The Law of
Mental
Equivalents
By Ernest Holmes
Excerpted from Love and
Law: The Unpublished Teachings of Ernest Holmes, edited by Marilyn
Leo, published by Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam. Copyright © 2001
by the United Church of Religious Science.
You realize a man who has never
had a dollar in his life cannot demonstrate a million dollars.
A person who never had anything like that cannot comprehend it.
If a million dollars came to him, it wouldn’t be recognized
because he does not know the value, or that there is any value.
It would not be recognized after it was received. If a man couldn’t
think a million dollars, he would never get it. I don’t
mean see it, but think it.
It is impossible to demonstrate
a million dollars. You cannot sit down and think that you have
a million dollars. It is not through this process that you get
it. We must clear out of our consciousness every thought of lack
and limitation. Clear out all the race suggestions of limitation,
and the belief in poverty and lack, and that belief that “I
have to work for a living.” These things hypnotize people
and bind them. The whole thing is impersonal. We don’t work
to earn a living. You must de-hypnotize yourself. Don’t
acknowledge bondage. We don’t have to work. It is asked:
“If everyone would do that, who would do the work?”
There will be such an evolution and such proof that there would
be very little work to be done. An active thought will always
be active in body, but you can free your consciousness from the
bondage of having to work for a living. This thought is absolutely
desirable and commendable. Specifically, every day take the time
to declare that that Spirit, which is you, lives in you, and your
consciousness recognizes itself to be without limitation; it is
perfect, complete, free, unbound.
We induce a mental state and
after we have induced a mental state in the subjective, it is
clear what will happen; for the subjective cannot induce but can
only deduce. We induce, Mind produces. The trouble with most of
us is that while we are speaking an objective word, we have to
free our inner consciousness of that thing that holds us. When
you treat, you realize all that. Then you realize that here you
are in Mind and you are speaking right out into Mind. Mind is
the actor. Your demonstration will depend on you. You have got
to have a mental equivalent of everything you are going to get.
The thing that is induced, involved, can only evolve at the level
of its concept. So each of us has to start right where we are.
Suppose a man is working for
$50 a week. He knows what $50 a week is. He already has a mental
equivalent of $50 a week. Mental equivalent means that there is
something in him which knows that $50 a week is all that he needs
to clothe him and his family and supply his needs. He has not
got the mental equivalent that he could spend three times as much.
He set a price on himself. This man cannot conceive of $100 a
week, and it is absolutely useless for him to sit down and try
to demonstrate it. He has got to grow in his own consciousness.
He must realize plenty and free his consciousness of limitation.
Gradually he conceives of earning more; and as he grows, he can
easily conceive of $1,000 a week. He could speak an audible word
that would be substantiated by a just realization. When he gets
accustomed to $1,000 a week, then automatically the thing grows.
He comprehends more. He can think bigger things. There must always
be peace of mind, a contentment, a harmonious consciousness. The
activity of mind is the eternal expression of itself.
It is possible for each one of us to financially free ourselves.
Start right where you are. Suppose you are in business. Just a
little business. You have from 10 to 20 customers a day and you
sell about fifty dollars’ worth of goods, getting about
$30 gross profit. You can live on this, you say. You are satisfied.
You who are in such a condition are not going to demonstrate that
you can run a department store. You must first realize that there
is no limitation. Realize that you have and are getting more and
more trade. Always demonstrate ahead and not behind. If you plant
a seed in the ground, there is something that will make the seed
grow. We call it Mind.
Here is a man, and he desires
a certain thing; we call this a habit. He hates someone and wants
to kill him. He thinks and thinks, and an irresistible power obsesses
him and he goes and does it. That is the way habits are formed.
If a man wants prosperity and provides a mental equivalent, sooner
or later an impersonal force will irresistibly bring about his
desires, and he will realize prosperity. That is what we call
demonstration. It does not depend on any environment, location,
people, or anything of that kind. It depends on you.
Going back to the man who
has the little business, let us say that he begins to conceive
of more activity. He has understood the law. He treats himself.
He declares that right here there radiates activity; an atmosphere
of positive attraction, and surely he has customers. It is the
atmosphere of attraction that makes you want to buy something
in a store although you had no idea of purchasing when you entered
the store.
Sit down each day and
mentally see people coming in your store and purchasing, just
as the man with the little store. When you get a clear picture
of the thing, visualize the thing. Turn it right over to universal
subjectivity and it is done. It always says: “I will.”
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