Article May 27, 1911 Issue

THE HEAVENLY VISION

DR. EDMUND F. BURTON

In his endeavor to investigate and control his own thought processes, the truth-seeker sometimes experiences a sense of confusion and even of inability to follow the advice to "hold fast that which is good," for the reason that he is uncertain as to what that good is to which he should and fain would hold fast. To the ear accustomed to listening to mortal mind suggestion, the voice of Truth may seem so very weak and indefinite that there is a sense of uncertainty as to its utterances. While there is an honest purpose and desire to emulate the Master, who said, "As the Father gave me commandment, even so I do," there seems to be difficulty in apprehending the commandment.

A demand for light and guidance in our lives is not unreasonable, and in fact it is granted before it is made. The teachings of Christian Science lay emphasis upon the truth that God is "not afar off," but is "the Father that dwelleth within." They declare that nothing but a false sense of life and of its values keeps us from the full realization of the harmony in which we really "live, and move, and have our being," and through these teachings we are furnished with an infallible test whereby we may distinguish between the true voice and the false. They make practical the truths whose statement is familiar to all Christendom; namely, that God is Mind, that God is supreme, that God is good; hence, that all true thought is good, Godlike; that the highest thought is the best, the highest good perceived by the human mind,—its present conception of the revelation of God, the perfect Mind.

The vision that speaks of better being is the voice of God speaking to man, and there is never a time when it is not possible to decide what is the highest conception or aspiration in consciousness. If there seems to be a doubt in this regard, such doubt is due to the mortal mind habit of accepting less than the highest, and the simple questions addressed to our own consciousness, "Is this the highest, most desirable, most nearly perfect condition which I can possibly perceive?" and "Do I want anything less than that which is the best?" will reveal unmistakably the most awakened vision as yet seen by us, and will elicit that upward desire toward Godlike being which is the expression of Mind voiced by the true man. Nothing is real or even possible which is less than the best that can come to one's thought, for anything less than the best is lower than absolute good, the only Truth. To deny this is to assert that the human mind can rise higher than that of the creator, and can grasp ideas above the conceptions of the Mind that is supreme good itself.

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