Editorial November 6, 1976 Issue

The Truth of Concentration

Geoffrey J. Barratt

To be able to concentrate on main objectives—this is usually thought of as a valuable talent. Achievement of business, academic, athletic, family, church goals demands this. Such success comes out of consistently aiming thought in the right direction. "The devotion of thought to an honest achievement makes the achievement possible,"^{Science and Health, p. 199;} encourages Mary Baker Eddy in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.

The quality of our thought is of prime importance in reaching useful destinations. How can we keep our thought efficient and orderly? What can we do when the center of our thinking doesn't seem to hold and we catch ourselves drifting rather pointlessly across the landscape of human thought? Suppose we want to pray, or give Christian Science treatment, and our consciousness divides in two, part going to matter, part to Spirit? A metaphysical approach helps us stick to our set course better.

Right reasoning and realization—prompted by Truth, God—are thoroughly unlike autosuggestion. Right reasoning doesn't involve the manipulation of the human mind. On the contrary. It demonstrates the oneness and presence of God as the one and only Mind. If we feel our thinking is being pulled apart and dispersed in useless directions, we can affirm and reaffirm divine Mind as the only consciousness. A practical antidote to mental wandering is the spiritual truth that Mind—our Mind—is self-governing and self-knowing. This is because the divine Mind is All and alone is the source of being. Man, metaphysically defined, is the idea or action of this Mind and is inseparable from Mind.

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