THE WAY TO THE KINGDOM

ELEANOR MARY WILSHERE

In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mary Baker Eddy writes (p. 242): "There is but one way to heaven, harmony, and Christ in divine Science shows us this way. It is to know no other reality—to have no other consciousness of life—than good, God and His reflection, and to rise superior to the so-called pain and pleasure of the senses."

If there is but one way to the harmony of being, surely this must be the way for all of us. Unless we follow this way, we cannot expect to enter the kingdom of heaven and partake of the fruits of spiritual freedom and of the understanding of man's unity with the Divine.

The way that leads to this glorious freedom of being is found through acquaintance with the Christ and through the realization of man's oneness with God as His reflection. This realization can only be gained as we follow in the footsteps of the master Christian, Christ Jesus.

If we would experience reality here and now, we must keep the Master's commandments and strive to do the works he did. Thought must be lifted above the beliefs of the flesh into the realm of the real—into true consciousness—and be anchored there. This is the only way in which we can discern the Christ and "rise superior to the so-called pain and pleasure of the senses."

The teachings of Jesus show that those who seek the kingdom must deny the false belief that man is mortal. The Master said (Matt. 5:48), "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." We cannot accept the belief of a material selfhood if we would discern and follow the Christ. Man and his Father, God, are inseparable. Nothing can alter this divine relationship or interrupt the harmony of being. If is only through renunciation of the belief that man is a sinful mortal and through the recognition of the perfection of God and His creation that we can understand the Christ and perceive the kingdom of heaven.

In his epistle to the Philippians, St. Paul indicates that we can renounce this false sense of man in our daily lives. He writes (2:5), "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus." After lifting thought above the beliefs of the flesh in order to behold the spiritual idea, we must then learn to dwell in the consciousness of God, good, where evil is unknown and where only the true nature of God and His universe is seen and acknowledged.

We must bring "into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ" (II Cor. 10:5). We must surrender every belief of a mind apart from God through cultivation of the pure and holy thoughts which emanate from the one true source, or Mind. Purity of thought is essential to enable us to live in obedience to the Christ and to continue the works which Jesus did—healing the sick, casting out evil, and lifting the darkened thought of humanity into the light of Truth.

Through prayerful study of the Bible, together with Science and Health, we learn how to follow the Master in thought and deed and how to use the Christianly scientific method of healing the sick and the sinning. In the Preface to Science and Health, Mrs. Eddy explains how this divinely scientific method heals the sick without the use of drugs, medicine, or hygiene. She writes as follows (Pref., p. xi): "The physical healing of Christian Science results now, as in Jesus' time, from the operation of divine Principle, before which sin and disease lose their reality in human consciousness and disappear as naturally and as necessarily as darkness gives place to light and sin to reformation."

If is in human consciousness, then, that any needed change must take place so that sin and disease may lose the appearance of reality and the Christ be welcomed in. It is through the purification of this consciousness alone that we can receive the truth and demonstrate it.

It was the Christliness of Jesus that enabled him to be the Way-shower, whose example we all must follow if we would find the way to the kingdom and enter the gates thereof. It is this Christliness we must strive to emulate if we would earn the promised reward.

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