The Safety of Reflection

Violet Ker Seymer

Mankind is wont to turn hither and thither in the effort to escape from its belief of life in matter, which takes form in sickness, sin, want, death. Men in general yield to this belief, not knowing how to turn from it to the truth of spiritual being. To this harried state of thought Christian Science unfolds the haven of Spirit and of spiritual reflection, in which it is never too soon, and never too late, to find regeneration, health, and harmony.

On page 57 of "Retrospection and Introspection" Mrs. Eddy writes: "Man shines by borrowed light. He reflects God as his Mind, and this reflection is substance,—the substance of good." Spiritual man is the offspring of Spirit, the divine cause, and is not himself causative or creative. Spiritual man is "complete in him," substantial as Mind's own image, complete by reflection. Even as God is conscious only of His limitless spiritual manifestation, so, of necessity, is man conscious only of God and of spiritual affluence.

Of what avail are these absolute facts to humanity? They constitute its salvation. Through Christian Science one learns the way of unassailable spiritual righteousness, conscious mental dominion, perpetual abundance, indestructible life. The Christian Scientist seeks incessantly to reflect the divine Principle, Love, in order to understand his true identity and thereby break away from the belief that he is material and finite. He borrows of Spirit; he reflects spiritual inspiration for his tasks, strength to obey, joy whereby to rejoice, love whereby to live, forgive, and be truly happy.

Because there is no error in God, each individual who reflects God, divine Mind, is in that degree freed from evil. But in order to prove himself God's reflection, he must acquire spiritual understanding, obedience, humility. He must cultivate spiritual reliance, must learn that spiritual reflection alone is substance, and matter but shadow. He must strive for the spiritual, and subordinate lesser aims. He must look to God for the perception and expansion of all right qualities. So equipped, he can conquer the mortal beliefs of self-will, pride, fear.

"God's thoughts are perfect and eternal, are substance and Life," Mary Baker Eddy says on page 286 of the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." These impregnable, life-giving, spiritual thoughts supplant material beliefs and manifest the authority of divine Principle. Because suggestions of uncertainty, sickness, envy, jealousy, malice, are not God's thoughts, they have actually no more real substance or presence than the visionary mirage.

Christian Science teaches its students to acknowledge the utter dependence of man upon God and to draw strength from this dependence. If anyone's spiritual light seems to be burning low, his need is to purify consciousness with truth; to be more spiritually perceptive, divinely courageous, steadfast, knowing that of these divinely derived qualities there is no end. For man there is no mental obscuration, since Mind is his illumination. Spiritual man knows himself as God's reflection, and in no other way.

Although erroneous thinking does not affect the fact of Mind's outpoured supply, it does apparently set up a fictitious sense of alienation from Love's beneficence. Therefore each individual must realize and prove that he cannot be separated from God's thoughts; that these thoughts are his, and that they cannot be intercepted, obstructed, nor in any way affected by aggressive mental suggestion. Through accurate thinking, undeviating fidelity to facts, and unlapsing faith, spiritual dominion will become still more evident in the experience of the Christian Scientist.

Mortal mind seems real only to itself: it does not deceive one who entertains the thoughts of divine Mind. So the application of Christian Science brings to pass in human consciousness "the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain." Spiritual consciousness is unaffected, unshaken by mortal self-mesmerism. There may seem to be a long period of declaration of Truth, in some cases, before these declarations become realization. For this very reason, there must be no slackening in the Christian Scientist's declarations of Truth and eternal Life, for these, honestly held to, are the certain forerunners of realization and demonstration.

The Christian Scientist is not tricked into either overlooking, or willfully indulging, the claims of evil, nor into denying his own sonship. For it is only through claiming this sonship that he can successfully conquer materialism and prove that spiritual reflection includes life, blessedness, and safety, without beginning and without end. Everyone who would prove his sonship can remain unshaken by relying on illimitable Love, serene in the consciousness that "that only is real which reflects God" (Science and Health, p. 478).

Violet Ker Seymer

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