Fearlessly Feral Basics: The Thing Itself

First in a 4 part series, this episode and next three cover the Introduction to the Science of Mind textbook.  The first section is titled The Thing Itself

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Transcript

Transcript of The Thing Itself

The Thing Itself

Fearlessly Feral basics!  I got this delightful title from a fellow minister, thank you Rev. Linda Finley!  But more accurately, this podcast is about Science of Mind basics, and more specifically, about the basics covered in the introduction of the Science of Mind textbook.  Today’s episode covers The Thing Itself.

But first, the intro!

Welcome to Fearlessly Feral Living!  Broadcasting to you from the Woogie Ranch, out here in the back 40 of northwestern Nevada, where I’m a half hour away from the nearest gas station and grocery store!

Our MISSION is to teach practical application of Science of Mind principles to provide a strong and unshakeable inner foundation that facilitates long term successful living.

Used to be, in Centers for Spiritual Living all over the world, that every January they did a review of the basics.  And I don’t know about you, but I find it worthwhile to review the basics once in a while, so here we go.  This episode is titled the same as the title in the introduction.  The Thing Itself.  I will also do 3 other episodes titled The Way It Works, What it Does and How to Use It.

If you have a Science of Mind textbook I urge you to read these sections for yourself and come to your own conclusions.  And if you don’t have a science of Mind Textbook, i urge you to think about getting one.  It’s by Ernest Holmes.  There are many editions out there.  The one I am using for this podcast is a Kindle edition, published in 1998.

Ok, here we go. 

So what is this Thing, this capitalized THING, that holmes speaks of?  Well, in true holmes fashion, he doesn’t really get to it till the end of the section.  He’s got to go through all sorts of yummy stuff first, which I’ll get to in a minute.  The THING is, in its simplest form, god.  Aka  Energy, Creative Intelligence of the Universe, Creative power, the great love of the universe, first cause, Mind (capitalized), the thing, Spirit, eternal and changeless intelligence, power, Life, universal wholeness, divine being, and Holmes stresses that because we are one with god, we are divine beings as well.

Whatever we call it, never forget this one very important point:  we are a part of it and it is a part of us.

Holmes says, “ Mind—the Thing, Spirit, Causation—is beyond, and yet not beyond, our grasp. Beyond, in that It is so big; within, in that wherever we grasp at It, we are It to the extent that we grasp It; but, since It is Infinite, we can never encompass It. We shall never encompass God, and yet we shall always be in God and of God!”

We are in god and of god.  God is not something separate from us.  It is a part of us and more importantly, we are a part of it. Of it. This means we have all the power of god at our fingertips.  To the extent that we grasp it.

We have to grasp it.  Ok.  I’m going to get real here folks:  in order to live truly fearlessly feral, you have to release the idea that god is separate from you.  You have never heard me speak of god in the third person and you never will.  We can’t grab hold of the power of god and be speaking of it as if it is separate from us.  Now, I get that most of us have been indoctrinated with the idea that god is separate from us.  Why?  Because when those early men who formulated Christianity and put together the Bible did their thing, they were fear based and they did not want the populace to have a clue of their own power.  So they twisted Jesus’ words around and made it seem like the only way to get that power was through an intermediary, the church and the leaders of the church. Nothing could be further from the truth. Your power is inherent in you, all you have to do is grab hold of it.  But you can’t grab hold of it unless you trust.

Which brings me to a subsection in The Thing Itself:   “Learning to trust will make us happy.”  This is one of my favorite quotes. I’m gonna get real here.  I don’t like it when I lose my trust.  Losing my trust makes me unhappy.  So when I lose my trust, I do whatever is necessary to restore it.  And I’m speaking here of losing my trust in the basic goodness of the Thing Itself, and thus of the world.  I look around at what is happening and think, how can there be good in this?  And I lose my trust.  So I do my spiritual practices and sometimes even seek some extra help to gain that trust back.  And you know what is cool?  When I get the trust back?  It’s more real.  It’s healthier.  It’s not a naive sort of trust that sets me up for victimhood.  It’s a full bodied trust. 

Trying to describe this is like trying to describe the wind.  We can describe the effects of it, but unless the experience is there, we really can’t know what trust feels like.  We know it when we have it, and we know it when we don’t. Hopefully.

So how does one get trust when one does not have it?

Well, first there must be a willingness to trust.  Like I said, when I don’t trust I’m not happy.  And when I don’t trust I don’t feel safe in the world. And then I’m anxious and then things go to hell in a hand basket.

So! How the hell do we learn to trust when we don’t have any?

We develop a relationship with that thing called god.  And since god is within us, guess who we are really developing the relationship with?  Ourselves! 

Holmes says, “it has been written that the truth shall make us free, provided we know the truth, and we note that the evolution of man’s consciousness rings with it the acquisition of new powers and higher possibilities.”

That truth he speaks of? It’s the bottom line truth:  that we are one with god and it is one with us.  All other truths stem from this one.  This places a bit of a different emphasis on knowing our truth doesn’t it?  Just how deeply can we know ourselves?  Because the more we know ourselves the more new powers and higher possibilities we have. 

But we have to trust it.  We have to KNOW.  If you listened to my podcast before, you may have heard me say that I don’t do beseeching prayers.  I don’t pray to an outside god.  That’s because that isn’t where god is for me.  God is within me.  So I go within, I know my truth, and I state my word in affirmative prayer with a punch that is packed with all the power of god, and my word manifests. 

Unless I’m blocking it somehow, then I have more inner searching to do.

There is a reason that in this section, Holmes calls Science of Mind the science of Spiritual Psychology.  Check out transpersonal psychology in Wikipedia.  That.  That’s what this stuff is.  We explore beyond our sense of self and our egos and dive into the world of the transcendent and mystical aspects of our lives to get at the deeper meaning of our experiences.  And what is that deeper meaning?  Well, for me it is learning and growth.  What I like to call MORE!  Processing life’s events, forgiving, knowing my power, always keeping in mind that god is everywhere present and all good all the time and if that is true, than what is not good about any aspect of my life?

Some of my most favorite all time quotes are in this first section of the introduction and I really want to cover them. Oh, and by the way, I’m changing the pronouns to gender neutral.  This isn’t something that’s been approved by the members, just something I’m feeling called to do.

Here’s one: “the very air is vibrant with power.”  Holmes goes on to ask, “why then, are humans weak, poor and afraid?”  He follows up with saying the divine plan is one of freedom and that freedom is our birthright.  And most importantly, we must listen to our inner voice, for “it tells us of a life wonderful in its scope, of a love beyond our fondest dreams; of a freedom which the soul craves.”

Isn’t that beautiful?  Sometimes I read this stuff and I take a deep breath and remember, and it’s like a great weight gets lifted off my shoulders.

Here’s another quote, the very first sentence in the first section of the entire book:  “ We all look forward to the day when science and religion shall walk hand in hand through the visible to the invisible.”

Science and religion walking hand in hand.  This is why I like this stuff.  It incorporates a yes/and type of thing that reminds me not to be so black and white all the time.  In this merging of science and religion, we talk about mysticism and inner power and faith and trust, and then we use science to prove that what we are saying is true.  I will never forget the joy I felt as I went through my first quantum physics class in ministerial school.  Quantum physics proves that what we teach is true!  I was ecstatic.  If you are interested in this line of thought, check out Amit Goswami’s work.  He has many books out there and he was our quantum physics professor in ministerial school.

Ok, here’s another quote I love, “the answer to prayer is in the prayer.”

Now, this can be taken two ways:  is the answer in the prayer itself, or in the one doing the praying?  I think this is a both and.  And I like to take it a step further, because one of the slogans of Science of Mind is “change your thinking, change your life.”  And Holmes describes prayer as “a movement of thought, within the mind of the one praying, along a definite line of meditation; that is, for a specific purpose.”  So when we pray, aren’t we really asking to change our minds?  To change our perception?  To change our thinking? 

And this brings me to another favorite quote:  “to learn how to think is to learn how to live.”  Gone are the days when we rely on someone or something else to tells us what to think, as religions and politicians are prone to do. Instead we learn HOW to think and then we are empowered to make our own decisions. 

In Science of Mind, we don’t teach people what to think.  We teach them how to think.  I’m always fascinated by people who get their sense of morals from religion.  And saddened. 

So, there you have it.  The Thing Itself.  Some tidbits and opinions that will hopefully encourage you to further explore what this teaching is all about. To get your hands on a Science of Mind textbook and begin with the Introduction.

We also have classes and workshops galore that take deeper dives into this teaching.  I encourage you to be open to taking some classes.  They are offered at Centers for Spiritual Living all over the world, both in person and online.  I may even offer a class one day soon, you never know!  If you have a request for a topic, let me know.

In the meantime, I thank you for listening and for your support, and I am knowing fearlessly feral living for me and for you!

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