UP Church

JANUARY 28   

TODAY MY HEART IS WITHOUT FEAR; I HAVE IMPLICIT CONFIDENCE IN THE GOOD, THE ENDURING AND THE TRUE   

Though a host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear: though war should rise against me, in this will I be confident.  Psalm 27: 1,3

When one cherishes no fear of anything, when one is not feared by anything, when one cherishes no desire, when one bears no hate, then is one said to have attained to the state of Brahma.  The Mahabharata

Holiness is the best of all good.  Happy, Happy the man who is holy with perfect holiness! … The will of the Lord is the law of holiness.  The Zend-Avesta

Fear is the only thing we shall be afraid of.  It is not the host encamped against us, nor the confusion of war around us, that we need to fear; it is a lack of confidence in the good which alone should cause concern.  Through inner spiritual vision we know that evil is transitory but good is permanent.  We know that right finally dissolves everything opposed to it.  In confidence, then, and with a calm sense of peace, we know that the truth never fails to win every issue.  The power of good is with us.  The Power of the Spirit is supreme over every antagonist.  Then we should cherish no fear, and when we neither fear nor hate we come to understand the unity of life, and then, our lesson tells us, we have attained to the state of Brahma (conscious union with God).  Thus the Zend-Avesta tells us that “holiness is the best of all good,” and it hastens to add that there is no difference between the Law of Holiness (Wholeness) and the Divine Will.  In other words, since the Nature of God is peace, then the Will of God is toward peace; since the Nature of God is love, then the Will of God is toward love – “Who knows not love, knows not God, for God is love.”

Today my heart is without fear.  I have implicit confidence in the good, the enduring and the true.  I enter into conscious union with the Spirit.  I am happy, whole and complete in my Divine Self.  Therefore, with joy I enter into the activities of the day and with confidence I look forward to tomorrow.    

Taken from “ 365 Days of Richer Living ” by Ernest Holmes and Raymond Charles Barker

JANUARY 27   

I BLESS EVERYTHING AND KNOW THAT ALL GOOD WILL MULTIPLY IN MY EXPERIENCE 

But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful bearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.  James 1:25

It (God) was not created in the past, nor is it to be annihilated in the future; it is eternal, permanent, absolute; and from all eternity it sufficiently embraces in its essence all possible merits.  The Mahayana

That itself on which all things depend, and from which every transformation arises!  Kwang-Tze

James tells us that we should look to the perfect law of liberty, follow its precepts and then we shall be blesses in our deeds.  This means to keep the eye single, or centered, on the Presence, the Power and the Responsiveness of Spirit.  The Law of God would have to be a law of liberty, since bondage could not come from freedom any more than death could be born of the principle of Life.  We often wonder why we are so limited, and too frequently project the blame for our limitations upon the universe itself.  This is a psychological trick which we play in ignorance of the true facts.  Limitation is not imposed upon us by the universe, but through our own ignorance.  Every discovery in science tends to prove this.  As Kwang-Tze says, all transformation, that is, every form, arises from the Invisible and takes temporary form in our experience.  Fortunately, none of these forms is permanent.  We should look upon them as the play of Life upon Itself.  In our own experience we are privileged by the Creative Wisdom to become co-creators in our personal affairs.  As our lesson says, the Divine Creative Spirit embraces every possible action.  No greater freedom could be found nor given, and we should daily open our consciousness to the Divine Influx, expecting greater wisdom, more definite guidance and more complete self-expression.

Today, I lift up my consciousness and receive a more abundant expression.  I bless everything and know that all good will multiply in my experience. I expect the good.  I live in a state of joyous anticipation, as well as quiet realization.

Taken from “ 365 Days of Richer Living ” by Ernest Holmes and Raymond Charles Barker

JANUARY 26   

I BELIEVE IN DIVINE GUIDANCE AND I KNOW THAT UNDERNEATH ARE THE EVERLASTING ARMS   

The eternal God is thy refuse, and underneath are the everlasting arms.  Deuteronomy 33:27

All this universe has the (Supreme) Deity for its life.  That Deity is Truth.  He is the Universal Soul.  Chhandogys Upanishad

But God will increase the guidance of the already guided.  The Koran

If God is our refuge, why is it that we refuse to avail ourselves of this divine security?  The Psalmist tells us that “the Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon him … in truth.”  This can have but one meaning.  We cannot call upon God in truth unless we enter into the Divine Nature in truth, that is, we cannot expect love to become hate, nor peace to enter into confusion.  If we could call upon God in truth, we must become like the truth.  This is the seemingly unfathomable mystery of the infinite, invisible Essence which surrounds us.  Jesus tells us that if we abide in Him, then His words will abide in us, and we shall ask for anything that we will and it shall be done unto us.  The everlasting arms are beneath but they bear us up only when we enter into the truth.  The Koran tells us that God increases our guidance once we have guidance.  This is a mystical (mystical does not mean mysterious, it means an intuitive perception) way of saying that if we believe in Divine Guidance, then we will be divinely guided.  “Act as though I am, and I will be.”  “Believe and it shall be done unto you.”

Today I believe in Divine Guidance.  Today I believe that underneath are the everlasting arms.  Today I rest in this divine assurance and this divine security.  I know that not only all is well with my soul, my spirit and my mind; all is well with my affairs.

Taken from “ 365 Days of Richer Living ” by Ernest Holmes and Raymond Charles Barker

JANUARY 25   

TODAY I WALK IN THE LIGHT OF GOD’S LOVE 

God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.  John 4:24

I the Father of this universe, the Mother, the Supporter, the Grandsire, the Holy One to be known, the Word of Power.  The Bhagavad-Gita

The Tao produced One; One produced Two; Two produced Three; Three produced All things.  The Tao Te King, Part I

Our lesson tells us that God is the Father, the Mother, the Supporter, and Grandsire.  It tells us that from the Oneness of God proceeds the Law, the Essence and the Word.  Then it tells us that God is spirit.  Wonderful indeed is this conception of the union of all life, which Jesus proclaimed in the ecstasy of his illumination.  “I and the Father are one.”  All cause and all effect proceed from the invisible Spirit.  Man is one with this Spirit and cannot be separated from It.  His word has power because his word is the action of God through his thought.  Power is, we use it, we do not create it.  Let us seek to use the power of this word more generously, with a greater idea of its beneficence, its abundance and its availability.  When we learn to believe, then our belief is increased.  Receiving much, we shall receive more; giving everything, we shall, in return, receive all.  Let us be willing to die to the lesser in order to become resurrected into the greater.  This is the true meaning of the thought that we let go of ignorance if we would gain knowledge; we must stop walking in darkness if we would talk in the light.

Today I walk in the light of God’s Love.  Today I am guided and my guidance is multiplied.  I know exactly what to do; exactly how to do it.  There is an inspiration within me which governs every act, every thought, in certainty, with conviction and peace.

Taken from “ 365 Days of Richer Living ” by Ernest Holmes and Raymond Charles Barker

JANUARY 24   

TODAY I BESTOW THE ESSENCE OF LOVE UPON EVERYTHING   

The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul: … The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart: the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.  Psalm 19: 7, 9

For the Self-begotten One, the Father-Mind, perceiving His own Works, sowed into all Love’s Bond… so that all might continue loving on for endless time, and that these Weavings of the Father’s Light might never fail.  The Chaldaen Oracles

But love will the God of Mercy vouchsafe to those who believe and do the things that be right.  The Koran

“The Law of the Lord is perfect” and the Law of the Lord is Love.  We are made perfect in the Law when we enter into the communion of love with one another and with the invisible essence of Life.  Love is the fulfillment of the Law, that is, we never can make the most perfect use of the Law unless that use is motivated by love, by a sincere desire to express unity, harmony and peace.  As the true artist weds himself to the essence of beauty, imbibing her spirit that it may be transmitted to the canvas, or awaken a living form from cold marble, we so must wed ourselves to the essence of Love that we may imbibe its spirit, and, transmitting it, give loveliness to all events. We should not hesitate to express our appreciation for people, things and events.  There is too little enthusiasm about life.  We sacrifice hope on the altar of unbelief and fail to extract the essence of Reality from the invisible because we refuse to rejoice in our apparently trivial human relationships.  Love will not remain abstract.  Its power of transmutation in human events comes only as we catch its vision and mold it into human experience.

Today I bestow the essence of love upon everything.  Everyone shall be lovely to me.  My soul meets the soul of the universe in everyone.  Nothing is dead; everything is alive.  Nothing is ugly; everything is beautiful; everything is meaningful.  This love is a healing power touching everything into wholeness; healing the wounds of experience with its divine balm.

Taken from “ 365 Days of Richer Living ” by Ernest Holmes and Raymond Charles Barker

JANUARY 23   

TODAY I SHALL WALK IN THE LIGHT, MY MIND SHALL BE ILLUMINED

Thy sun shall no more go down; neither shall thy moon withdraw itself: for the Lord should be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended.  Isaiah 60:20

Who uses well his light, Reverting it its (source so) bright, Will from his body ward all blight.  The Tao Te King

The virtuous and well-conducted man, your majesty, is like a medicine in destroying the poison of human corruption; is like a healing herb in quieting the disease of human corruption; is like water in removing dirt and defilement of human corruption; is like the magic jewel in giving all good fortune to men.  Buddhism in Translations

There are so many illustrations in the sacred texts of the world, relative to the Light.  The Spirit is thought of as being the essence of light.  Man is spoken of as being the “candle of the Lord.”  “The light shines in the darkness and the darkness comprehended it not.”  That is, the darkness has no power over light; light will overcome darkness, but darkness cannot overcome light.  When Isaiah said that “… the Lord shall be thy everlasting light …” he meant that there is a light within us, the light of Truth, of Spirit, of God, which cannot set, cannot be obliterated, cannot be blown out.  The candle of the Lord” burns forever because its wick is sunk deep in the wellsprings of Reality – that light, that spring, that substance, to which Jesus referred when he told the woman at the well that if ever she drank from it she would never thirst again.  It is no wonder that the woman asked him to give her of this water that she might no longer be compelled laboriously to draw from the fountain which can become depleted.

Today I shall walk in the light and my consciousness shall be illumined.  My thoughts shall be guided and my way guarded, for I know that in my light there is no darkness.  In this Divine Light there are no shadows.

Taken from “ 365 Days of Richer Living ” by Ernest Holmes and Raymond Charles Barker

JANUARY 22   

I AM ALIVE, AWAKE AND AWARE, MY SPIRITUAL EYES ARE OPEN 

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face:  now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.  I Corinthians 13:12

O ye people, earth-born folk, ye who have given yourselves to drunkenness and sleep and ignorance of God, be sober now, cease from your surfeit, cease to be glamoured by irrational sleep!  Thrice-Greatest Hermes

I ye knew God as He ought to be known, ye would walk on the seas, and the mountains would move at your call.  The Kashf Al-Mahjub

“For now we see through a glass, darkly;…”  How familiar this passage is to all of us, but what does it mean other than our vision is clouded by a material sense of things?  Hermes tells us that we are both drunk and asleep; that we are ignorant of God.  Emerson tells us that once in a while we awake from our slumber and look about us to perceive the world of reality, but too soon sink back again into sleep.  And from another ancient text, quoted above, we are told that if we knew God as we ought to, we would be able to walk on the seas, that the mountains would come at our call.  All progress is an awakening.  Every new scientific fact is a discovery.  This also is an awakening.  It is really true that we are largely asleep, dreaming away the hours.  “Awake thou that sleepest, and rise from the dead, and Christ shall give you life.”  It is indeed “high time that we awake from this sleep.”  No one can awaken us but the self.  Let us, then, make every endeavor to arouse the mind to reality and to penetrate the gloom of fear and superstition; to cast aside doubt and uncertainty; to behold the Light which is eternal.

I awake! I awake! I awake! I am alive, awake and aware.  My spiritual eyes are open.  As from a long night’s sleep, I awake!  

Taken from “ 365 Days of Richer Living ” by Ernest Holmes and Raymond Charles Barker

JANUARY 21  

TODAY I ENTER INTO THE LIMITLESS VARIATIONS WHICH THE DIVINE SPIRIT HAS PROJECTED INTO MY EXPERIENCE      

For all flesh is as grass, and all glory of man as the flower of grass.  The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away:  But the word of the Lord endureth forever.  I Peter 1:24-25.

All products of Brahm, which is reality, are themselves real; and there is nothing different from it.  Whoever says that there is (anything different), is not free from illusion but is like a man talking in his sleep.  Raja Yoga Philosophy

The unreal hath no being; the real never ceaseth to be.  The Bhagavad-Gita

The Gita tells us that unreality has no existence, while Reality cannot cease to be.  Our lesson also states that all the effects of the Spirit are themselves real, and that there is nothing different from the Divine Spirit.  Jesus tells us to judge not according to appearances.  However, he did not tell us that appearances are unreal.  The unreality of appearances lies not in the thing itself, but rather in our interpretation of it.  If we spiritually interpret the universe, we shall understand it, enter into it, become one with it.  We shall see that the bird, the rock, the mountain and the river are spiritual manifestations of the joy of the Divine Mind.  The illusion is seeking to interpret them as being separate from the Infinite.  The blade of grass may wither, and petals fall from the flower, but the idea, “… the word of the Lord endureth forever.”  This is a very interesting lesson, since it teaches us that there is not only a fundamental unity, there is also an eternal variety.  Without this variety life would become stagnant.

Today I enter into the limitless variations which the Divine Spirit has projected into my experience.  I know that all things are good when rightly used.  I perceive that all experience is a play of life upon itself.  I enter into the game of living, then, with joyful anticipation, with spontaneous enthusiasm and with the determination to play the game well and to enjoy it.

Taken from “ 365 Days of Richer Living ” by Ernest Holmes and Raymond Charles Barker

JANUARY 20   

TODAY I UNCOVER THE PERFECTION WITHIN ME IN ALL ITS FULLNESS   

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field.  Matthew 13:44

Success (in the attainment of objects) forsaketh the person whose heart is unsteady, or who hath no control over his mind, or who is a slave of his senses.  The Mahabharata

Without either hunger or thirst, beyond all grief (all) rejoice in the place of heaven.  Katha Upanishad

Who would not be successful in the true sense of the term?  For there is no success without happiness and a sense of certainty.  There is something eternal about success.  There is no grief in success, because one who is truly successful is no longer sad.  He knows the things of this world are but temporary.  His treasure is truly in heaven.  Jesus likened it unto a treasure hid in a field, and he said he would sell everything we have in order that we might purchase this field and uncover this hidden treasure.  This treasure, the Mahabharata tells us, cannot be found while the heart is unsteady, while one is slave to objective appearances, or while he lacks control over his thought world.  All of this means that success, even in our objective undertakings, depends, first of all, upon stability of mind, consistency of purpose and concentration of effort.  The kingdom of heaven is already hidden within us.  The field which contains this hidden treasure is our own soul.  The priceless Pearl is covered by the hardened shell of experience.  We must learn to see God at the center of our being.

Today I uncover the perfection within me.  In its fullness I reveal the indwelling kingdom.  I look out upon the world of my affairs, knowing that the Spirit within me makes my way both immediate and easy, for I know that “it is not I, but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.”  

Taken from “ 365 Days of Richer Living ” by Ernest Holmes and Raymond Charles Barker