friends
one of the great needs of humanity has
always been to get well
and to keep well physically and today
i'm going to talk about spiritual mind
healing
and how we may best cooperate with
medical science
in keeping the patient in a position to
help himself
while the physician takes care of his
physical needs
spiritual mind healing is an interesting
and a very important
subject and it is something we all want
to know more
about just as everyone wishes to be
happy and successful
so everyone wishes to be well today we
are hearing a great deal about
psychosomatic medicine
which means body-mind relationships
and a great deal about the part our
thought and emotion
plays in our physical well-being
and now let us consider the influence of
faith
to our health when we speak of the path
that faith and prayer play
in physical health we are not denying
that people are sick
or that they need medical or surgical
attention
but rather we are trying to find out how
best
to help the physician and the surgeon in
their attempt to keep us well
if we are in to enjoy the best possible
physical health
we must learn how to combine the arts
and skills of science
with prayer and faith any doctor will
tell you
that he prefers to have a patient who
has faith
and the more faith one has the better
his position
can work for him for man is more than a
physical body
and he is more than a mental mechanism
he is also a living spirit
and just as modern psychosomatic
medicine
is telling us that we can hardly find
out where the mind begins and the body
leaves off
so we may add that we can hardly tell
where the spirit begins
and the mind leaves off for spirit mind
and body are closely related with each
other
you are really a spiritual being right
now
having a mind and using a body
life has given you a body to use a mind
to
think and the spirit to act when we find
the right relationship
between spirit mind and body we shall
see that physical healing
are always to be closely tied in with
faith
with prayer and with spiritual
meditation
spiritual mind healing means that we
keep our mind
open to spiritual power that we actually
believe
that god is right where we are and that
a power greater than we are
can be called upon and that it will
always respond
in actual practice this would mean that
you take time each day to sense and to
feel
the divine presence around and within
you
in order to do this it seems better to
reduce your thoughts to a few
simple statements or affirmations
such as saying god is right where i am
divine life flows through me now
i am one with the presence and the power
of the infinite
it is certain that you and i did not
create ourselves
therefore we must be the result of a
power greater than we are
and only in drawing closer to this power
which is greater than we are can we hope
to maintain a physical
well-being it is now known that many of
our physical troubles
can be traced to emotional conflicts
deep within the mind these conflicts
arise largely
from a sense of insecurity from the
feeling that we do not really belong to
life
and here is where faith plays such an
important role
perhaps more important than any other
one
single mental attitude faith produces
calmness it establishes a sense of being
one with a power
greater than we are and it does more
than this
it actually opens some place in the mind
which permits the circulation of
spiritual energy
through the physical body in doing this
we need never deny that we are sick
or that we need physical health but it
isn't the denial of life in any of its
forms
that gives us the power to live it is
not the denial
but rather the affirmation of the
presence and the power of spirit in us
that helps us so you should try to keep
your mind open
to this thought and consciously
entertain it a hundred times a day
that it is the spirit that is
circulating through you
and since the action of the spirit
cannot be obstructed by
anything outside yourself when you do
keep your mind open to it
it will flow through you but this is its
nature
and now let us consider some definite
mental attitude
you might entertain but we should not
keep this
vague or up in the air but rather bring
it right down
to earth and into our everyday
experience
if you watch yourself carefully you will
be surprised how many times every day
you are denying the influx of life
for instance when you say my poor head
or my weak heart on my bad circulation
you are not helping matters any so all
of these statements
should be reversed and for every denial
there should be an affirmation these
affirmations should be reduced
to simple thoughts then they should be
consciously used
for instance there is one half one
rhythm of life
one pulsation of living in everything
and you should affirm that you are part
of this rhythm
god's heart is undisturbed and in your
thinking
you should tie the action of your heart
back to the great heart that beats in
rhythm
and in harmony with everything
this should be there should always be a
complete cooperation
between the physician and the patient
to the doctor's skill is added the
patient's faith
for really what a physician or a surgeon
does
is to try to help the body to keep it in
tune
so that the natural healing currents of
life can flow through it
perhaps a bone needs to be set or a
physical obstruction removed
this is a mechanical process and the
science of surgery
has methods for doing this but the
doctor knows better than you and i do
that his chief function is to assist
nature
he cannot inject a sense of well-being
he is in the same position that you and
i are doing everything he can
to assist a power greater than he is
a power greater than we all are to
establish its own rhythm in us
and to form its own function through us
the best patient is the one who has the
greatest faith
and the person the most likely to get
well and keep well
is the one who daily practices using his
faith
he practice using it through making
definite affirmations
which prepare his mind to receive the
power and the energy
of the living spirit to believe in god
is the most
natural thing in the world indeed it is
far more natural than it is to
disbelieve in him
to accept life is easier than it is to
reject it
and if we train ourselves a little it is
just as easy to affirm as it is to deny
and now suppose we reduce this to a few
very simple methods suppose you don't
sleep well at night
but turn and toss until finally a sleep
and rest
seem impossible if you are troubled with
insomnia
why not take a few moments each day get
very quiet and still within yourself
and sort of forget all your troubles if
you have any
and say to yourself i have complete
confidence in life
i do believe in the presence the power
and the activity of something
greater than i am right where i am
now today tonight and followers
i sleep in peace and wake in joy
and live in the expectation of good
it is natural when i sleep that the
restoring
power of life should float through me it
is natural that i
rest that i sleep peacefully
it is intended that i awake refreshed
and renewed in mind and embodied
now of course it isn't the particular
word you use
that make your affirmations effective
but the deep
simple sincerity of your belief
and so you see you cannot divorce this
from
faith in life faith in yourself
and faith in god your statement should
be made
in faith and in a faith in something
greater than you are
if you do this a few times each day i am
sure you will be happily surprised at
the results
and we are also told to pray for one
another
for faith reaches way beyond our
personal life
and can react on others as well as in
ourselves
why don't you try this sometimes try it
for someone else
and instead of saying i sleep in peace
and wake in joy
and live in the expectation of good
say he or she sleeps in
peace and wakes in joy and lives in the
expectation of good
actually believing your affirmation
believing that they are the truth
about the person of whom you are
thinking
now you are not trying to influence this
person or control his mind
you are not suggesting anything to him
you are merely coming to an inward
feeling about him
and i look forward confidently to the
day when the physician
the psychiatrist and the one who uses
spiritual power will all cooperate
each will understand the other and they
will all
find that they are trying to do the same
thing
the physician to the body the physician
to the mind
and the physician to the soul all are
cooperating
with the great physician who alone has
the power to give life
just as the physical body and all
physical objects
are operated upon by a law of
gravitation
which holds them in place so i believe
the mind
can be operated upon by a spiritual
energy
which is just as real as any other force
we are not that power but we can use it
the power is greater than we are but it
does
flow through us it shouldn't seem any
more strange
to think of spiritual powers than are
physical ones
and no doubt they operate in much the
same way
the only difference being that physical
powers operate directly upon
physical objects and spiritual powers
operate upon the mind which in its turn
operates through the body it is in this
way that we bring
spirit soul and body together
this is why the bible says that we are
spirit
soul and body you see this statement
does not deny the body
but includes it in a larger system
it doesn't call for a denial either of
the body or the mind
but adds the idea of spirit for you are
a living spirit
right now this is the way god has made
us
and we cannot change our own nature
there is an ancient
chinese teaching which says that man has
a physical body
a mental body and a spiritual body
and thousands of years before it was
discovered
that the blood circulates this ancient
chinese doctrine said
that it is impossible that there should
be physical health
without a proper circulation through the
physical body
but the story goes on to say that there
cannot be proper physical circulation
unless there is proper mental
circulation
that the two are intimately tied
together
by chinese sage said that there is also
a spiritual body
just as saint paul said there are bodies
celestial
and bodies terrestrial just as there
must be a circulation
in the mind so there must also be a
circulation of the spirit in us
if there is to be a whole man this
is the meaning of spiritual mind healing
which is not a denial of the body
or is it a denial that we are ill it is
rather an
affirmation that just as the mind and
the body
are tied closely together so the spirit
and the mind have a close relationship
with each other we keep it as simple as
this
we shall better understand what jesus
meant
when he said it is the spirit that
quickeneth
and we shall be cooperating with all the
forces of nature
the physical the mental and the
spiritual
but because of our ignorance we have
accepted the physical forces
but not the spiritual one
now we need to unite the whole thing in
one
system keep our head in the clouds
and our feet firmly planted on the earth
while the mind accepts the simple fact
that we live and move and have our being
in the living spirit that it flows
through us as the ancient talmud said
closer to us than our own neck thing
now dr holmes brings you his meditation
on physical fullness every part of your
body
is made of spiritual substance
there is a spiritual body which cannot
be said
there is a body within you now which is
spiritual
it is the mind that blocks the emanation
of this spiritual body
through the physical form jesus
knew that there is a spiritual body and
the perfect body
seeing this perfect body instead of a
diseased
form he was able to heal every manner of
illness
when you say that your body is spiritual
you are not denying your physical body
the physical is included within the
spiritual
if the spirit has seen fit to express
itself
through a physical universe and to give
you a physical body
it would be absurd to think of your body
or your environment
as an illusion unworthy of your
attention
rather you should think of them as
things of joy
every statement you make about your body
or belief you hold about it which causes
the mind to accept
spirit as the substance of your body
tends to heal say to yourself
my body is a temple of the living spirit
it is spiritual substance now
every part of my body is in harmony with
a living spirit within me
the spirit of this divine life
flows through every atom of my being
vitalizing invigorating and
renewing every particle of my physical
body
there is a pattern of perfection at the
very center of my being
which is now operating through every
argon
function action and reaction
my body is forever renewed by the spirit
i am now made vigorous and old
i possess the vitality of the infinite i
am strong and
well the life of the spirit is my life
all of its strength is my strength
its power is my power every breath i
draw is a breath of protection
vitalizing up building and renewing
every cell of my body i
am born of the spirit i am
in the spirit i am the spirit
made manifest
