What does, "All law must be subjective" mean?

[DreamBliss]

When Ernest Holmes, author of Science of the Mind, says:

 

"All law must be subjective; the soil knows how to take a seed and make a plant from it; it does not know whether it is making a tomato or potato."

 

What does subjective mean in this context? I think I grasp what the overall statement is saying, but for some reason I am not, at this moment, getting a clear understanding of what he means by subjective.

 

Thanks!

Edited December 12, 2015 by DreamBliss

[Marblehead]

Well, I enjoyed your comments anyway.

[DreamBliss]

For the record, Ernest Holms is a "New Thought" teacher, along with others like Neville Goddard, Matthew Fox and Florence Scovel Shinn:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Holmes

http://www.scienceofminduk.org/believe_faq.html

 

These teachers are typically lumped in with "New Age", but are actually teachers of metaphysics, sometimes quoting from and using the Bible, but in a completely different way than normally taught in Christianity. Typically the Bible is seen not as a literal account but a sort of a metaphysical or psychological manual, textbook or workbook.

 

Regardless, I appreciate your comment as well. I find looking at this from a purely scientific viewpoint to be fascinating. Unfortunately I am even more confused now, so I will have to ruminate on this for a while...

[Marblehead]

 

Regardless, I appreciate your comment as well. I find looking at this from a purely scientific viewpoint to be fascinating. Unfortunately I am even more confused now, so I will have to ruminate on this for a while...

Yeah, that happens when we look at things from a different perspective.

[Karl]

When Ernest Holmes, author of Science of the Mind, says:

 

"All law must be subjective; the soil knows how to take a seed and make a plant from it; it does not know whether it is making a tomato or potato."

 

What does subjective mean in this context? I think I grasp what the overall statement is saying, but for some reason I am not, at this moment, getting a clear understanding of what he means by subjective.

 

Thanks!

 

Where to start ?

 

No natural law is subjective. Laws of physics as opposed to those created by man, are real, tangible and observable. That an object falls on Earth at 9.81m/s/s and on Jupiter at a far greater rate of acceleration does not prove the laws of motion to be subjective. For instance water will boil at 100 degrees C at sea level, but several degrees less at altitude. If one is ignorant of the physics of pressure difference then they might see the difference as entirely subjective, but only because they have misinterpreted the information in light of their ignorance of the other forces involved.

 

That a plant grows in soil is not subjective, it is observable fact that it does. We know the physics and biology behind it. It's mumbo jumbo of the worst kind and a bad example to boot. The sceptics were doing a far better job-pre Aristotle-of making that false argument.' A man doesn't step in the same river twice' is the classic. The river is different each time, different water, the man is different yards yada etc. All that was debunked by Aristotle, but over the course of millennia has returned in the form of Kant/Hegel and the legions of pretenders selling their pat version of that philosophy as 'new science'.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Stosh]

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Edited January 21, 2016 by Stosh

[thelerner]

When Ernest Holmes, author of Science of the Mind, says:

 

"All law must be subjective; the soil knows how to take a seed and make a plant from it; it does not know whether it is making a tomato or potato."

 

What does subjective mean in this context? I think I grasp what the overall statement is saying, but for some reason I am not, at this moment, getting a clear understanding of what he means by subjective.

 

I think he's saying God is so great and powerful that he treats us all as individuals. 

 

 

Holmes talks of Creative Soil- **"The best illustration of this is in the creative soil, in which the gardener puts his seed. The soil does not argue nor deny, but goes to work on the seed and begins to create a plant which will represent the type of manifestation inherent, as an idea, in the seed." 

 

 

I think the creative soil is an open mind.  From an open mind seeds/ideas will come to fruition. 

On the third hand, lets forget Creative Soil.  In the OP original context soil might mean God, and the law is how God does things.

 

He doesn't use subjectivity the way most would.  He writes in the same lesson- **"Thoughts going into the subjective are like seeds; they are concepts of ideas, and acting through the creative medium of Mind, have within themselves the full power to develop and to express themselves."

 

He also seems to use the word law to represent "..Perfect Law, Divine Order, and limitless substance that intelligently responds to me".  So sometimes Law is perhaps another word for the divine.  <from http://ernestholmes.wwwhubs.com/holmes12.htm)

 

**from http://newthoughtlibrary.com/holmesErnest/scienceOfMind/som_261.htm

 

On the third hand maybe he's saying:

God is so great and powerful that he treats us all as individuals. 

Edited December 18, 2015 by thelerner

[Astral Monk]

lol there is no "creative soil"...soil is not life. The seed itself forms the plant first by drawing in water then much later by drawing from the soil. If there werent lifeforms already abundant in soil it would be as inert as traditionally conceived--as a balance of sand, silt, clay.

 

Soil is at best a canvas upon which life is painted, but other than being a medium it bears no relation to the paint of the images it forms.

 

8)

[Marblehead]

Soil is at best a canvas upon which life is painted,

I like that!

[DreamBliss]

As I understand it, the energy of life in the physical world needs a physical form in which to express itself.

 

All life on earth is comprised of the same elements as what is in the earth, its soil. Man is said to be a "clay vessel" and the earth is said to be our mother for this reason. All children carry some element of their mother in their physical form.

 

A seed is nothing without soil in which to express itself, and the expression of the seed is the plant, the life inside the seed, but beyond that is the energy of life seeking physical expression through the seed, and through the interaction between seed and soil.

 

Yes, the soil is nothing without seed, but seed is also nothing without the soil.

 

EDIT: I suppose I should clarify by saying soil I mean the medium in which a seed is able to express itself. Without the medium there is no expression. As far as I know anyhow.

Edited December 17, 2015 by DreamBliss

[PLB]

The way I read the sentence is that no matter how necessary an action may be from any other perspective, the one being formed is the one who actually undergoes the experience.

How much that experience is involved with how laws come about is another question. A big one.

[Daeluin]

When something is unable to adapt, and remains ever attached to its own perspective, it is practicing subjectivity.

 

When a law is able to adapt, it begins to transform into principle.

 

Edit: I pulled up the quote online, and clearly, as the words Mind, Subjective, and Law, are all written in capitals closely around this section, I lack the proper context to understand what the specialized meanings of these things refer to.

[Marblehead]

Yeah, I had a problem with the quote but didn't want say anything at the beginning of the thread.

 

Laws must be objective.  Like the Laws of Nature.  If they are subjective they can be justifiably violated at any time.  And therefore they wouldn't even be laws - just subjective opinion.

 

A social law must apply to everyone within the society.  Otherwise they are just discriminating dictates.

 

In the courts of law everyone should be treated as an equal.

[Josama]

I think he is referring to how any experience of the Tao which is objective because subjective as soon as somebody tries to put it into words.

 

Laws are something done by humans so they are subjective, they are experienced differently for anybody. If say there is a law that says 'so an so' you may interpret it in a different way than another person. Why is the Lotus Sutra called the Sutra of immeasurable meanings because the meaning is different for every person because it's subjective even thought the experience known as Nirvana is the same for everyone.

Edited December 17, 2015 by Josama

[DreamBliss]

I think I am starting to unravel this... Maybe...

https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=1006042715659

 

If, like one poster said here, subjective law is a law that remains constant, then maybe what is being said here is something like there is an energy and a consistent way it operates. It is an energy that does not criticize or judge.

 

Such an energy, and a consistent way of operation, is present in the interaction between a seed and the soil. The seed could be anything, from the most hated thistle to a prized rare orchid.

 

Whatever this energy and its consistent way of operating happens to be, it has no opinion about the seed, or the soil, or anything else. Once the seed is placed in the soil the "law" is activated, and the seed sprouts.

 

The soil will never sprout anything without a seed, and seeds generally do not sprout without being planted in the soil (or some other medium.) The only time seeds sprout is in the interaction between them and their medium.

 

LoA teachers, and those teaching similar principles, must be referring to this kind of energy and a consistent way it operates when they tell us that "thoughts become things" or "the world is your beliefs outpictured."

 

In this case there is an energy and a consistent way it operates that, when presented with the right elements, maybe belief and feeling, an interaction occurs that would not with belief alone or feeling alone.

 

Like the "law" governing the growth of seeds, this law is also impersonal, not criticizing or judging. You can use bad thoughts and bad feelings, then experience the result. Or you can choose good thoughts and good feelings.

 

Does that clarify anything at all?

[Karl]

"Thoughts become things" and " the world is your beliefs out pictured" is subjectivism-which is the primacy of consciousness.

It may help to understand this well developed philosophy by taking a course on the history of philosophy. Starting with the Sophists and Sceptics of Ancient Greece through Plato to Descartes, Hobbes, Hulme, Locke, Kant and Hegel.

 

Part of subjectivist philosophy dovetails with intrincisism. In the West, our key understanding is rooted in the teachings of the Christian church. The well known sayings of Jesus "do not judge lest you be judged", "turn the other cheek", "love thy neighbour as thyself" etc. Good thoughts can either be intrinsic-the product of some divinity/deity, or entirely arbitrary and so based on whatever a ruler, or latterly, the collective approve.

 

It's common in the West to combine the philosophies with a strong dose of religion in order to please all the people all the time (the church being inordinately powerful at that time). Most of the combined philosophies come out of the mouths of British philosophers.

 

Once you come to recognise these philosophies they can be seen very easily. They jump off the page as they are read.

 

Personally I think Dao/Tao developed out of necessity. The Chinese people were so subjugated by the immense bureaucracy and cruelty of the empire that they suffered badly. The only freedom they had was to mentally shun the harsh reality of life. In collectivist political systems such as in Stalinist Russia people had only three means of escape; either to physically escape (impossible in ancient China), to commit suicide, or to find a way of living with the terror by the use of drink/drugs/meditation to enter a mental state which rejected the reality of their situation in order to survive in the most comfortable way they could.

Edited December 18, 2015 by Karl

[Marblehead]

 

Does that clarify anything at all?

Not really for me but it was an interesting read.

[Michael Sternbach]

I think I am starting to unravel this... Maybe...

https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=1006042715659

 

If, like one poster said here, subjective law is a law that remains constant, then maybe what is being said here is something like there is an energy and a consistent way it operates. It is an energy that does not criticize or judge.

 

Such an energy, and a consistent way of operation, is present in the interaction between a seed and the soil. The seed could be anything, from the most hated thistle to a prized rare orchid.

 

Whatever this energy and its consistent way of operating happens to be, it has no opinion about the seed, or the soil, or anything else. Once the seed is placed in the soil the "law" is activated, and the seed sprouts.

 

The soil will never sprout anything without a seed, and seeds generally do not sprout without being planted in the soil (or some other medium.) The only time seeds sprout is in the interaction between them and their medium.

 

LoA teachers, and those teaching similar principles, must be referring to this kind of energy and a consistent way it operates when they tell us that "thoughts become things" or "the world is your beliefs outpictured."

 

In this case there is an energy and a consistent way it operates that, when presented with the right elements, maybe belief and feeling, an interaction occurs that would not with belief alone or feeling alone.

 

Like the "law" governing the growth of seeds, this law is also impersonal, not criticizing or judging. You can use bad thoughts and bad feelings, then experience the result. Or you can choose good thoughts and good feelings.

 

Does that clarify anything at all?

 

I agree with you overall, but holistic systems have built-in checks and balances to make sure that minor causes don't lead to major catastrophes. If a certain kind of plant grows out of control, sure enough there will be a bug showing up which considers it its favourite dish. And not every butterfly's flight causes a tornado somewhere else. Although much freedom of choice is given to humans, there are things that the Dao (or whatever you like to call it) wills as they are in line with the balance and evolution of the whole, and those will manifest more easily and effortlessly.

[Stosh]

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Edited January 21, 2016 by Stosh

[Marblehead]

Stride forth with confidence though the path seems to quiver... ( hmmm , seems like Ive read that somewhere else...)

That refers to the Georgia swamps.  The Natives called it quivering land.

[Stosh]

That refers to the Georgia swamps.  The Natives called it quivering land.

.

Edited January 21, 2016 by Stosh