest emotions, so whatever you are at heart, whether you recognize it or not, is the key to what you really are. “For as [man] thinketh in his heart, so is he” is a scientific law; use it daily. Reconstruction has to begin in your heart—your feeling nature. This is why a cleansing of negative past habits and memories is of primary importance. There needs to be a re-education of emotional reactions.

One of the first requisites for a happy and successful life is good health. You cannot be healthy if you harbor enemies of wholeness: resentment, fear, self-centeredness, and feelings of guilt. Psychologists and physicians say these are the four great enemies of human personality. To banish them you do not pin your attention on them; instead, you emphasize their opposites, those characteristics which Jesus urged: Love, Faith, Unselfish- ness, and Moral Rightness.

W. P. Newsholme, in Health, Disease and Integration, says: “Hate is poison, not only moral and spiritual poison, but mental and physical poison, as well.”

Dr. E. Stanley Jones cites the following incident:

At the close of a meeting, a lady came to me, and in a frightened voice said, “Well, if anger may produce a stomach ulcer, I’m never going to get angry again!” She wouldn’t listen when “Thou shalt not hate” was written in the Bible, but she sat up and took notice when she found it was written also in her own stomach.

From the very first there has been advocated the wisdom and necessity of simple ideas and rules which will help you use the principles of Science of Mind for peace of mind, health of body, and success in every phase of living.

Always there is the need of following them happily. This is because the three aspects of man’s nature are so closely interrelated that what affects one part has a very definite bearing on all other parts of his nature. You can build bodily health by being emotionally healthy, happy, enthusiastic, hopeful. As you stimulate concepts of spiritual wholeness you intensify joyous emotional activity.

Your efforts are to increase your awareness of spiritual power. The start was with the body, because you are a little better acquainted with it, and see the necessity of accepting the stimulus of spiritual power in and through it. Know that the good cheer, the happiness, the joyous expectancy that you are building up in consciousness is being reflected in your health, your financial success, and in your ability to live a fuller and more abundant life. Man determines his own welfare. •

Excerpted from The Basic Ideas of Science of Mind by Ernest Holmes, published by Devorss Publications.

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