Nothing Real Needs Healing
A Very common temptation, when one is beginning to study and make practical use of Christian Science, is to feel personal responsibility for the healing work. The student is probably acutely conscious of the physical inharmony to be destroyed, and also of his own inexperience in the application of the newly discovered truths that are unfolding in his consciousness. Further, he may be concerned over possible failure in case some error is not uncovered and specifically named and denied. However, through study, prayer, and unfoldment, the comforting understanding comes that in reality there is nothing to be changed, improved, or healed; the only change or correction needed is his belief of himself as a mortal.
Through this unfoldment the startling realization comes to the Christian Scientist that God's man is not the material, mortal man—the Adam-man—who is born into matter without his consent, and who, until he dies, may be liable to attack from all the phases of evil. God's man is made in His image and likeness, according to the Bible. If the premise is accepted that there is one perfect creator, who knows only good, the conclusion must be reached that there is one perfect creation, which cannot contain error, confusion, or inharmony, since such conditions are foreign to perfection. God's image and likeness of necessity reflects and manifests His completeness and perfection, and so expresses continuous supply, health, and harmony. If material evidence seems to be otherwise, the Christian Scientist must come to understand that it is because a counterfeit creation is being accepted as real, because the Adam-man is being accepted as God's man.
Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science uses the term "mortal mind" to indicate the belief that there is sensation in matter and that mind and life begin and end. And on page 86 of her textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," she writes, "Mortal mind sees what it believes as certainly as it believes what it sees."
Since matter of itself cannot develop inharmony of any kind, such a condition must be the objectified thinking of so-called mortal mind, for obviously an erroneous condition cannot be the result of a perfect cause. Sick thoughts are externalized in sick bodies and inharmonious conditions, but such thoughts cannot enter a consciousness filled with the truth concerning God and man. A truth-filled consciousness is externalized in a healthy body and harmonious surroundings. It follows, although this fact is not always accepted readily or gracefully, that individual experiences are the direct result of one's own thinking, and the responsibility for mistakes or inharmony cannot be placed elsewhere, either on the creator or on one's fellow man.
The proof that Christian Science is as effective and as completely practical as mathematical science, depends upon knowing and applying the rules correctly. In utilizing mathematical law, one does not struggle or fight to change anything real in replacing a mistake with the correct computation. So it is, in using effectively the laws of Christian Science. Truth recognized and applied is all-powerful; error disappears because it is error; nothing real is changed. One readily admits that mathematical mistakes do not carry added weight because of the length of time they may have been believed, and also that a gradual change is not necessary, nor is time required, for mathematical law to become effective, once the rule is understood. Likewise healing in Christian Science is not more difficult because the claim is thought to be chronic, nor is a period of convalescence necessary before the healing can be complete.
There is no place for selfishness in the practice of Christian Science. While claiming the operation of these truths for himself, a Christian Scientist must realize that his brother man is blessed and governed by the very same laws. He must refuse to accept erroneous outward appearances for others as well as for himself; he must love his neighbor as himself. "God is no respecter of persons," and all His children are privileged and able to express harmony, each one in his own individual place in the perfect whole, in harmonious relationship with all others. Place and relationship in God's universe are constant, orderly, and happy. Each individual idea, be it small or great, is indispensable to the whole.
A very comforting fact, carrying reassurance to all students of Christian Science, is this: as no one possesses a monopoly on the use of mathematics, so all may realize God's presence sufficiently to unsee false beliefs of inharmony and to perceive instead the real man or God's perfect expression. By study and practice one may become a better and better mathematician and in similar manner one may become more and more efficient in unseeing the beliefs of mortal mind. The ability to work effectively is available to each one who has the humility to welcome from day to day the unfolding in his consciousness of the truth about God and man.
As a result of this unfoldment, supported and made effective by the Christ—"the divine manifestation of God, which comes to the flesh to destroy incarnate error" (Science and Health, p. 583 )—the sense evidence changes and the false belief disappears. Actually nothing real has been changed or healed. Light has simply replaced darkness, and Truth has effectively destroyed that which previously seemed to be, but was not. Then come peace and the quiet assurance that man is always, and in all ways, at the standpoint of perfection, and that "as the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about his people from henceforth even for ever."
