Moods

ALFRED F. GOODMAN

Among the many illusions of mortal mind, there is none more strange than the belief that people are subject to what are called moods, feeling either cheerful or depressed as the case may be. To a vast multitude of persons who are in bondage to this false claim of material sense, Christian Science offers freedom, holding out to them the truth regarding God and man, which will unbind the fetters of finite sense and set them free. This thought of mortal moods finds expression in the psalms, where we read, "Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me?" This is, however, followed by the remedy, and so the psalm goes on: "Hope in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God."

In the light of Christian Science, it is plain that man reflects the divine Mind, the intelligence which governs the universe. This intelligence or Mind is not changeable, and the proof of this statement lies in the fact that all things which have been created by God are perfect and will remain so, while anything He did not create has no real existence in fact, but exists only as the supposititious opposite of that which is real and eternal. Mortal beliefs, however, are constantly changing, for they have no reality, no basis in truth, and must consequently grope continually in the dark for the reality they can never find. Is it not plain, then, that to allow one's self to be governed by this so-called mortal mind is to join the throng which is groping blindly in the dark? Is it any wonder that its varying moods grip and control him whose thought is not steadfast, but flits here and there like a will-o'-the-wisp?

The Mind or intelligence of the real man being God, it follows that man is changeless and permanent also. This truth frees us from the changing beliefs beliefs of matter and plants our feet upon the true path. Isaiah said, "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee." Moods are but another phase of the belief that there is more than one Mind. Man governed by God could never be anything but happy and contented, peaceful and perfect. It is only when we have lost our mental poise, our mental balance, as it were, that there seems to be any room for the unlikeness of good.

In this connection it is especially interesting to note that the various humors which were supposed to control the so-called mortal mind are sometimes pleasant, sometimes unpleasant. It is not unusual for a person so controlled to be happy one moment and miserable the next. In the words of the apostle James: "My brethren, these things ought not so to be. Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter?" The infinite Mind can never be the source of both good and evil. We should work earnestly to rise to habitual spiritual thinking, a state of mind cleansed from all evil, mentally poised and balanced in true mental activity, abiding in divine intelligence. There can be no change in such a consciousness; for, as Mrs. Eddy says in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 471), "Science knows no lapse from nor return to harmony, but holds the divine order or spiritual law, in which God and all that He creates are perfect and eternal, to have remained unchanged in its eternal history." There is no room within the real consciousness of man for anything unlike good. He guards constantly the entrance to his thought, admitting only right ideas. Thus he permits no mood or change of thought to affect him; for he depends upon the divine Mind alone for his every thought and action, and the results of the operation of this Mind are always the same, always good.

Certainly no one would admit that he was honest or dishonest as the mood possessed him, for this would be self-evident weakness; yet we are no less mentally weak if we permit our happiness and health, as well as that of those with whom we come in contact, to be jeopardized by a laxity of right mental effort. We should repel every wrong thought or suggestion just as strongly and earnestly as we would dishonesty, and thus climb the mountain of spirituality until we reach the heights of holiness and stay there, permitting no wrong thought to make us even look down thereform. In this manner many are rising daily out of the bondage of moods into the reflection of that Mind in which there is "no variableness, neither shadow of turning."

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