NO MIND APART FROM GOD
The understanding gained in Christian Science that God is all there is brings unbounded joy to the one seeking absolute Truth and an answer to the puzzle of mortal existence. How wonderful to discover that disease is not real and so can be healed, to find that God, Mind, is the only cause, and that consequently life is not a mixture of good and evil but is good alone.
Accepting divine Mind as cause results in a great falling away of limitations, perhaps even in a healing of disease of long standing. But sometimes with the passing of time one becomes dissatisfied with his progress. His inspiration seems to fade, and his joy grows dull. Not recognizing his spiritual status as a son of God, he may be tempted to consider himself a mortal, working up to perfection, and the kingdom of heaven a goal to be attained in the dim future. "If only unbroken harmony could be maintained," he thinks, "if I could always hold to the truth as all, instead of battling with error. Why do I surmount one problem only to come face to face with another?"
Should one find himself in this unsatisfactory state of thought, there is no cause for dismay, but there is certainly a great need for an awakening. For, if self-pity is indulged or allowed to operate as one's own thinking, this unscientific standpoint would keep the student from experiencing his God-given dominion—complete harmony. Inadvertently claiming a separate mind, the student is subjecting himself to all the frustrations and limitations of the human mind. This is an impossible premise, and confusion is naturally the result.
Mary Baker Eddy says in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 126 ): "Human thought never projected the least portion of true being. Human belief has sought and interpreted in its own way the echo of Spirit, and so seems to have reversed it and repeated it materially; but the human mind never produced a real tone nor sent forth a positive sound." And on page 492 of the same work she says, "God is Mind, and God is infinite; hence all is Mind." Where, then, in the allness of God can there be a separate human mind, battling with a problem?
The solution lies in our letting go of a mortal concept of life, in our refusing to give it identification as man. The limited, material sense of life is all that is discordant and diseased, impoverished or in peril. No one wants this sense of life, and thanks to the revelation of Christian Science, no one has to believe it.
Isaiah must have had a clear understanding of God as the only creator and of man as His immortal son, for he said (2:22 ), "Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils: for wherein is he to be accounted of?" And he recorded these wonderfully comforting and reassuring messages he received from God (43:10-12): "Before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me. I, even I, am the Lord; and beside me there is no saviour.... Therefore ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord, that I am God."
Here, the experience of a Christian Scientist may serve a useful purpose. A few years ago she suddenly became afraid of a disease that was being given great publicity and described as incurable. Symptoms of it appeared. There was a helpless sense of not being able to rise above it. The suggestion of incurability was so aggressive that she felt convinced that neither her own understanding nor that of anyone else could save her. She believed that her inability to realize and to maintain the truth could prevent her restoration to harmony —as if human frailty could keep God from being All!
In deep gloom she went through a period of physical and mental depression and pain. But greater than all desire for healing was a sincere longing to find the ultimate truth of the universe. She finally gave up all attempts to save her life and sought only to find God. Was there another power? Surely there could not be. Then it was that she saw, faintly at first but with increasing conviction and relief, that she really had no life apart from God to live or to lose; no personal understanding of truth, either strong or weak; no mind of her own apart from divine Mind. And she concluded that God, good, is All, whether human sense sees it or not.
The symptoms of the disease gradually disappeared. She was healed. Error had been vanquished by the truth—the truth that God is the only Life and the only Mind.
With new meaning she read again in Science and Health the inspired chapter entitled "Recapitulation."' Here on page 475 our Leader describes man as "that which has no separate mind from God; that which has not a single quality underived from Deity; that which possesses no life, intelligence, nor creative power of his own, but reflects spiritually all that belongs to his Maker."
It may appear that an experience is harsh, but when the light of Truth dawns, we see that it was only a supposed mental conflict, without cause, presence, power, or individuality. The Christ, Truth, is always at hand, gently insisting on the recognition of God as Mind, as All, and saying (Matt. 25:34 ), "Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world."
