Article October 23, 1926 Issue

There is No Selfhood Apart from God

THEODORE ALBERT SCHROEDER

In the search for permanent and changeless freedom from the materiality that unenlightened human consciousness would have us acknowledge as reality, we must endeavor to rise to a realization of the truth of being that there is no selfhood apart from God. All the ills, sins, false appetites, discontent, and doubt that constantly are clamoring for recognition are but the outcome of a belief in a selfhood apart from God, an acceptance of the testimony of the physical senses as true. Search as one may, strive as one will, there is no escape from any of the myriad forms of human discord so long as the belief persists that man has a mind of his own, or is an entity separate from God, who alone is Life, Mind, Love, Principle, Truth.

In our daily contact with humanity, how often we hear such expressions as, "my mind," "my life," "my health"! What is this "my" which we hear so much about? Do we really possess anything underived from God? Most certainly not! The only real possessions we have are the qualities that are of divine Mind. Spiritually to discern and reflect these qualities as our only true possessions is to have that Mind in us "which was also in Christ Jesus." As the image and likeness of God, divine Principle, we must claim these divinely bestowed qualities in all our thinking. Then shall we begin to recognize our true selfhood in divinely ordered activity. This constant spiritual affirmation of the truth of being will unfold the understanding that enables us to deny effectually any existence apart from God, and awaken us to that spiritual sense which Mrs. Eddy speaks of, in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 209), as "a conscious, constant capacity to understand God."

Before we can attain to this spiritual sense, however, a purification of human consciousness must first be sought through constant self-correction and discipline, which demands unflinching obedience and consecration to divine Principle. Every thought entertained in consciousness that does not reflect divine Mind must be uprooted and cast out. On page 218 of Science and Health our beloved Leader says, "What renders both sin and sickness difficult of cure is, that the human mind is the sinner, disinclined to self-correction." It is in the so-called human mind, therefore, that purification must begin, by eliminating all such destructive qualities as dishonesty, hatred, criticism, lust, self-love, self-will, self-justification, false desires, and false ambitions. These must be replaced with thoughts of honesty, love, purity, kindness, humility, charitableness, unselfed love, fearlessness, and an unfeigned joy in consciously serving God, good, daily—yes, hourly.

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