Everyone reading these words is thinking, and each word needed thought to be written. Thinking is something we all have in common. How can we think better? Why should we? Thinking is primary to just about all we do. It precedes action. What we think is what we are.

The best thinking is spiritual thinking, what we ponder of God and man. Christian Science not only leads our thinking in a spiritual direction, it shows us how to start out from the spiritual basis. "The essence of this Science," Mary Baker Eddy writes, "is right thinking and right acting—leading us to see spirituality and to be spiritual, to understand and to demonstrate God." ^{No and Yes, p. 12;}

Constructive thinking, thinking that really gets us to that spirituality and demonstration, takes self-discipline. We have to order our thoughts and give them direction. We need to pursue the more important thoughts and learn to subjugate the poorer ones. It takes effort to think more broadly, incisively, logically, comprehensively, retentively. But human thinking, even when we improve it, still has its limitations. A thoughtful film-maker and actor quipped in a recent film, "Nothing worth knowing can be understood with the mind; the brain is the most overrated organ." ^{Woody Allen, quoted in The Christian Century, May 30, 1979, p. 620;}

Giving us revolutionary and practical approaches to being a better thinker, Christian Science reveals God as omniscient Mind and the only authentic consciousness. The thoughts that are good, useful, intelligent, are evidence of the presence of God and have divine authority accompanying them. The bad, the negative, the finite, testify to a supposed sensual consciousness arguing for itself. This consciousness believes in, is informed by, the physical senses. Its thoughts are destructive—ultimately, self-destructive—and must give place to the good that comes from God.

The thoughts of sensual consciousness are as impermanent—as illusive—as dreams. "All that is beautiful and good in your individual consciousness is permanent," says Mrs. Eddy, the most original and highly spiritual thinker in this age. "That which is not so is illusive and fading." Our Leader adds, across the page: "Material and sensual consciousness are mortal. Hence they must, some time and in some way, be reckoned unreal." ^{Unity of Good, pp. 8–9;} Knowing these truths makes us less tentative, more assured spiritual thinkers— and, thereby, better healers.

If we would do better in life, we must first think better, apply more spiritual intelligence. Then we enjoy the pleasure of new perceptions and the satisfaction of plowing new intellectual ground.

Solid, Spirit-based reason is essential for the Christian Scientist. More than that, it is a natural outcome of being a Scientist and growing in the understanding of what it is that really knows— not brain, not a human mentality, but Mind, God. Mind's ideas are infinite. They are interrelated, having a common origin. Understanding this, we discover that one fresh spiritual insight leads to others. Mental horizons are expanded.

Progressive, spiritually founded thinking, the human mind giving place to the divine—these are elements of prayer. One who never really thinks would be one who never prays. One who prays successfully and healingly is one who ponders the scientific realities of being until the consciousness of God's presence and man's perfection is irresistible and obvious, even if only momentarily so.

As we settle down to pray, as we begin to think in a specific spiritual way (which, incidentally, we ought to do very regularly), we can remind ourselves of this: absolutely speaking, Mind, Love, and man are always at one. And Love never leaves us without what we need. It is divine law that we can't be bereft of the ideas we need. There are no mental droughts for the one who turns to God—and away from the brain and mortal reasoning—for ideas.

Christ Jesus "went up into a mountain apart to pray." ^{Matt. 14:23;} He took time off, and time apart, to pray—that is, to think, to know, to realize. The Master was the most original thinker ever, because he had the purest consciousness ever, the purest consciousness of God, the only Life. His thinking was divinely logical, profoundly inspired. It was different in kind from a humanly psychological event. Prayer was the substance of his healing power, the animus of his intelligence, the lens of his insight and foresight.

The Bible represents God as saying: "My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways. ... For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts." ^{Isa. 55:8, 9.} It is as though divine Mind were addressing an unenlightened sensual mentality. As Christian Science makes clear to us the difference between the thoughts of God and those of mortal mentality, we become dissatisfied with the denseness of mortal intellectualism. But at the same time more respectful and appreciative of humble intellectuality, of the intellect willing to be the transparency for qualities of Soul.

Christian Science opens out the human intellect, phase by phase freeing it of its materialism, sensuality, and fears. Science leads the intellect to realize God to be the origin of all real intelligence. And, in sum, our acceptance and demonstration of this spiritual fact makes us better thinkers—more aware of the allness of Truth, Love, and Life—and more consistent healers.

GEOFFREY J. BARRATT