DON'T TAKE YOURSELF TOO SERIOUSLY

At one period a student of Christian Science who had received healing again and again of disease, sorrow, lack, and inharmonious human relationships, found herself facing many problems. Material arguments seemed to come thick and fast. Through much study and great effort, enlightenment would come and some progress in overcoming would be evidenced, but joyous, complete freedom, such as she had known in her early dependence upon Christian Science, was not experienced.

One day as she strove earnestly to gain further inspiration, the thought came. You take yourself too seriously. Since the thought recurred, she felt that it must have a message for her, and its meaning began to unfold. The "self" that she had been taking too seriously was in reality not her "self" at all. She had been so serious in her effort to get the erroneous thinking out of her consciousness that she had come to believe that error is. Now she saw clearly that error was not then, never had been, and never would be in true consciousness and that consequently she could, in reality, be conscious only of good; and that her actual substance was in her reflection of God, the All-in-all. As she refused to take the counterfeit "self" seriously by firmly rejecting its claims from her thinking, glorious freedom became evidenced in all the avenues of her daily experience.

Mary Baker Eddy tells us in her "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 224): "We should remember that the world is wide; that there are a thousand million different human wills, opinions, ambitions, tastes, and loves; that each person has a different history, constitution, culture, character, from all the rest; that human life is the work, the play, the ceaseless action and reaction upon each other of these different atoms. Then, we should go forth into life with the smallest expectations, but with the largest patience; with a keen relish for and appreciation of everything beautiful, great, and good, but with a temper so genial that the friction of the world shall not wear upon our sensibilities; with an equanimity so settled that no passing breath nor accidental disturbance shall agitate or ruffle it; with a charity broad enough to cover the whole world's evil, and sweet enough to neutralize what is bitter in it,—determined not to be offended when no wrong is meant, nor even when it is, unless the offense be against God."

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WHERE IS YOUR ALLEGIANCE?
March 7, 1953
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