On the Damascus Road

Law is irreversible. The mere fact that a thing is reversible proves it not to be law. That is exactly what Principle was saying to Paul on the day, when journeying from Jerusalem to Damascus, he heard the voice which said unto him, "It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks." Kicking against the pricks is, indeed, an occupation to be avoided. Therefore, it is well for men to learn what law is, and to strive to be obedient unto law. Until they do this, they are destined to a perpetual conflict with Truth, a conflict in which they must inevitably be worsted. The wise man realizes this, and endeavors industriously to put his house in order. For his house is simply the consciousness in which he dwells, and this consciousness will be spiritual or material, in accordance with his ordering of his thoughts.

What, therefore, a man thinks is the thing that matters, and this for the very simple reason that what he thinks is what he does. Every act must be thought before it can be given effect to. Therefore, it is the daily guarding of his thought which constitutes the protection which makes it impossible for temptation or suggestion to appeal to him. To say, then, that Spirit is all, and to act as if matter was all, is to make plain your disbelief in your own premises. No person who really knew that Spirit was all would put himself in the position of denying Spirit by acting unnecessarily materially. Of course, it is only little by little, as the individual grasps the meaning of the allness of Spirit, that he is able to order his thought, and consequently his life, so as to demonstrate his increasing understanding. "To stop eating, drinking, or being clothed materially," Mrs. Eddy writes, on page 254 of Science and Health, "before the spiritual facts of existence are gained step by step, is not legitimate. When we wait patiently on God and seek Truth righteously, He directs our path. Imperfect mortals grasp the ultimate of spiritual perfection slowly; but to begin aright and to continue the strife of demonstrating the great problem of being, is doing much." The aim of the individual, then, is to put off the carnal mind as quickly as may be by demonstrating the fact that the only Mind is the Mind of Christ. But when once this admission has been made, it is inadmissible to give more thought to matter than is temporarily inevitable. And so the battle with the flesh begins, the individual's daily effort to take up the cross, the denial of matter, and to walk in the footsteps of the Christ.

It is here that the futility of kicking against the pricks becomes so apparent. If Spirit is the only reality, then every unnecessary surrender to matter is just this kicking against the pricks. "Christ, Truth," Mrs. Eddy writes, on page 442 of Science and Health, "gives mortals temporary food and clothing until the material, transformed with the ideal, disappears, and man is clothed and fed spiritually." Whilst a man is learning the whole lesson, it is necessary for him to eat and drink materially, but it is not necessary for him to endow this eating and drinking with sensuous gratification. Doing so is obviously kicking against the pricks, and can only delay his own progress and add to the material troubles already surrounding him. The example is just one indication among many of the way in which the individual is tempted, by mental suggestion, to make his own way more difficult. Christ Jesus said, "Judge righteous judgment." Now this judgment is just the ability to separate the spiritual from the material, and the failure to judge this righteous judgment, to separate the material from the spiritual, and to reject the material, is kicking against the pricks. Sooner or later this righteous judgment has to be judged, and the only way for the individual to prepare himself to sit in judgment is by the persistent effort to understand and to live in accordance with Principle.