Article October 14, 1967 Issue

Unfoldment Is Within Us

GLADYS C. GIRARD

To know the meaning of unfoldment and to exemplify this meaning in one's life form a sound basis for spiritual development. Even human education in its truest sense is not putting knowledge into a child but bringing out what is already there. The very word "educate" means to "bring forth." So all education is really an unfolding of that which is within, not a pouring in from the outside.

We do not truly get anything from a supposed outside. The kingdom of heaven is within—within spiritual consciousness. Therefrom it has to be expressed, lived, imaged forth in the human scene. In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, writes, "Christian Science presents unfoldment, not accretion; it manifests no material growth from molecule to mind, but an impartation of the divine Mind to man and the universe."^{Science and Health, p. 68;} Mind includes its idea; God includes man and the universe. Nothing comes to man from a fictitious outside. All unfolds within man as the idea, or reflection, of God.

Here is another statement by Mrs. Eddy concerning our subject. It reads, "The advancing stages of Christian Science are gained through growth, not accretion."^{Miscellaneous Writings, p. 206;} Frustration occurs in the lives of mortals from the false reasoning that says, "There is good, yes; but it is somewhere else than in my experience and present sense of existence." Mortal sense reasons that good is generally just out of reach. But the Scriptures command us to "lay hold on eternal life."^{I Tim. 6:12;}