Spiritual harmony is the absolute fact of being; it characterizes the true state of existence. Students of Christian Science are attaining an ever clearer realization of that true state of existence through their study and demonstration of Truth. They are gaining a spiritual sense of peace and calmness, of strength, dominion, and power, and of the perfect balance and order that prevail in God's spiritual universe, the only universe there really is.
Harmony is inherent in everyone. So it is with a deep sense of joy that the Christian Scientist begins to realize that he does actually exist in perfect harmony and that any belief to the contrary is only mortal illusion. In "Pulpit and Press" Mary Baker Eddy makes this most comforting statement (p.2): "The real house in which 'we live, and move, and have our being' is Spirit, God, the eternal harmony of infinite Soul." One may find that a careful study of Soul, with the aid of the Concordances to the Bible and Mrs. Eddy's writings, is most rewarding in an effort to realize spiritual harmony.
From this study one learns that, as Mrs. Eddy writes in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p.477), "Man is the expression of Soul." We rightly deduce, then, that man can be conscious only of that which is of Soul, God. He is conscious only of reality, not of illusory material sense, the opposite of Soul. Therefore he cannot be aware of pain or pleasure in the physical body.
Christ Jesus, our Way-shower, expressed the unchanging harmony of Soul under all circumstances. When the storm raged on the Sea of Galilee and the disciples in a state of panic called upon him for aid, he who had slept through the storm arose without fear and with a word calmed the wind and the waves. When told that his friend Lazarus was ill, he said without any sense of hurry or grief (John 11: 11), "I go, that I may awake him out of sleep." In the garden of Gethsemane, when the Roman soldiers arrested him, Jesus maintained calm faith in God and even restored the soldier's ear which Peter, in his quick resentment, had cut off. And before Pilate, too, Jesus maintained the unchanging calm of spiritual apprehension.
To dwell in an atmosphere of spiritual harmony and thus to maintain unchanging calm is to be obedient to "A Rule for Motives and Acts." given us in Article VIII, Section 1, of the Manual of The Mother Church by Mrs. Eddy.
The state of spiritual harmony in which God's presence and allness are recognized not only prevents physical difficulties, but brings healing to others. A little boy of four was healed in one treatment of a hernia which he had had since he was a year old. His mother had felt no fear or concern, since there seemed to be no discomfort. However, the time came when it caused pain, and then she realized that she should no longer disregard it. Calm and confident, she asked for help from a Christian Science practitioner, and the healing was brought about quickly. That boy has grown to manhood now, and in the years since the healing, there has been no return of the difficulty. The results of the work were quick and sure, a glorious freedom for all concerned. Discord, disease, and pain result from the state of one's thinking; in the case of a young child, oftentimes from the thought of the one in charge.
Many physicians maintain that anger, displays of temper, morbidity, and depression cause stomach trouble, rheumatism, arthritis, high blood pressure, various forms of inflammation, and the like. Since Christian Science teaches that the so-called cause of disease is always mental, not physical, why have a physical diagnosis? Why examine the physical body, or matter, rather than the thought to ascertain the cause of pain or the reason for any diseased picture?
Unchanging harmony and calmness are the inevitable accompaniments of happiness. They are also conducive to gracious living, to the expression of graciousness in everyday contacts. Fear, worry, instability, are evidences of lack of trust in God. The man of God's creating exists at the standpoint of dominion.
Today the need for dominion in individual thinking and in national thinking is very great. True dominion is expressed in quietness and serenity. It can never appear as stolidity, indifference, or self-centeredness. It emanates from Love and must be manifested as love unselfed, pure, and Christlike. During the First and Second World Wars there were many, endued with the understanding of Christian Science, who were able to stand poised and calm because they understood the spiritual harmony and ever-presence of divine Love and knew how to claim man's at-one-ment with the divine presence.
The calmness which dwells in spiritual harmony is a most active quality; it is able to stand in a moment of crisis with power and confidence. Calmness is expressed in humility, and true humility is quiet power, which includes deep-toned faith in God. As each one of us maintains in consciousness, and therefore in expression, the spiritual dominion of complete confidence in spiritual harmony, of active faith in God and an unassailable conviction in the triumph of right, he will make a lasting contribution to ultimate and enduring peace. He will say with the Psalmist (Ps. 56:3,4): "What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee. ... In God I have put my trust; I will not fear what flesh can do unto me."
The Christian Scientist who is demonstrating the consciousness of spiritual harmony will see peace and calmness, order and beauty, where mortal mind sees confusion and chaos, selfishness and greed, fear and cruelty. He will see ever more clearly that the so-called universe of matter is but a false concept of the harmonious universe of Spirit. And the world will see him as an expression of calm and stationary power and thus gain renewed hope and courage to expect the realization of an inherent desire for spiritual harmony. Mrs. Eddy writes (Science and Health, p. 338), "Christian Science, rightly understood, leads to eternal harmony."