In the universe of Truth, matter is unknown. Hence the eternal wonder,—that infinite space is peopled with God's ideas, reflecting Him in countless spiritual forms.
God creates neither erring thought, mortal life, mutable truth, nor variable love.
Was not this a revelation instead of a creation?
Eternal things (verities) are God's thoughts as they exist in the spiritual realm of the real. Temporal things are the thoughts of mortals and are the unreal, being the opposite of the real or the spiritual and eternal.
Things spiritual and eternal are substantial. Things material and temporal are insubstantial.
A personal sense of God and of man's capabilities necessarily limits faith and hinders spiritual understanding. It divides faith and understanding between matter and Spirit, the finite and the infinite, and so turns away from the intelligent and divine healing Principle to the inanimate drug.
2010
Through false estimates of soul as dwelling in sense and of mind as dwelling in matter, belief strays into a sense of temporary loss or absence of soul, spiritual truth. This state of error is the mortal dream of life and substance as existent in matter, and is directly opposite to the immortal reality of being.
Matter is made up of supposititious mortal mind-force;but all might is divine Mind. Thought will finally be understood and seen in all form, substance, and color, but without material accompaniments.
Matter, sin, and mortality lose all supposed consciousness or claim to life or existence, as mortals lay off a false sense of life, substance, and intelligence. But the spiritual, eternal man is not touched by these phases of mortality.
Continuing our definition of man, let us remember that harmonious and immortal man has existed forever, and is always beyond and above the mortal illusion of any life, substance, and intelligence as existent in matter. This statement is based on fact, not fable. The Science of being reveals man as perfect, even as the Father is perfect, because the Soul, or Mind, of the spiritual man is God, the divine Principle of all being, and because this real man is governed by Soul instead of sense, by the law of Spirit, not by the so-called laws of matter.
Spiritual man is the image or idea of God, an idea which cannot be lost nor separated from its divine Principle.
The universe reflects and expresses the divine substance or Mind; therefore God is seen only in the spiritual universe and spiritual man, as the sun is seen in the ray of light which goes out from it. God is revealed only in that which reflects Life, Truth, Love,-- yea, which manifests God's attributes and power, even as the human likeness thrown upon the mirror, repeats the color, form, and action of the person in front of the mirror.
To suppose that sin, lust, hatred, envy, hypocrisy, revenge, have life abiding in them, is a terrible mistake. Life and Life's idea, Truth and Truth's idea, never make men sick, sinful, or mortal.
The spiritual fact and the material belief of things are contradictions; but the spiritual is true, and therefore the material must be untrue.
The chief stones in the temple of Christian Science are to be found in the following postulates: that Life is God, good, and not evil; that Soul is sinless, not be found in the body; that Spirit is not, and cannot be, materialized; that Life is not subject to death; that the spiritual real man has no birth, no material life, and no death.
Sin, sickness, and death are comprised in human material belief, and belong not to the divine Mind. There are without a real origin or existence. They have neither Principle nor permanence, but belong, with all that is material and temporal, to the nothingness of error, which simulates the creations of Truth. All creations of Spirit are eternal; but creations of matter must return to dust. Error supposes man to be both mental and material. Divine Science contradicts this postulate and maintains man's spiritual identity.
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.
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.
From beginning to end, the Scriptures are full of accounts, of the triumph of Spirit, Mind over matter. Moses proved the power of Mind by what men called miracles; so did Joshua, Elijah, and Elisha.
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,cancontrol[negative verb of choice here] another man, as matterupsets 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.
Here are the two idea areas I found in the reading.
Spiritual Parenting
The divine Mine, not matter, creates all identities, and they are forms of Mind, the ideas of Spirit apparent only as Mind, never as mindless matter nor the so-called material senses.
Spirit duly feeds and clothes every object, as it appears in the line of spiritual creation, thus tenderly expressing the fatherhood and motherhood of God.
Spiritual Understanding
Spiritual understanding [1] unfolds Mind…—and [2] demonstrates the divine sense.
God unites understanding and eternal harmony.
I must admit there was a lot I marked in this reading. Mary Baker Eddy came back to the discussion of Soul, evil, and material belief. But I want to focus on harmony write now. It seems to ebb and flow in our house which isn’t the truth I want:
Harmonious action proceeds from Spirit, God. Inharmony has no Principle; its action is erroneous and presupposes man to be in matter. Inharmony would make matter the cause as well as the effect of intelligence, or Soul, thus attempting to separate Mind from God.
Some days, I underline most of the reading. Today is one of those days but for this blog, I’ll just pick out a few:
Man’s privilege at this supreme moment is to prove the words of our Master: “If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death.”
To divest thought of false trusts and material evidences in order that the spiritual facts of being may appear, – this is the great attainment by means of which we shall sweep away the false and give place to the true.
eternal building
everlasting Father
We must realize the ability of mental might to offset human misconceptions and to replace them with the life which is spiritual, not material.
We must hold forever the consciousness of existence
We must being, however, with the more simple demonstrations of control, and the soon we begin the better.
if we are wise, we look beyond a single step in the line of spiritual advancement
Faith should enlarge its borders and strengthen its base by resting upon Spirit instead of matter.
A few points about treatment:
By the truthful arguments you employ, and especially by the spirit of Truth and Love which you entertain, you will heal the sick.
Include moral as well as physical belief in your efforts to destroy error. Cast out all manner of evil.
Observe mind instead of body, lest aught unfit for development enter thought. Think less of material conditions and more of spiritual.
Then something that seemed more about my struggles with harmony:
There is no metastatis, no stoppage of harmonious action, no paralysis. Truth not error, Love not hate, Spirit not matter, governs man.
