"LOOK AWAY FROM THE BODY"

J. LESLIE HADDON

In general, humanity looks largely to the body for comfort and satisfaction. Mortals slavishly devote time, attention, and material wealth to serving the body, thinking it can reward them with health and happiness. But they ultimately find that the body does not bring them lasting health or durable happiness. It cannot think or act of itself, and it can never be the source of substance or reality, which belong to Spirit, God. In view of this fact, does it not seem logical and wise to look elsewhere for satisfaction?

The prophet Isaiah said (55:2), "Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labour for that which satisfieth not? hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness." The prophet's words strongly indicate that there is a much better way of finding satisfaction and happiness than by looking to the body.

The Master, Christ Jesus, repeatedly emphasized this and said (Matt. 6:25, 33): "Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on.... But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you."

Christian Science has come to this age to show us the way to find the kingdom of God, of harmony. Mary Baker Eddy writes in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (pp. 260, 261), "If we look to the body for pleasure, we find pain; for Life, we find death; for Truth, we find error; for Spirit, we find its opposite, matter." Then she presents the logical alternative, "Look away from the body into Truth and Love, the Principle of all happiness, harmony, and immortality."

Christian Science points the way to obey this precept. This Science leavens human thought and rouses it to utilize spiritual sense, thus opening the way to true understanding and reality. Improvement marks progress toward a fuller apprehension of the Science of being, with its inevitable reward—harmony replacing discord.

It was this awakening, transitional state of consciousness that St. Paul had in mind when he spoke of the outward (or material) man perishing and the inward (or spiritual) man being renewed day by day; "while we look," he said, "not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal" (II Cor. 4:18).

Turning away from the mortal sense of life and acknowledging as real only the divine concept of God and of man in His image and likeness, we progress gradually in the upward-reaching way. Of a man the Bible tells us (Prov. 23: 7), "As he thinketh in his heart, so is he." Improved thinking unfailingly brings improved health to the individual. Spiritual sense bestows the capacity to differentiate between the outworn, worthless unreal and the always available, priceless real.

As a beginner in Christian Science, this writer found himself confronted by two concepts of man. These really constituted two mental portraits of himself. One was gloomy and dull, a picture of a mere physical mortal, sometimes sinful, often sick and sad. The other was a bright, happy, true picture of himself, newly revealed by Christian Science. This picture presented him as a spiritual, harmonious being, the image and likeness of God, Spirit.

The dull picture was an old possession with which he seemed loath to part. Yet that picture had never done anything to make him happy or well. The other picture was edifying and full of life and hope. Because of this, it gradually won his favor.

He came to see that only the perfect man shown in this picture could ever present the truth of God's creation. He finally accepted it as his true picture and turned away from the other one as a misrepresentation, a lie. In the process of knowing his real self, he was changed from a sick individual to a strong, healthy one; from deep sadness to the joy of knowing himself for what he was and had always been, the perfect child of perfect God.

Following our Leader as she followed the Master, abandoning the belief of life inherent in matter, one places himself under the aegis and operation of divine Principle —Life, Truth, and Love. Through his spiritual progress, sin, sickness, and all the objects of the senses lose their reality to him. They pass progressively from his experience until he acknowledges them no more. Peace, health, and harmony replace them.

Our Leader tells us on page 242 of Science and Health: "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."

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SOPHISTICATION VERSUS AUTHENTICITY

February 28, 1959

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