Editorial August 6, 1949 Issue

COMPETITION

George Channing

In the method of Christian Science, whereby inharmonious conditions are seen as false concepts and replaced by right ideas, lies the hope of mankind. Consider, for instance, competition. The competitive situation in business, trade, and other human relationships is sometimes regarded as responsible for much unlovely thought and conduct, ultimating occasionally in conflict and tragedy. Much of the righteousness inherent in the privilege of each individual to work out his own salvation is too often thwarted, it seems, by fear stemming from the belief that in order to see one's own enterprises flourish one must undermine the enterprises of others. The effort of mortal sense to put such a notion into action is folly. It is the way by which the mesmerism of self-destruction seems to appear to mortals.

There is potent remedy for this, despite the despair too often indulged by humanity on this point. But it is not available through devices of mortal sense. The remedy is in the intelligent and unfailingly effective prayer which Christian Science teaches men to use. The prayer by which false concepts are replaced with spiritual ideas is based upon the knowledge that God is the source of man's being and that God is Mind, infinite and divine. On this basis the conclusion is drawn that man is divine idea and that all the ideas of Mind are, each in its own individuality, maintained in the joy of right activity and the satisfaction of abundant sustenance. All that any individual ever needs is to realize that fact until it becomes manifest in consciousness and therefore in experience. This is the Christianly scientific method, the method of filling consciousness with truth to the exclusion of error. The result is the removal of the effects of error, replaced by the manifestation of truth.

Competition, correctly understood, contributes to this achievement. If competition appears to pit men against men in a struggle for existence, that appearance needs to be recognized as a false concept. Why is it false? Because such a concept is not in God, perfect Mind, the only conceiver. It is a concept of imperfection, therefore not from that which is perfect. What is the right idea? The right idea is activity, mental and divine, permanent and immune from interruption, eternal and harmonious as the Mind whose expression it is.

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