November, 2004

No one can live to himself alone. Other people are so much a part of our lives that we cannot think of living without them. People who feel themselves excluded from society are maladjusted.

On the other hand, much of our trouble comes because of others. In our relationships with others two things must happen if we are to be happy. We must be with others, enjoy them and act with them, without in any way seeking to control their actions.

This is not always the easiest thing to do, particularly with our closest friends. But you may be certain that the one who has the largest number of friends is the one who can work and play with them while at the same time letting them alone.

This is true even in family life. For the family is made up of individual members who must live in close relationship with each other and work and play together, while at the same time remaining individuals. It is a fortunate child who is born into a family that understands this and that gives the child as much freedom as possible while at the same time teaching him to cooperate with others.

The overprotected child loses his self-confidence; when he grows up he lacks self-assurance. The child who feels neglected, unloved, and unwanted is likely to grow up with the unconscious feeling that everything and everyone is against him. He is apt to develop either an over-aggressive or an under-aggressive attitude toward life.

But we cannot be born again physically, nor can we actually return to the days of our infancy. However, modern psychology does, in a sense, do this for the poorly adjusted person. He is taken back in imagination to infancy, and his mental and emotional reactions which well up from the underpart of his mind and memory are brought to the light of day.

This is a slow and expensive process. Few people could afford either the time or the money to go through with it.

But there is another thing that we can do, something that Jesus knew about—something he referred to when he said, “You must be born again.” And when they asked him how it could be possible for a man to be born again, he said, “You must be born of the Spirit.” This is the new birth that comes through a new outlook on life, a new way of thinking, a new sense of our relationship to our environment, to the people around us, to ourselves, and to God.

It was this relationship to God that Jesus placed first, for he said that if you find this, everything else will be added. Today we know that the psychological, emotional, and mental readjustments which are necessary to our well-being will be made if we experience this new birth that Jesus was talking about.

In order to do this we must have a firm conviction that all people live in God, and we must have a deep realization that we are all One in this Universal Spirit which is God.

There is a place where we begin and leave off physically, but there is no place where we begin and leave off mentally or spiritually. Our minds merge with the minds of others and, as they meet, some silent force within us attracts or repels automatically in accord with our accepted thought patterns.

If we do not merge with others in cooperation, in unity, and in happiness, we may be certain that there is something in us that still feels it has been rebuffed.

Here is where the adjustment has to be made. What we must do is to see that we ourselves are adjusted to others. We neither wish to dominate them nor wish them to dominate us. We wish to get along with them happily. They have opinions that are different from ours. We must be flexible enough to recognize that their opinions are right for them, even though they do not fit into our scheme. This is what Jesus called nonresistance.

When he spoke of nonresistance he did not mean that we must agree with every person’s opinion. He meant exactly what he said—do not resist it, let it alone, do not even try to dominate it. If we do not resist it, it will depart from us, it will not disturb us. If we can get over this idea of trying to control other people’s thoughts or actions and still live with them in happy relationships, we shall be well on the road to readjustment. And above everything else, if we can trace our own origin back to its original Source, which is God, and do the same for everyone else, we shall find that we are getting along with others.

If you want sunshine, step out into the sunshine. If you have locked yourself away in a dark closet, why not come out into the light? If you have been feeling that everything is against you and no one really cares for you, know that God is in everyone, and meet the God in others and see what happens. It is remarkable how Jesus approached this subject. It is as though he said, “You think that you were born of flesh and blood. You think that your parents gave you life. You think that everything that has happened to you since you were born is held against you. You think that all the negative thoughts you have ever had are operating against you. You think that all the fears and failures and doubts and uncertainties you have been carrying around for years are something over which you have no control. Why not try something else?” I have a method which will work for you if you will let it. Just forget all the past. Forgive yourself and everyone else for everything that has ever happened. Try to feel that everyone is doing about the best he can. Come to realize that, while you were born into this world through your parents, you really are a Spirit. You really are born out of Life. The thing that entered into you when you were born was God, the living Spirit. Why not get back to the true center of your being and think and act and live from the point of view that you are One with everything because you are One with God?”

Jesus gave to us the secret of complete adjustment when he said, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God… and all these things shall be added unto you.”

Go back in your thought and your imagination to this central idea: I am One with God; all people are One with God. We all live in God. When I meet others it is God in them I meet—God individualized, God personalized, God as my friend.

Jesus added the Spirit to the knowledge of what today we call psychology, or the way the mind works. He did not deny that people are unhappy or badly adjusted to life. He did say: “You do not have to be this way. Seek first things first and everything else will be added.” And, by first things to which everything is added, he meant—find God in yourself. That is why he said, “Blessed are they that do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled… Knock, and it shall be opened unto you… Seek, and ye shall find.”

If people look drab or uninteresting to us it is because of the way we look at them. If we have not received joy from others it is because we have stifled joy at the center of our own being. Joy must go forth to meet joy. Love must go forth to meet love. All people are rooted in God, and it is only as we go down to the roots of our being that we unify with others in Spirit and Truth. Everything that follows is the play of Life upon Itself. •

Excerpted from Living the Science of Mind by Ernest Holmes, published by Science of Mind Publishing.

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