Article June 24, 1944 Issue

The Importance of Being Spiritual

MICHAEL ST. JOHN O'CARROLL

Well may the world's chaotic condition be likened to a man who, having braved the rapids in a canoe, finds his canoe upset and himself struggling to keep his head above water. Suddenly he sees a rock, and, making a final effort, he battles through the surging waters to where safety and peace are to be found.

On page 593 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mary Baker Eddy points out that "rock," spiritually understood, signifies "spirital foundation; Truth." Thus, when one sufficiently exerts himself to establish his thoughts and therefore his experiences on a spiritual foundation, he finds real individuality, security, and peace. To have this firm base it is necessary to realize that now, and at all times, man is spiritual, above the swirling eddies of mortal existence, out of reach of the hatred and lust of the carnal mind, impregnable in Truth, imperishable in Life.

Often the suggestion is that there are two kinds of man, the spiritual and the material, indeed, there are not. God made man in the image and likeness of Himself, infinite good, Spirit, and man exists in Spirit, is maintained by Spirit, and is governed by nothing else. Christ Jesus knew how persistently mortal mind tries to mesmerize mankind into accepting human planning and material circumstances as real and powerful and he sought and found peace and rest from these insidious suggestions in excluding them from his thought, and consequently from his experience, by claiming and affirming his unity with God as a spiritual idea. Mrs. Eddy explains this as follows (No and Yes, p. 36): "It was this retreat from material to spiritual selfhood which recuperated him for triumph over sin, sickness, and death." In other words, it was the Master's conscious realization of his relationship with God that enabled him to demonstrate the dominion which such a relationship affords, by overcoming the variableness of mortal mind and the uncertainty of material existence.

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