Knowing Peace in the Midst of War

A Message From the CSL Spiritually Motivated
Social Engagement Committee

Given the current level of escalation in Israel and Palestine, we bring our awareness and love to all of those touched by this crisis, to all who suffer.

As we explore the power of paradox as CSL's global theme this month, we're aware that war and peace form the biggest paradox of all. How do we continue to know peace in the midst of war? We cannot move toward a more peaceful world until we address the underlying causes of violence, inequity, injustice, colonialism and oppression of all forms.

Ernest Holmes declared, “The promise that comes from practicing a conscious sense of union with the Divine is a deep, abiding peace even in the midst of personal or planetary challenges. We can create a spiritual chain reaction which can bring peace in the midst of chaos.”

What can we do? We can unite in focusing the energy of love to bring peace to Israel and Palestine, to Ukraine and to all areas of the planet through the creation of a spiritual chain reaction. Allow the energies of peace, love and harmony to rise up and become strong. Peace begins at the center of our own being, where instead of moving to fear, anger or anxiety, we focus on the greater powers of love, peace and harmony.

We hold space for peace to be realized. We convene peace vigils, prayer calls and read sacred texts while also engaging in sacred activism. We band together to remind each other that there is an infinite and divine creative force of life that is wholeness and truth. We stay in constant prayer without ceasing to remember what we know, rekindle our sometimes-dwindling faith and continue to seek the light amid the abyss.

— Read the committee’s full message, including daily prayer times, at https://csl.org/csl-smse-knowing-peace/.

Our Obligation to God

By Ernest Holmes

Our obligation, duty and responsibility to whatever we think God is is that we shall be at peace, that we shall be filled with joy. We haven't the duty to redeem a lost soul. We don't have a lost soul.

Our obligation is to discover the nature of reality and, insofar as in us lies at the present state of our own evolution, to live in accord with it and in absolute independence of the opinion of the world. I have never met a person and never shall, who, having forgiven themself and gotten rid of their own unconscious condemnation of themself, would even know how to frame the words to deny somebody else the privilege of being all right.

It is an obligation to live in accord with that divinity, as Shakespeare said, “that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will.” And we may and without fear. There is nothing in the universe to be afraid of. It is an obligation to not deny the world or want to get away from it — there is nothing wrong with the world — but to live in it in harmony and peace. Insofar as we may say, if God is love, it is certainly our obligation to love and to be lovable. …

We are the manifestations of the supreme Self without division and innumerable cells without separation, that the multiplicity shall explain and live on and on in unity, and the unity shall find complete self-expression in the multiplicity. We are not poor or weak or unhappy. We are on the progressive pathway of an eternal evolution, on that eternal dawn of a blossoming soul, which shall ever see light.

— Excerpted from the lecture “Personal Responsibility,” which appears in the October 2023 Science of Mind magazine and in “Ernest Holmes at Asilomar”

A Prayer for World Peace

By Ernest Holmes

I know there is but One Mind, which is the mind of God, in which all people live and move and have their being. I know there is a divine pattern for humanity and within this pattern there is infinite harmony and peace, cooperation, unity and mutual helpfulness.

I know that the mind of humankind, being one with the mind of God, shall discover the method, the way and the means best fitted to permit the flow of divine love between individuals and nations. Thus, harmony, peace, cooperation, unity and mutual helpfulness are experienced by all.

I know there will be a free interchange of ideas, of cultures, of spiritual concepts, of ethics, of educational systems and scientific discoveries — for all good belongs to all alike. I know that, because Divine Mind has created us all, we are bound together in one infinite and perfect unity. I know that all people and all nations will remain individual but unified for the common purpose of promoting peace, happiness, harmony and prosperity.

I know that deep within each person the divine pattern of perfect peace is already implanted.

I now declare that in each person and in leaders of thought everywhere this divine pattern moves into action and form, to the end that all nations and all people will live together in peace, harmony and prosperity forever.

And so it is.