A certain amount of dissatisfaction with oneself and a resolute desire for improvement evidence a healthy state of mind. But progress is hindered if the dissatisfaction becomes so severe that the possibility and necessity for self-improvement are lost in a sense of dark despair and hopeless self-condemnation.

Probably not many mortals would say that the material sense of life is a very satisfactory order of existence, but most have come to accept it as the only order they know, and many have become resigned to it. More than a few are prone to believe they are for the moment satisfied with it, at least to the extent of not being willing to make any consistent effort to get free from it by searching out a more satisfying sense of being.

This resignedness to the material misconception of life as mortal and in matter, and of man as a transient aggregation of material atoms subject to birth, affliction, and death, is a substanceless delusion. Christ Jesus came to awaken men from it. Not many then saw the mighty import of the spiritual idea of Life and man which he taught and demonstrated, but through Christian Science his teachings are being better understood, assimilated, and practiced. To a large part of the human race his teachings represent the only basis on which men can find lasting solutions for the manifold problems of human existence, individual and collective, and thereby can attain enduring satisfaction and peace.

Ask yourself, How well satisfied can I rightfully feel with my life? How much have I proved, through the Christianization of my thought, of the spiritual verities set forth in the Sermon on the Mount? How much have I demonstrated of my continuing sonship with God? How truly dissatisfied am I with the fleshly, material sense of life and selfhood which the great Metaphysician said "profiteth nothing"? Am I satisfied to entertain the least resentment, ill will, critical feeling, or hate toward anyone? How genuine is my desire to entertain no satisfaction in any sense of life and selfhood except that which glorifies unselfed good, eternal Love?

One must recognize error as error before he is willing to part with it and to make that systematic, persistent effort necessary to disassociate his sense of selfhood from it. So long as you and I are satisfied to excuse and condone bad habits, willful or complaining dispositions, pet animosities, catty criticisms, disliked but accepted inheritances, questionable pleasures, and bothersome pains, as though they were truths, or semitruths, which we are willing to coddle for a little, we are blocking our progress Truthward. Error in its every form must be seen as falsity masquerading as verity before we can be genuinely dissatisfied with it and, through our growing understanding of God and His idea, abandon our belief in and enslavement to it.

On page 240 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mary Baker Eddy, under the marginal heading "Progress demanded," says: "If mortals are not progressive, past failures will be repeated until all wrong work is effaced or rectified. If at present satisfied with wrong-doing, we must learn to loathe it. If at present content with idleness, we must become dissatisfied with it. Remember that mankind must sooner or later, either by suffering or by Science, be convinced of the error that is to be overcome."

Note the musts. We must learn "to loathe" (to have an intense aversion for) wrongdoing. We must become dissatisfied with mental idleness that consents to accept conditions as error says they are and makes little or no effort to correct them. And lastly comes the inescapable fact that every individual must sooner or later, through suffering or through an understanding of the Christ Science, become convinced that all error must, by individual effort, be overcome, not tolerated and condoned.

Said the Psalmist, "I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness" (Ps. 17:15), and, "They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house" (Ps. 36:8). Fatness here means richness, abundance. Satisfaction, the Bible writer realized, inheres in man's Love-given, Love-reflecting consciousness, the only real life and selfhood of man. Satisfaction is native to God. Eternal Mind is forever satisfied with its own perfection and the perfection of its manifestation. You and I share God's satisfaction with Himself and His work only in the degree we realize and manifest our oneness with Him from day to day, hour to hour, moment by moment.

Mortal mind tells mortals it can give satisfaction, can give that which only God possesses and imparts. But mortals must learn that mortal mind lies at every stage and step; that it cannot give what God alone forever has. It would promise to satisfy mortals with material success, with power, prestige, worldly honors, with attractive personalities, human knowledge, material indulgences, and with increased income and possessions. But it never has satisfied and never will thus truly satisfy men, for it cannot give them what it does not have—satisfaction. Let us all remember this.

Christian Science shows that to find true satisfaction you and I must begin with dissatisfaction, deep-down dissatisfaction with the so-called mortal, carnal mind and its entire material misconception of creation and man. There must be the honest daily effort to rid our thought of the mesmeric lie that we are self-satisfied mortals, through the vigorous repudiation of mortal mind and the realization that true satisfaction, inherent in God, is by God made inalienable from His reflection, man. Satisfaction is born of Spirit. It coincides with spiritual sense. It is yours and mine in the degree our lives become radiant with God's unselfed goodness and glory, unfettered by selfish purpose, ambition, or desire, evidencing the simple truth (Poems by Mrs. Eddy, p. 79),

Paul Stark Seeley