Article December 15, 1917 Issue

Getting One's Bearings

SAMUEL GREENWOOD

The beginner in Christian Science sometimes encounters a sense of bewilderment when trying to adjust his new view of things to the conditions that still largely make up his environment. He feels at a loss how to steer his course scientifically between the truth that Mind is infinite, hence All, and the continued presence and demand of material conditions in daily experience. Where, he asks, does one rightly stand in respect to the fact of man's essential spirituality while he is obliged to conform in large measure to the ways of the flesh? Or how can he consistently affirm his status as a child of God while his present consciousness seems so interminably distant from its practical realization?

When the truth that in reality all things are spiritual first dawns upon one's perception, the undisciplined impulse is apt to apply that fact in all its fullness to human experience, until one discovers the immense distance yet to be traversed between his first infantile perception of Truth and his final demonstration of pure spiritual consciousness. Although in divine revelation man is seen to be the image and likeness of God, human sense does not recognize man thus, and the attempt to relate that deduction of absolute Science to frail mortals may frequently be fraught with disappointment.

The transformation of mankind from material belief through spiritual understanding is not consummated in a moment. Old things do not pass away suddenly from one's cognizance; but to the spiritually awakening man they continue in experience only as conditions whose falsity is recognized and acknowledged, but which must be outgrown through maturer understanding and demonstration. One of the first lessons for the student is the meaning of the word growth in relation to his salvation. The human perception of spiritual truth is at first feeble, and should be allowed to take root and grow and develop without being exposed to the danger of a violent and thoughtless uprooting of the tares growing alongside. As this growth goes on without hindrance from human will or desire, old things will drop away of themselves through the ripening of spiritual experience, and thought will adjust itself to Truth's higher demands in harmonious sequence.

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