Day 247: Today’s Question

491:17-493:8

Do the five corporeal senses constitute man? (day 1, day 2)

For right reasoning there should be but one fact before the thought, namely, spiritual existence. In reality there is no other existence, since Life cannot be united to its unlikeness, mortality.

Science says: All is Mind and Mind's idea. You must fight it out on this line. Matter can afford you no aid.

All the evidence of physical sense and all the knowledge obtained from physical sense must yield to Science, to the immortal truth of all things.

2010

Day 199: Law of mind or Mind?

393:4-395:5

Sometimes it is easy to confuse mortal mind and material senses with the physical form, since the erroneous belief says that they are inseparable. But Mary Baker Eddy reminds us:

The body seems to be self-acting, only because mortal mind is ignorant of itself, of its own actions, and of their results,--ignorant that the predisposing, remote, and exciting cause of all bad effects is a law of so-called mortal mind, not of matter.

Have no fear that matter can ache, swell, and be inflamed as the result of a law of any kind, when it is self-evident that matter can have no pain nor inflammation.

A false belief is both the tempter and the tempted, the sin and the sinner, the disease and its cause.

The sick unconsciously argue for suffering, instead of against it. They admit its reality, whereas they should deny it. They should plead in opposition to the testimony of the deceitful senses, and maintain man's immortality and eternal likeness to God.

The admission that any bodily condition is beyond the control of Mind disarms man, prevents him from helping himself, and enthrones matter through error.

We should remember that Life is God, and that God is omnipotent.

2010

Day 195: Mentally Overworked?

385:15-387:12

Because mortal mind is kept active, must it pay the penalty in a softened brain? Who dares to say that actual Mind can be overworked? When we reach our limits of mental endurance, we conclude that intellectual labor has been carried sufficiently far; but when we realize that immortal Mind is ever active, and that spiritual energies can neither wear out nor can so-called material law trespass upon God-given powers and resources, we are able to rest in Truth, refreshed by the assurances of immortality, opposed to mortality.

2010

Day 153: Finite sense

298:8-300:8

Material sense expresses the belief that mind is in matter. This human belief, alternating between a sense of pleasure and pain, hope and fear, life and death, never reaches beyond the boundary of the mortal or the unreal.

Finite sense has no true appreciation of infinite Principle, God, or of His infinite image or reflection, man.

2010

Day 150: Material Sense

292:7-294:8

The five physical senses are the avenues and instruments of human error, and they correspond with error. These senses indicate the common human belief, that life, substance, and intelligence are a unison of matter with Spirit. This is pantheism, and carries within itself the seeds of all error. If man is both mind and matter, the loss of one finger would take away some quality and quantity of the man, for matter and man would be one.

2010

Day 143: Spirit, not matter

278:1-279:32

as we approach Spirit and Truth, we lose the consciousness of matter

In proportion as the belief disappears that life and intelligence are in or of matter, the immortal facts of being are seen, and their only idea or intelligence is in God.

Spirit, God, is infinite, all. Spirit can have no opposite.

2010

Day 140: Truth & Matter

272:3-273:28

The spiritual sense of truth must be gained before Truth can be understood. This sense is assimilated only as we are honest, unselfish, loving, and meek.

Divine Science reverses the false testimony of the material senses, and thus tears away the foundations of error.

There is no material truth. The physical senses can take no cognizance of God and spiritual Truth.

It is the spiritualization of thought and Christianization of daily life, in contrast with the results of the ghastly farce of material existence; it is chastity and purity, in contrast with the downward tendencies and earthward gravitation of sensualism and impurity, which really attest the divine origin and operation of Christian Science.

Man is harmonious when governed by Soul. Hence the importance of understanding the truth of being, which reveals the laws of spiritual existence.

2010

Day 138: Everything is Mind

268-270:4

The testimony of the material senses is neither absolute nor divine.

Metaphysics resolves things into thoughts, and exchanges the objects of sense for the ideas of Soul.

2010

Day 129: Spirit vs. Material Sense

251:28-253:17

there is no cause (outside of erring, mortal, material sense which is not power) able to make you sick or sinful

Material sense lifts its voice with the arrogance of reality and says: I am wholly dishonest, and no man knoweth it. I can cheat, lie, commit adultery, rob, murder, and I elude detection by smooth-tongued villainy. Animal in propensity, deceitful in sentiment, fraudulent in purpose, I mean to make my short span of life one gala day. What a nice thing is sin! How sin succeeds, where the good purpose waits! The world is my kingdom. I am enthroned in the gorgeousness of matter. Like bursting lava, I expand but to my own despair, and shine with the resplendency of consuming fire.

Spirit, bearing opposite testimony, saith: I am Spirit. Man, whose senses are spiritual, is my likeness. He reflects the infinite understanding, for I am Infinity. The beauty of holiness, the perfection of being, imperishable glory,--all are Mine, for I am God. I give immortality to man, for I am Truth. I include and impart all bliss, for I am Love. I give life, without beginning and without end, for I am Life. I am supreme and give all, for I am Mind. I am the substance of all, because I AM THAT I AM.

2010

Day 69: Material belief & False evidence

130:7-131:11

While looking for the perfectibility of man, I came across these:

Christian Science, properly understood, would disabuse the human mind of material beliefs which war against spiritual facts; and these material beliefs must be denied and cast out to make place for truth. You cannot add to the contents of a vessel already full.

When once destroyed by divine Science, the false evidence before the corporeal senses disappears.

2010

Day 68:

128:4-130:6

We must look deep into realism instead of accepting only the outward sense of things.

I’ve been challenging myself with this for a few days now but it is nice to have the idea so succinctly stated.

2010

Day 65: Evidence of the Physical Senses

122:1-124:2

The evidence of the physical senses often reverses the real Science of being, and so creates a reign of discord,--assigning seeming power to sin, sickness, and death; but the great facts of Life, rightly understood, defeat this triad of errors, contradict their false witnesses, and reveal the kingdom of heaven,--the actual reign of harmony on earth.

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 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 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 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 26:

43:21-45:21

Mary Baker Eddy describes the material veil over the three days in the sepulcher. 

It’s impressive what was overcome.

2010

Day 24: A Convenient Season

39:31-41:21

In this reading, I felt like a errant child. In some regards, I am always looking for a convenient time to get things done. Five minutes here to do the dishes, twenty minutes here to do the laundry, a few minutes after picking up the kids from school to run errands. My life is all about a convenient season materially. But not spiritually. If anything, I struggle with how to remove the veil of matter. I often wonder if a different place, time, or position would lend itself to more spirituality.

In the meantime, here I am, reading each day to glimpse that spirituality and find that calm.

2010

Day 23:

37:32-39:30

He taught that the material senses shut out Truth and its healing power.

2010

Day 20: The Material Senses

31:25-33:26

These two pages discuss Jesus removing himself from the material senses in the Garden of Gethsemane. He had fewer distractions but amazing focus than we do today.

I can’t thing of a place, besides church, that gives me that time and quiet place to collect myself.

Where do you remove yourself to?

2010