The Relationship of Love and Gratitude
Ernest Holmes
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The Relationship of Love and Gratitude by Ernest Holmes
This article was written for the February 1918 Uplift Magazine
I wish to speak on this subject from three different standpoints:
(1) Our duty towards ourselves.
(2) Our duty towards others.
(3) Our duty to God.
This is a very important topic from a metaphysical standpoint. The Bible says
that love is the fulfilling of the law because Love is God. More and more in my
thought and consequently in my teaching and in my practical work I find all
that is necessary in the Bible, both the new testament and the old, if we could
understand it. I find that my philosophy simplifies itself the more deeply I think
and the more practical I make the science of living the more simple the process
becomes. God is love, therefore in the principle of love we shall find the true
principle of life and finding the true principle of life we shall find the power that
sustains life.
Now, the attitude of a person's mind and its relationship in love and gratitude
towards themselves would be the starting point. It has been said that we
should not love ourselves that has been called conceit. There is a certain sort of
self love which is conceit but there is also a legitimate love for one's self and
his work without which no person succeeds in life. Unless one loves his work he
cannot draw from that work the greatest experience that lies in that work.
To what extent should we love ourselves? What should be the attitude in love
and gratitude towards one's self? Well, we are all made in the image and
likeness of God, who is love; within each individual is the principle of love
which is drawn directly from God. We have a perfect right then to love the
reflection of the Almighty not only the right but it is our duty to do so.
Now how would this operate upon our own consciousness? I will say, for
instance that I love myself and I do, most certainly I love myself just as I love
you and as I love all people as I love myself and think of myself as being
beautiful (that sounds like comedy doesn't it that is the way I think of myself
and they say that thoughts always externalize so that would seem in this case
to be a contradiction of that truth.)
As I think of myself as being a wonderful creature, a wonderful manifestator of
the divine gifts of Almighty God, as I think of myself in love as being one with
the Almighty, as my consciousness becomes permeated with this thought it too
being a creative factor within me will immediately accept the suggestion and
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begin to draw more and more from the infinite love which is the infinite part of
my finite self. As I think of my work with appreciation and I believe the work I
am in is the greatest work in the world there is no doubt about it the discovery
of the science of being which I teach and which all true metaphysicians teach is
the greatest discovery of all time it is the beginning of the understanding of life
it is the greatest thing in the world it is the pearl of great price. I love my work
and if I love my work I am putting into it that principle of love which is God, for
God is love. I love my personal efforts and as I love them I am allowing the
divine urge that seeks expression everywhere to manifest itself through me in
that work because God is love.
However great the truth of God's love may be unless each individual
consciously admits it, it does not come in. "Behold I stand at the door and
knock." Being an individual I must open the door, if I open the door even
partially I create within myself an avenue for the expression of that love I allow
the complete expression of the infinite through the individuality.
Not to love one's work is to shut the gates, to close the avenues of expression
and no person has ever made a success of any work unless they love it. It has
been said that talent does what it can but genius what is must. A person who
loves his work becomes a genius because he must. I am in this work because I
must do it therefore I have the right to become a genius in this work. Not to
love the work would be to shut the gates and keep the flood of love, which is
God, out of the work. We should be struggling along alone subject to all the
changes and chances and vicissitudes of fortune. Now, loving the work, loving
myself as being the instrument of that work, I am making an open channel, a
perfect instrument upon which the divine harmony may be played.
So we must first be right ourselves, the starting point is where we are within
ourselves, we cannot start anywhere else. Many seek to start from what
someone else has done. Emerson said that studying Shakespeare never would
produce a Shakespeare because Shakespeare did not have any Shakespeare to
study. He developed from within himself.
Then, after we have gotten ourselves right in love and gratitude and
appreciation of our own ability we ourselves must be lifted up, we cannot lift
others up until we first lift ourselves up. Then after we have lifted ourselves up
through this principle of love we must ask ourselves what is our duty towards
society in our relationship to other people? We must express that love and
gratitude towards them. To what extent should an individual who has come to
realize that perfect love or to apprehend it for I think no one realizes it all but
one who has apprehended a small portion of it to what extent must he reach
out and definitely contact the world? He must do it in an absolute sense. A
person who has come to realize their own true nature must at the same time
come to a realization of the nature of other people. It is true that what I see in
you is simply a reflection of what I believe within myself. I can see nothing in
you that is not first within me, for if there was nothing in me that could see
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that thing in you I could not see it. If I see it in you the thing I see is in me
that is an absolute fact and you cannot get away from it because it is an
eternal truth. If you see anything to criticize in any individual on this earth, go
home and destroy what you see in yourself and then go out and look at them
and you will no longer see it, this is one of the greatest principles known to the
human race.
Now, if I have learned to love myself from a true standpoint of that love, which
is God, at the same time I am learning to love you then if I am appreciating
myself I am appreciating you, if I am grateful within myself there is a constant
overflow of gratitude to you, to the whole world. What would be the thought of
a person who felt that way? It would be something like this; They could not see
a person on the street they did not spiritually love, absolutely no exception, no
high, no low, no middle a great flood of love would flow out to every individual;
what is mine would become yours, I mean that in a general sense, I do not
mean I would give you my pocketbook that would be a mistake but I would see
in you the ability to have your own pocket book, not as a limited person but a
limitless manifestator of divine love. What would be the result? Why like
attracts like, like begets like. If I love you perfectly you would love me perfectly
that is the law and it could not be otherwise. If I found in you nothing to
criticize you would find in me nothing to criticize because there would be
nothing there to criticize. If I was grateful to you that would draw from you
gratitude towards me and there would be perfect union between us. Can you
not see how we must feel as a result of such a relationship between man and
man? It would mean the true brotherhood of man, a real brotherhood.
Gratitude is a spiritual quality or should be. You will do much more for a person
who is grateful than for one who is not. I know that in my own experience.
Every person does not seem to manifest the same amount of gratitude. But
every time an expression of gratitude is made something comes up within me
that makes me wish to do more and more for that person and there is more
done in the silence for that person although I do it without any seeming effort
or desire on my part. Gratitude begets gratitude, it calls it out and it compels it
that is the attitude of gratitude and love, it is a constant action and reaction
back and forth. It is that which scattereth and at the same time increaseth.
Third, what should be our attitude in love and gratitude toward the great
cause, the great, infinite love which is the cause of all that is? What should be
the relationship of the individual to the un-individualized infinite of his own
being? It should be one of love and gratitude, of daily recognition, constant
communication ceaseless not supplication but ceaseless prayer. True prayer is
an attitude of mind that beholds the good in the universe whose soul rises in a
song of appreciation, love and gratitude to all good which it feels to be
everywhere. Our attitude to God should be the close relationship of a son to a
father in whom we trust with implicit faith, never doubting, never fearing,
always knowing, always trusting, always being sure that regardless of the
opinion of the world, regardless of the obstacles of life, of the troubles and
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trials of human existence here in the silence of our own soul, we can
communicate with the power which put us here, with the power which alone is
able to keep us.
Browning in Saul, which is undoubtedly the greatest poem ever written, says
that David awakens Saul to a realization of the divine presence. And again in
the same poem he speaks of the infinite as being the power which yet alone
can save the power which has within itself all life, all power, all being.
Few people realize and appreciate the presence and reality of divine
intelligence. Few people realize that underneath are the everlasting arms, the
girders of the Almighty yet within each soul is the secret place of the most
high, the temple of the Holy of Holies wherein dwells only the Almighty. There
is the place where with bared feet or a spiritualized consciousness we may
enter, in secret communication, in open receptivity, in absolute communion
with infinite life itself-Almighty God.
To the soul that has realized that inner communion there must come as a
response to that realization a great feeling of love, of appreciation, of
adoration, of true humility. True humility, not the humility which does not dare
to enter into the secret place of the Most High but that which dares to enter
and lay at the feet of infinite intelligence all its hopes, aspirations, desires,
thoughts and fears and there allows them to be taken and molded and
perfected by the great intelligence and again be returned by the law of love and
made manifest through the individual who dares to trust in the Almighty.
For, as I would appreciate you and you me, or as I would love you, your love
for me would call out a greater and greater love and vice versa. If that is true
between individuals, how much more true it must be between the infinite and
its finite reflection.
It is a fact that the infinite spirit of life itself, as Paul said is longing to express
itself through the individual and only the individual who rises in secret
communion through its own soul to the source of life, in gratitude and love only
that individual has made a place where the divine entrance may be made. We
owe it then to ourselves to learn to love the Almighty, to practice the presence
in our lives of that power which put us here.
What effect would that have upon the experience of an individual, to allow
himself to spontaneously communicate with the Father who is in heaven within.
They would have opened up a direct channel, not in the physical, not in the
mental but in the spiritual realm; a direct channel through which there would
be a ceaseless flow of spiritualized power to live an abundant life, every good
and perfect gift which the spirit holds through these mental concepts there
would be a direct avenue opened up and no power on earth could hinder the
flow of the infinite gifts of God to that individual. The channel which they had
opened up would be unobstructed by the thoughts of the mind by physical
fears, avenues for the incoming of the pure unadulterated spirit which is the
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essence of Almighty God. That would be what it would mean to depend upon
the divine principle that power which has within itself all intelligence, all
understanding, all presence, all power, all might to register there in the secret
place of the most high, our own thought, the mental concept to really do it.
Few people really do this, no person does at all times. But any person who
registers there a concept that is an absolute prophecy of its complete
fulfillment in the external world, the Father who seeth in secret shall reward
them openly. What relief from all the responsibilities of life comes to the one
who has realized that there is a power which is infinite and which he can use
which will relieve him from all the cares and burdens of the world. The world is
full of sickness, sorrow, of dying and of pain; it does not hear the voices of the
angels; it does not see the gleam of glory which is just over its head; it does
not hear the voice of the infinite. The world is so full of trouble that the greater
power cannot enter and it never will enter until first people have emptied
themselves and made a place for it.
One must begin with himself. He must develop within himself a consciousness
that is fearless and positive that is self reliant because it knows in whom it has
believed. Then that individual is equipped to speak as one having authority
over all lesser ideas for he knows. "It is not I but my Father who dwelleth in me
He doeth the works."
Knowing then that the infinite, the maker of all that is, is behind him, he
pushes on with positive assurance and his faith is justified, for he gets the
answer to his prayer, his life is a prayer. The result is that he brings into
manifestation for himself and others all good and perfect gifts. Knowing that he
is depending upon the law, understanding every condition, holding the key to
every situation, he knows it is not necessary for him to work with people or
with things but simply that he should embody the real life and that from that
must flow, as an effect, the signs following them that believe, both in houses
and lands, in friends, in opportunities and in the lovingness of real life.
Three things; First, we must get right ourselves before we can see our brother
right. Then when we have gotten right ourselves and have come to see our
brother right, then shall we behold God then may God behold us.
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