Day 53: True Spirituality

97:29-99:29

The calm, strong currents of true spirituality, the manifestations of which are health, purity, and self-immolation, must deepen human experience…

2010

Day 52: What will happen

95:28-97:28

This reading is a prediction or overview of events to come. I wouldn’t call it the end of the world but I’m sure many people who don’t want materiality to end will see it that way.

Mary Baker Eddy explains what will happen, including:

As material knowledge diminishes and spiritual understanding increases, real objects will be apprehended mentally instead of materially.

She also gives us our task list:

…those who discern Christian Science will hold crime in check. They will aid in the ejection of error. They will maintain law and order, and cheerfully await the certainty of ultimate perfection.

Patience is not my strong skill. I need to work on my cheerful waiting.

2010

Day 51: More mind-reading

93:21-95:27

Mary Baker Eddy brings up an interesting point in this reading. Once a person progresses spiritually to such a point, they can’t help but be able to discern thought:

We approach God, or Life, in proportion to our spirituality, our fidelity to Truth and Love, and in that ratio we know all human need and are able to discern the thought of the sick and the sinning for the purpose of healing them.

She continues:

Whoever reaches this point of moral culture and goodness cannot injure others, and must do them good.

2010

Day 50: Error or Evil

91:22-93:20

The mistake of thinking that error can be real, when it is merely the absence of truth, leads to belief in the superiority of error.

Good does not create a mind susceptible of causing evil, for evil is the opposing error and not the truth of creation.

2010

Day 49: Movements & Transitions

89:32-91:21

Something to think about today:

Divest yourself of the thought that there can be substance in matter, and the movements and transitions now possible for mortal mind will be found to be equally possible for the body.

2010

Day 48: Idea versus Thought (Belief)

87:29-89:31

I spent most of yesterday working on the notion that everything I saw was a thought. Today Mary Baker Eddy expands that to divide thoughts between the Divine’s ideas and Mortal beliefs:

How are the veritable ideas to be distinguished from illusions? By learning the origin of each. Ideas are emanations from the divine Mind. Thoughts proceed from the brain or from matter, are offshoots of mortal mind; they are mortal material beliefs.

2010

Day 47: What is Thought?

86:1-87:28

Mary Baker Eddy writes about thoughts as though they were something more than we generally believe:

Mortals evolve images of thought. These may appear to the ignorant to be apparitions; but they are mysterious only because it is unusual to see thoughts, though we can always feel their influence.

See gives history to thought as well:

Do not suppose that any mental concept is gone because you do no think of it. The true concept is never lost.

This unique perspective makes me ask if I have seen a thought and would I be able to differentiate it from a non-thought? What is a non-thought? Does it really matter if I just want to focus on the spirituality?

What is a true concept? Isn’t one idea the same as the next?

2010

Day 46: Mind-reading

84:3-85:32

I find it fascinating to peek into the history of such interests as Mind-reading. It was obviously as popular in Mrs. Eddy’s day as it is now. Mrs. Eddy states the case for Soul-sense, instead of mind-reading:

It is the illumination of the spiritual understanding which demonstrates the capacity of Soul, not of material sense. This Soul-sense comes to the human mind when the latter yields to the divine Mind.

2010

Day 45:

81:31-84:2

I like this argument, it summarizes this reading well:

Mortal mind-reading and immortal Mind-reading are distinctly opposite standpoints, from which cause and effect are interpreted. The act of reading mortal mind investigates and touches only human beliefs.

2010

Day 44: Mystery

80:6-81:30

I appreciate Mrs. Eddy’s remarks on these pages.

2010

Day 43: Life as God

78:1-80:5

Mary Baker Eddy uses the above phrase working through an argument that people shouldn’t be warned against death but I took it as just a single idea – Life as God. I think I have only scratched at my own understanding of this and need to work more on it.

2010

Day 42: Purgatory

76:6-77:32

Mary Baker Eddy mentions that spiritism, the belief in spirits,

consigns the so-called dead to a state resembling that of blighted bugs, –to a wretched purgatory, where the chances of the departed for improvement narrow into nothing and they return to their old standpoints of matter.

How funny we, as people, don’t want change. We don’t want it for our selves and we don’t want it for our ghosts, real or imagined. A change in the spirit requires a change in us.

I have a friend who is very much into her ghosts. They are personal to her as if for her alone. She talks of her own angels as well. It’s so much easier to believe in a personal deity, angel, or ghost than it is to believe in the all-loving. It’s almost like an impersonal, although complete love from God, can’t possibly be as powerful as personal love which we all have at least had a taste of.

2010

Day 41:

74:3-76:5

This reading is about why is it impossible for the dead to communicate with the living. I understand two material, erroneous beliefs are in different states of belief and can not commune. I understand it logically.

My interest is in the something different. What if I could drop the belief of materiality, and pray? I call it meditation but I’m sure other people have other names for it. Being in the world but not of it – sort of. I wonder how Mary Baker Eddy would feel about that. I think of it as highly spiritual and very much about quieting the internal chatter in my thought so that I can be still and listen to God. But I can also see how it might appear either a material barrier or an illusionary change of conscience.

What do you think?

2010

Day 40:

72:1-74:2

Mary Baker Eddy writes:

The belief that one man, as spirit, can control another man, as matter upsets both the individuality and the Science of man, for man is image.

I would like to propose as modified version of this sentence, for your consideration:

The belief that one man, as spirit, can control [negative verb of choice here] another man, as matter upsets both the individuality and the Science of man, for man is image.

My point is that the concept of control, fear, or harm isn’t limited to spirits but is something we walk around with everyday. Some of use give spirits more power than any other materiality, when we shouldn’t. None if it should have any more power than God. Or more correctly, none of it has power at all. 

2010

Day 39: Spiritualism

70-71:32

Spiritualism is an odd type of materiality since it is dealing with relatively non-material things. Sometimes I think Mary Baker Eddy could have stated it more succinctly if she had said the material experience of  spiritualism is just as false and erroneous as the material experience of sin and disease.

Day 52

95:28-97:28

Now that I'm reading Science and Health, two pages at a time, I can see the rhythm and linear logic of the chapters. I never saw that before. These two pages are still along the lines of the higher concepts from a few pages ago but are focusing on that transition time in the future, right before the total Spiritualization of man. The writing has the feel of a revelation about the future.

I underlined:

Mortal error will vanish in a moral chemicalization.

I always wondered what this chemicalization would be like but I must say, it just a small way, I've been going through it myself recently. A change in thought is making me look at things differently. Some ideas seem more relevant, most seem absurdly human and mortal error-ish. It's weird to examine every though I have and then realize I don't like them and replace them with something else.

A couple of days ago, I underlined:

Divine logic and revelation coincide.

I seem to be coming back to this quote over and over, looking for meaning that I can get from it -- how I can apply it. 

Day 51

93:21-95:27

There are so many lines of thought in this chapter regarding spirits that I either didn't know existing or just ignored because it was stupid or didn't make sense to me. However, Mary Baker Eddy spends time explaining them and refuting them. So I'm catching up on spirit theory - if you will.

These two pages start with a great summation of Christian Science thought. It's a big paragraph but it is so clear that I need to remember it:

The belief that Spirit is finite as well as infinite has darkened all history. In Christian Science, Spirit, as a proper noun, is the name of the Supreme Being. It means quantity and quality, and applies exclusively to God. The modifying derivatives of the word spirit refer only to quality, not to God. Man is spiritual. He is not God, Spirit. If man were Spirit, then men would be spirits, gods. Finite spirit would be mortal, and this is the error embodied in the belief that the infinite can be contained in the finite. This belief tends to becloud our apprehension of the kingdom of heaven and the reign of harmony in the Science of being.

Then she goes on to discuss how the ability to read people's thoughts, as Jesus does, was on a scientific basis and necessary to provide a healing:

Jesus could injure no one by his Mind-reading.

This kind of mind-reading is not clairvoyance, but it is important to success in healing, and is one of the special characteristics thereof.

I'm not sure if this is comparing Jesus to the medium or the spirit but I get the point. The next passage I underlined is my favorite of the these pages:

We welcome the increase in knowledge and the end of error, because even human invention must have its day, and we want that day to be succeeded by Christian Science, by divine reality.

Even human invention must have its day - sort of a nice thought for someone in my line of work.

I've been thinking a lot about the higher concept passages. I looked at a star in the sky last night and wondered what idea it was. I understand it's not just one single point but is a fully formed idea with subtleties and complexities - but still - what was the idea.

Day 50

91:22-93:20

These two pages start by listing the five erroneous postulates:

• The first erroneous postulate of belief is, that substance, life, and intelligence are something apart from God. 
• The second erroneous postulate is, that man is both mental and material.
• The third erroneous postulate is, that mind is both evil and good; whereas the real Mind cannot be evil nor the medium of evil, for Mind is God.
• The fourth erroneous postulate is, that matter is intelligent, and that man has a material body which is part of himself. 
• The fifth erroneous postulate is, that matter holds in itself the issues of life and death, -- that matter is not only capable of experiencing pleasure and pain, but also capable of imparting these sensations.

The other thing I marked was:

Divine logic and revelation coincide. If we believe otherwise, we may be sure that either our logic is at fault or that we have misinterpreted revelation.

This has that higher concept feel to it. Misinterpreting revelation is almost vague in that it could be revelations from the bible or it could be revelations we ourselves experience -- the small, still voice.

I did look up one word: Esse.

Day 49

89:32-91:21

Today's two pages felt like a higher concept than dealing with spirits as the chapter implies. I see there are only 8 or so pages left in the chapter so maybe Mary Baker Eddy to heading toward the wrap-up. The higher concept I read was about imagining what our experience would be without matter, just reflecting God. That's not exactly how MBE phrased it but that's what I got out of it. Here how she says it:

Have you ever pictured this heaven and earth, inhabited by beings under the control of supreme wisdom?

There are religions or belief systems that focus on this higher concept with their own flavoring. I must admit, this is another subject in this chapter that I wonder if she is lightly touching on only here or I never got that it was covered throughout the entire book. I'm gaining a lot of respect for this chapter.

Here is another way to convey the higher concept:

The admission to one's self that man is God's own likeness sets man free to master the infinite idea.

Free to master the infinite idea? That's huge. That's not saying let's talk about Jesus or here is how to heal. This concept is way beyond that. This is, to me, the end game of the search - or the beginning.

But there is also a nice smaller thought, almost a stepping stone to the higher concept:

Divest yourself of the thought that there can be substance in matter, and the movements and transitions now possible for mortal mind will be found to be equally possible for the body.

This is wild - movements and transitions for the body? I think from a mortal perspective we know what the human body can and cannot do. The Olympic coverage this week in Vancouver shows us in stop motion time.

So as I continue to read through the rest of the book, I'm going to keep these new higher ideas in mind to see if I can spot them any where else.

What do you think? Higher concepts or was she saying something else?

Day 48

87:29-89:31

Mary Baker Eddy begins these two pages discussing the "eloquence" used by the medium to prove the existence of a spirit. She moves on to discuss how anyone can be eloquent, educated or not. Anyone can be inspired to levels beyond the material brain's capacity or education.

I imagine the argument MBE is responding to is something like this: Perhaps spiritual enlightenment requires intelligence in the human mind?

What I underlined:

Mind is not necessarily dependent upon educational processes.

Matter is neither intelligent nor creative.

Eloquence re-echoes the strains of Truth and Love.

Spirit, God, is heard when the senses are silent.

The tree is not the author of itself

Each page brings a new view of the ideas floating around in our culture about what is God and what is spirit. I wasn't looking forward to this chapter but by reading it two pages at a time, I'm getting a lot out of it, both on topic and off.

I did have to look up a couple of words: viand and erudition.