Article August 1, 1953 Issue

MAN LIVES IN THE DIVINE CONSCIOUSNESS

ALAN A. AYLWIN

In "Miscellaneous Writings" our revered Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, makes this profound and arresting statement (pp. 105, 106): "Because God is Mind, and this Mind is good, all is good and all is Mind. God is the sum total of the universe." This absolute declaration of God's totality is the very foundation stone of all Christianly scientific knowing, and if the student would gain an understanding of his true selfhood, then he must learn to think from the standpoint of Mind's allness and to recognize himself as God's perfect individual idea, wholly dependent upon God for intelligence and activity. Within the all-inclusive divine consciousness he can rest secure, knowing that nothing "that defileth, ... or maketh a lie" (Rev. 21:27) can enter the holy sanctuary of Spirit and touch man, God's perfect child.

This recognition becomes less arduous when it is clearly seen that man's consciousness of life in God is not a personal possession, but evidences Mind's knowledge of itself and of its universe as it is reflected in man. Man, as idea, is the effect or result of Mind's knowing, and although distinctly individual, he is always inseparably one with God in substance and consciousness. Man is always conscious of his true selfhood because Mind is eternally aware of it.

But what of the so-called man whom the material senses behold? Has he any relationship to God's man, Mind's expression? Certainly not. The mortal is wholly illusory, the manifestation of a suppositional mind apart from God. This false sense of man will disappear in the ratio that the individual puts off the false beliefs connected with a physical, personal sense of existence. In this connection our Leader says (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 85), "The pleasures—more than the pains—of sense, retard regeneration; for pain compels human consciousness to escape from sense into the immortality and harmony of Soul." So when sensuality, or selfishness, knocks at our mental door, we must stand firm and deny it admittance. Every victory over the mesmeric pull of temptation strengthens our grasp on the eternal facts and clarifies for us "the vision infinite."

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