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“It
has been said that “the prayer of thanksgiving is the prayer of
appropriation.” This was
the manner in which Jesus prayed when he raised Lazarus from the tomb:
“Father, I thank thee …”
Recognition, unification, and realization are the three steps in
prayer or treatment. When
we speak the words of thanksgiving to the God within, knowing “before
they ask I will answer,” there is something in this attitude of
thanksgiving that carries us beyond the field of doubt into one of
perfect faith and acceptance, receptivity … realization.
Appreciation, gratitude and thanksgiving – the motive power
which attracts and magnifies the hidden potentialities of life.”
– Dr. Ernest Holmes, The Science Of Mind
A simple,
yet profound statement, “that for which I am grateful, I can never be
denied,” gives power to our decisions and focuses our mind on what we
have accepted for ourselves. Gratitude
provides the avenue in which our “heaven takes its place on Earth,”
that is the good that we dwell on and choose for ourselves even though
it has yet to materialize in our experience.
Being grateful for what we have is wonderful and connects us with
the Spirit, as the Master Mind Jesus stated, “he who has much will
have even more still,” but the “multiplying factor” in our mind
must connect with the Great Un-Seen, the infinite, invisible Good that
faith and trust elevates to acceptance and realization in our
consciousness.
In “Living the Science of Mind,” Dr. Holmes states this
potential of “more good” in an affirmation that begins with, “good
and more good is mine, an ever increasing good is mine.”
This “ever-increasing” connects our mind with the
potentialities of the Un-Seen Good that has yet to be made visible in
our experience. Dr. Holmes
also writes that we should repeat this statement over a thousand times a
day. In other words,
through repetition we create a pattern of thought and an impression on
our subconscious that will out-picture in our experience in due time.
Every situation or circumstance that we find ourselves in
didn’t happen over night but through a pattern of thought and belief
that created something for us automatically.
When we make the decision to have more, be more, or do more …
than we must go through the process of creating new patterns and impress
the subconscious with more. Elevating
our thought to the Un-Seen Good, activates the change, but it will not
effect the change without repetition and discipline of our thoughts and
intelligent reasoning of the beliefs that we have accepted.
Dr. Norman Vincent Peale stated:
“Repetition of the same thought or physical action develops
into a habit which, repeated frequently enough, becomes an automatic
reflex.” And this is
reiterated by Claude Bristol’s statement:
“It's the repetition of affirmations that leads to belief. And
once that belief becomes a deep conviction, things begin to happen.”
And so here we find the potentialities of recognizing what we are
grateful for and expressing thanksgiving not only for the good, but,
also for the Source of All-Good, G-d.
It is in creating this “receptivity” for good that keeps our
mind open for an ever-increasing good.
To better understand this necessity for repetition
of positive words and affirmations of gratitude and thanksgiving, we can
look to a recent study done by English researchers:
"There has been much speculation
about whether people can process emotional information
unconsciously, for example pictures, faces and words. We have shown that
people can perceive the emotional value of subliminal messages and have
demonstrated conclusively that people are much more attuned to
negative words," study leader Professor Nilli Lavie said in a Wellcome
Trust news release.
I am of the opinion that the reason researchers have found people
to be more in tune with negative words is due to the changes in our
culture. We are bombarded
daily with negative news, gossip, scandals, and political divisiveness
because the Media has learned too, that negative news will get our
attention more than positive news.
In the Internet age this information is readily available and
repeated over and over again throughout the News web sites and daily
Blogs. It is very rare for
the News Media to open their nightly news programs with a positive
story. And all this
accepting of the negative in our consciousness, negates our good in some
way in differing degrees.
The
good news is … we have the power to go beyond the negative in our
minds with gratitude and appreciation.
But, we must do it to a greater degree than the measure of
negativity that we take into our mind.
Dr. Holmes’ instruction to repeat his affirmation of “good
and more good is mine,” over a thousand times each day may seem
extreme, but the rewards of this simple affirmation of gratitude and
acceptance are tremendous.
AND
SO IT IS!
Keep
the faith!
Rev.
Dr. Henry Lee Bates
Visit Rev. Bates BLOG: Living
the Science of Mind
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