Article August 10, 1974 Issue

Discipline and Freedom

ELEANOR OWERS SMITH

Everyone desires to be free, but not everyone wishes to be disciplined. Can there be freedom without self-control?

The words "discipline" and "disciple" are derived from the same Latin root, a word meaning to learn. A disciple is a person who follows and learns from another. He becomes disciplined. We speak of the twelve men whom Christ Jesus chose to be with him as his disciples. They became his students. He taught them to know God as Spirit, and man as God's immortal offspring, and to put this understanding into practice.

Through the study of Christian Science we learn to realize that we are God's image. Mrs. Eddy tells us: "Man is spiritual and perfect; and because he is spiritual and perfect, he must be so understood in Christian Science. Man is idea, the image, of Love; he is not physique. He is the compound idea of God, including all right ideas." Science and Health, p. 475; To be God's image is to be actively conscious of being a spiritual identity, the reflection of perfect Mind. This consciousness comes to us through disciplined thinking and frees us from the myriad material beliefs that seem to throng us. Because Jesus knew unequivocally that God was his Father, he was always conscious of his spiritual being. He was spiritually governed, always about his Father's business, doing God's will, teaching and showing others how to be God's child.

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