Ernest Holmes on Love

Ernest Holmes on Love

Can We Talk to God? (1934):

1.  If we make ourself receptive to the idea of love, we become lovable; to the degree that we embody love, we are love.  This is why people who love are loved; it does not pay to hate, hate is a human idea; love is a divine verity.  (p. 50.2)

2.  It is not by a terrific mental struggle or soul-strain that we arrive at this goal but through a quiet expectation, a joyful anticipation, the calm recognition that all the peace there is and all the power there is and all the good there is is Love, the Living Spirit Almighty.  (p. 58.3)

The Science of Mind (1938):

1.  Love is the grandest healing and drawing power on earth.  It is the very reason for our being, and that explains why it is that people should have something or someone to love.  The life that has not loved has not lived, it is still dead.  Love is the sole impulse for creation, and the man who does not have love as the greatest incentive in his life, has never developed the real creative instinct.  No one can swing out into the Universal without love, for the whole Universe is based upon it.  (p. 298.3)

How to Use the Science of Mind (1948):

1.  There is but one ultimate impulsion in the universe.  This impulsion is love.  This love is more than an emotional sentiment, although it must include all such emotional sentiments.  It is the pure essence of Divine Givingness.  (p. 74.4)

2.  Always we shall see that spiritual mind practice is a combination of love and law -- love as impulsion, law as propulsion.  It is through love that we arrive at a sense of union.  (p. 138.2)

This Thing Called You (1948):

1.  You are made perfect in the law when you enter into conscious communion with the love.  Love is the fulfillment of the law; that is, it is only through love that the law can fulfill itself in your experience, because love harmonizes everything, flows through everything.  You can never make the most perfect use of the law of your life unless that use is motivated by love.  (p. 144.1)

Words That Heal Today (1949):

1.  It is when the self goes with the gift that it becomes an offering of love.  The intellect and heart must go hand in hand.  The altar of faith is profaned unless the gift laid on it is one of love.  Nothing can profit us except it be of the nature of love.  (p. 53.3)

2.  Love only is the fulfilling of the law, bringing its use to those high purposes that bind us back to the heart of the universe.  Love waits for the fulfillment of the law.  It is kind and does not envy.  It seeks not its own and thinks no evil.  (p. 54.1)

A New Design for Living (1959):

1.  It would seem to be a fundamental fact that love is the basic reality of life.  This would in turn give rise to a firm conviction that God is love.  God, creative Intelligence, depends on His creation for expression, the expression depending on God for its existence.  God could never stop creating or loving, neither can the creation cease loving or expressing God without limiting its experience of the Source of its existence, in which case it would gradually cease to be.  In the mind of man we find the only created thing which can consciously deprive itself of accepting God’s love, and when this is done the results are disastrous.  (p. 142.3)

Effective Prayer (1966):

1.  Love overcomes both hate and fear.  However, love does not overcome hate and fear through controversy, argument, or force, but by a subtle power of transformation, transmutation, and sublimation.  It is invisible in its essence but apparent through its act.  As light overcomes the darkness, as the presence of heat causes the coolness of a room to change until it is warm and comfortable, so the radiant action of love and peace dissipates fear, hate, and confusion.

            Love is the victor in every case.  Love breaks down the iron bars of thought, shatters the walls of material belief, severs the chain of bondage which thought has imposed, and sets the captive free. (p. 51.3)

           

10 Ideas That Make a Difference (1966):

1.  Man’s three greatest needs are to feel that he is needed, wanted, and loved -- to feel that he belongs to the Universe in which he lives, and to have an object or objects upon which he may lavish his affection.  (p. 49.1)

2.  Life is not only where we are, It is what we are; It is in as well as around us, and Its whole impulsion is Love.  The Universe does rest on the shoulders of Love.  Love is the real lodestone of life. (p. 53.1)

            also in Life

The Spiritual Universe and You (1971):

1.  Love is more than a sentiment; it is a need, a hunger, a thirst which is perfectly natural.  Anyone who thinks he can live and be happy without it does not really know what he is talking about -- psychologically, emotionally, physiologically, or spiritually.  Love is the beginning and end, the one sentiment in nature that will not be denied.  (p. 53.1)

2.  Love alone shall discover the heart of God at the heart of man; love alone shall reveal the Self to the self, and find enthroned in the high citadel of the secret place of God in our own heart that beneficence which embraces the whole world.  When love’s activity is no longer confined to the littleness that restricts, but extends to everything and everyone, then shall we hear its song sung throughout the circuits of our lives. (p. 56.2)

3.  Love is the highest Principle that Life has to give us because It is Life acting in unity with Itself.  It can never act any other way.  We act contrariwise and build up liabilities, stifling the healing currents of that Power, which is the healing Power in the world.  Why?  Because we are afraid that it is not practical to love -- to love one another.  (p. 61.4)

4.  I believe love is the greatest healing, motivating power in the universe, because love is givingness.  I do not think we can pray an effectual prayer or be a good human being without great love.  It is the only thing that unbinds the captive, penetrates the wall of obscurity, and sets the captive free from the prison of his own creation.  (p. 76.4)

Ideas for Living (1972):

1.  Jesus knew what we all must learn:  that we cannot really have an attitude of dislike or hate or viciousness toward other people without robbing ourselves of the healing power and the comforting Presence and the Divine Assurance that the universe itself rests on the shoulders of Love.  (p. 42)

2.   Love is the greatest of all healing agencies. . . . Love creates confidence; confidence gives self-assurance based on a Power greater than we are, and self-assurance is necessary to any successful life.  (p. 42)

3.  But love is also forgiveness.  Love overlooks the little differences that we have and finds a point of reconciliation with others.  Love creates tolerance and human understanding, without which we become really divided against ourselves and without which we almost unconsciously become filled with criticism, condemnation, and false judgment.  No one can be happy or enjoy the greatest fulfillment in life until he has come to see that most people try to do about the best they can.  And when we are able to reach out beyond the indifference and the coldness of life, reach through all intolerance and unkindness, only then do we meet that Divine center which is forever established within every person.  (p. 42)

            also in Tolerance

4.  . . . since the very nature of our being is rooted in the need to love and be loved, we are perfectly right in assuming that God is Love.  How could we possibly think of a god who could be either unkind or unloving?  (p. 43)

5.  Jesus introduced the idea of a Divine forgivingness based on his belief in a Divine Love and told us that when we find the one we shall also discover the other.  (p. 43)

6.  Knowing that the Law of God is a law of love and of liberty we are seeing freedom and joy and happiness and peace and wholeness in everything we look at.  We are responding to the Divine calm which is at the center of everything.  And knowing that perfect love casts our all fear, we are strong and confident because we know that the Law of God goes with us and prepares the way before us.  (p. 45)

Living the Science of Mind (1984):

1.  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.  (p. 188.5)

2.  First of all you must have a firm conviction that God is Love, and an equally firm conviction that when you apply this Principle of Love to any human problem the very words you speak in your meditation or treatment or prayer will operate as Law in the condition that confronts you, and will neutralize or overcome everything that opposes It.  (p. 234.4)

3.  God is Love.  God has deposited Love at the center of every man’s being, whether he knows it or not and this Love which I now use is not only the greatest sentiment in the world; It is the Supreme Power, It is the Perfect Law, It is Reality.  (p. 234.5)

4.  It is only through Love that we find the Presence in Its greatness and can use the Power in Its fullness.  (p. 267.2)

5.  Love is a feeling.  Faith is the key to use this feeling.  Love has nothing in It that could hurt anything; faith has nothing in it that can deny any good.  This is the starting point; a Love that cannot hurt and a faith that will not be denied.  (p. 267.3)

6.  ... there is a Love in the Universe which by Its very presence dissolves all hate;. . .  (p. 273.1)

7.  To understand that Love overcomes both hate and fear is one of the chief requisites of a scientific mental practitioner.  Love does not overcome hate and fear by argument or force, but by some subtle Power of transformation, transmutation, sublimation, invisible in Its essence but apparent through Its act.  (p. 331.1)

8.  Love is the victor in every case.  Love breaks down the iron bars of thought, shatters the walls of material belief, severs the chain of bondage which thought has imposed, and sets the captive free.  (p. 331.5)

Ideas of Power (1992):

1.  I think love is the only security there is in the Universe.  There is nothing worthwhile without it; and with it, a person can live -- even if he has nothing else.  We must have love, and for everybody.  (p. 188.1)

2.  Now it is very simple.  We have to love, if we are going to broadcast love.  (p. 189.3)

3. ... God is Love:  whatever the impulsion of the Universe is, it is love, beneficence; it is kindness, it is compassion; it is sweetness, truth, beauty -- friendly toward us.  (p. 197.1)

4.  --- love seeks its own, and there is no fulfillment without it.  (p. 198.2)

5.  Love is the only final security in the Universe; love is the greatest healing power in the Universe, and the only thing that binds people together in a community of Spirit.  (p. 198.2)

6.  I believe love is the greatest healing motivating power in the Universe, because love is givingness.  (p. 237.4)

A Holmes Reader on Change (1995):

1.  There is no fear in love, and there is no liberation from fear without love.  Fear is always based on the supposition that we are unprotected, rejected, friendless.  If the fearful mind would entertain love, and the harmony and peace that go with it, then it must turn from everything that denies this love and, trusting in Divine Guidance, open its being to the influx of love -- not just love of God, but love of everything, for love is an all-inclusive conception.  (p. 21)

            also in Fear

A Holmes Reader on Practical Wisdom (1996):

1.  Love is a language which is universal, interpreted through every living soul and understood by all.  Love will find the solution to every problem, will answer every question, and will ultimately vanquish every foe.  Love begets tolerance; tolerance begets understanding, an understanding which is able to put itself in the other person’s place.  (p. 63)

            also in Tolerance

2.    Love is unity, understanding, harmony.  It is as necessary to the well-being of the soul as food is for the strength of the body.  A life which is starved of love, which knows no affection, is unnatural and abnormal.  Love would sit within every person, flowing through and permeating one’s entire being.  We truly live in its atmosphere when we meet people through whom love radiates.  A unity is formed, harmony is created, and we desire to be in their presence.  (p. 63)

3.  Love is a synonym for God; and God is love, the universal outpouring of the Spirit through law, wisdom, life, and action.  God knows us in love:  we know God only through love.  When we love humanity we are loving God, in and through others.  (p. 63)

           

Science of Mind Magazine:

1.  Love is kind, gentle and understanding.  It is tolerant of others and reaches back through indifference and coldness to life, to something warm and pulsating that is at the very center of everything.  And love is something that, the more you give the more you get back in return; but refusing to give it out seems to short-circuit any possibility of its returning.   (Oct. 1993, p. 17)

2.  Man’s three greatest needs are:  to feel that he is needed, wanted, and loved; to feel that he belongs to the universe in which he lives; and to have an object or objects upon which to lavish his affection.  (Feb. 1995, p. 12)

3.  The true meaning of love is a wonderful thing:  for it is the desire of the soul to express itself in terms of creation.  Creation is brought about only through the self-givingness of the lover to the object of his or her love.  This is why, when we love people, we will go to the limit to help or serve them; nothing is too great, no sacrifice is enough.  The true lover gives all and is unhappy in not having still more to give.  (August 1996)

4.  You are made perfect in the law when you enter into conscious communion with love.   Love is the fulfillment of the law; that is, only through love can the law fulfill itself in your experience, because love harmonizes everything, unifies everything.  It gives to everything, flows through everything.  You can never make the most perfect use of the law of your life unless the use is motivated by love.  (June 1997, p. 6)